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Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST), the largest LGBT synagogue in the world with about 750 members, called it "incremental progress." "This could have been an opportunity for the law committee to articulate a moral vision of religious equality, and it didn’t do that," said Rabbi Cohen, who is heterosexual and was trained in the Jewish Conservative tradition. "Instead, it gives treating gay people as equal as an option." Cohen said the position paper that was adopted also leaves individual rabbis to decide how to handle same-sex weddings and whether to be fully inclusive of gays and lesbians within their synagogues. CJLS, which consists of 25 rabbis and six nonvoting members who are not rabbis, is responsible for deciding positions of the Conservative movement on contemporary questions that are not addressed in the Torah. The committee last examined gay issues in 1992, voting 19–3 with one abstention that Jewish law prohibited same-sex commitment ceremonies and banned the admission of gay people to rabbinical and cantorial schools. The Orthodox movement, the most conservative of the four Jewish movements, does not allow either same-sex weddings or gay ordinations. The two most liberal movements, Reform and Reconstructionist, both fully support allowing gays and lesbians to become rabbis and have wedding ceremonies. The law committee adopted three positions altogether, which is congruous with the Jewish tradition of allowing for a multiplicity of views. The other two papers reaffirmed the movement’s original position on excluding gays and lesbians from ordination. Four of the law committee’s members resigned in protest of the third, more liberal position being adopted. Rabbi Cohen said the decision and circumstances surrounding it parallel 1985, when the Conservative movement changed course to allow women to be ordained but left the final decision up to individual synagogues and religious institutions. "People were making apocalyptic predictions—the movement would be destroyed if women could be ordained as rabbis," Cohen recalled. Since 1985, a little over 200 female rabbis have been ordained in total, joining about 1,580 Conservative Rabbis worldwide. Seminaries are also getting closer to achieving parity in class size. At the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York, 11 men and nine women were ordained in 2006 and, in 2005, JTS ordained seven men and 10 women. "There’s no question in my mind that the movement and the world have been strengthened by the fact that women are equal participants in Jewish life," Rabbi Cohen said. "And there is no question in my mind that the world will be strengthened when gay and lesbian people are treated as equals and fully celebrated in all of our religious institutions." The two Conservative seminaries, JTS and the University of Judaism (UJ) in Los Angeles, will now decide how to handle their admissions process with regard to gay applicants. UJ is likely to support gay admissions. The pro-gay paper that passed was written by Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector of the university and he said UJ has signaled support for the decision, as reported by the New York Times. JTS Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen also personally favored the measure but said he would take steps in the coming months to conduct a thorough campus-wide discussion on the matter. "We are going to consider what we think best serves the Conservative movement and larger American Jewish community," Rabbi Eisen said in a written statement. "We know that the implications of the decision before us are immense." The review process is likely to end in a non-binding faculty vote in mid-February. Members of Keshet, the student advocacy group for full inclusion of gays and lesbians, have conducted informal one-on-one surveys of students at JTS in which 80 percent of the student body said they supported ordaining gays and lesbians. "We’re looking forward to working in partnership with the Chancellor-elect for what we think is our mutual vision of a rabbinical school that’s open to everyone regardless of sexual orientation," said Elizabeth Richman, co-chair of Keshet, which hosts educational meetings and speakers that often draw as many as 100 students. Applications for admission to JTS are usually due at the end of December, but Richman said the admissions director, Rabbi William Labeau, has indicated that if JTS decided to allow gay applicants he would extend the deadline. Richman knows a "handful of people" who are waiting to apply to JTS. "A college senior at Washington University in St. Louis actually flew in to be with us and was at our press conference yesterday," she said. Another rabbinical student and Keshet member, Jill Levy, said she also knows openly gay rabbinical students who have chosen to join other movements in order to attend seminary. "That’s why I feel that the Conservative movement will only be strengthened by fully including gays and lesbians, because we’ll be able to bring in people who are going to be talented, amazing rabbis that would be going elsewhere in another situation," Levy said. Source: newyorkblade.com |
