My path to becoming an Orthodox woman rabbi

NOMI KALTMANN explains why she undertook rigorous study with a 5.30am wake-up daily to gain a qualification many Orthodox Jews don’t recognise.

I have just achieved something I was told was impossible. Despite being an Orthodox woman, I have been ordained as a rabbi, taking on the title “rabbanit.”

I have completed my training with Yeshivat Maharat, a women’s yeshivah that trains women to receive the same ordination previously only available to men.

In achieving this qualification, I am following in the path of my friend and mentor, Rabba Sara Hurwitz, who in 2009 became the first woman in the world to receive Orthodox rabbinic ordination.

The ordination of Hurwitz, by Rabbi Avi Weiss, set off a firestorm in the Orthodox world. The ordination was met with swift condemnation by major American rabbinic councils and the ensuing controversy was covered in Jewish newspapers around the world.

But 14 years down the track, more than 60 women have been ordained by Yeshivat Maharat and a further 100 are in training.

Yeshivat Maharat is a New York-based institution whose name is an acronym of manhiga hilkhatit rukhanit Toranit, a feminine construction meaning "leader of Jewish law, spirituality and Torah". There is also an Orthodox women’s rabbinic training program in Israel.

In the early years, only a handful of women were brave enough to enrol in Maharat’s four-year Torah study program. Despite committing to years of rigorous study, women were unsure whether they would be employed and what kind of jobs they would have.

The decision to take a title was also challenging. Ordained women may choose the title rabbi, like a man, but many opt for a feminine form such as rabba or rabbanit, or an alternative title such as darshanit or maharat. I have chosen rabbanit because, although it is still used to denote the wife of the rabbi (a Hebrew form of the Yiddish rebbetzin), it has been reclaimed by feminists to become a female form of rabbi.