page_title: Women rabbis and Torah scholars
section_title: Historical background
hierarchical_section_title: Women rabbis and Torah scholars / Historical background
caption_attribution_description: Article in the San Francisco Chronicle of 19 oct 1898, announcing erroneously the first woman rabbi (Rachel Ray Frank)
context_page_description: Women rabbis are individual Jewish women who have studied Jewish Law and received rabbinical ordination. Women rabbis are prominent in Progressive Jewish denominations, however, the subject of women rabbis in Orthodox Judaism is more complex. Although Orthodox women have been ordained as rabbis, many major Orthodox Jewish communities and institutions do not accept the change. As an alternative, other Orthodox institutions have begun to train women as Torah scholars for related Jewish religious roles that involve training as religious authorities in Jewish Law but does not formally include rabbinic ordination.
  Historically, the roles of the rabbi and Torah scholar were almost exclusively limited to Jewish men. With few, rare historical exceptions, Jewish women were first offered ordination beginning in the 1970s. This change coincided with the influence of second-wave feminism on Western society. In 1972, Hebrew Union College, the flagship institution of Reform Judaism, ordained their first woman rabbi. Subsequently, women rabbis were ordained by all other branches of Progressive Judaism.
context_section_description: Prior to the 1970s, when ordination of women began gaining acceptance, there were few examples of Jewish women who were formally treated as rabbis, rabbinic authorities, or Torah scholars. Rare, exceptional cases of women in rabbinic posts occur throughout Jewish history and tradition. The biblical figure of Deborah the prophetess is described as serving as a judge. According to some traditional rabbinic sources, Deborah's judiciary role primarily concerned religious law. Thus, according to this view, Deborah was Judaism's first female religious legal authority, equivalent to the contemporary rabbinical role of posek (decisor of Jewish Law). Other rabbinic sources understand the biblical story of Deborah that her role was only that of a national leader and not of a legal authority. Asenath Barzani of Iraq is considered the first female rabbi of Jewish history by some scholars; additionally, she is the oldest recorded female Kurdish leader in history. In Eastern European Hasidic Judaism, during the 19th-century, Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, also known as the Maiden of Ludmir, became the movement's only female Hasidic rebbe, however, the role of rebbe relates to spiritual and communal leadership as opposed to the legal authority of "rabbi". The first formally ordained female rabbi in modern times was Regina Jonas, ordained in Germany in 1935.
  Beginning in the 1970s, this status quo gradually began to change, with women being ordained as rabbis within each Jewish denomination. The first such ordination of this period took place in 1972 when Sally Priesand became the first female rabbi in Reform Judaism. Since then, Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College has ordained hundreds of women rabbis. The second denomination to ordain a woman rabbi was Reconstructionist Judaism with the 1974 ordination of Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Since then, over 100 Reconstructionist women rabbis have been ordained. This trend continued with Lynn Gottlieb becoming the first female rabbi in Jewish Renewal in 1981. In 1985, Amy Eilberg became the first female rabbi in Conservative Judaism. In 1999, Tamara Kolton became the first rabbi of any gender within Humanistic Judaism. In 2009, Sara Hurwitz became the first Orthodox woman rabbi, however, the situation within Orthodoxy is still debated today (see below: Women rabbis § Orthodox Judaism). Another notable event that same year was the 2009 ordination of Alysa Stanton who became the first African-American female rabbi.
caption: Article from the San Francisco Chronicle on 19 October 1898, announcing Ray Frank as a female rabbi
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