Jewish Week v. Rabbi in Denial

Rhetoric, I can deal with.

But when you put your published words into the published words of other people's articles, well that just is not something I can abide.

So here is one high profile Rabbi whose job it is to defend the name of the "Orthodox". And here is one Jewish weekly newspaper. And they are arguing about a woman.

The rabbis says as follows in his letter to the newspaper:

(09/01/2006) Hardly News

The hiring of a woman as the spiritual leader of a congregation belonging to no Orthodox synagogue group and named after Conservative Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, a former chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, hardly constitutes “charting new territory in the terrain of religious practice” (“Woman to Lead Halachic N.Y. Shul,” Aug. 18).

Kehillat Orach Eliezer may consider itself “halachic”; so, justified or not, does the Conservative movement itself. But that movement has long accepted women in religious leadership roles and so this particular congregation’s move is something less than groundbreaking. Oddly, back in 2002, The Jewish Week also trumpeted the “taboo-breaking” nature of this very congregation — calling it an “Orthodox shul” — for its enlistment of women as public chanters from the Torah, a practice at irreconcilable odds with “Orthodoxy” —i.e. halacha.

If The Jewish Week wishes to report on Orthodox women with important responsibilities, there is certainly no dearth of such role models in bona fide Orthodox shuls and communities, filling the most basic but vital positions of wives and mothers — and in the roles, too, of spiritual guides and lecturers (for other women, in keeping with traditional halachic norms). There is really no reason — other than to promote a social agenda — that a Jewish newspaper should be seeking to portray a congregation as something it is not.

Rabbi Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs Agudath Israel of America
New York, N.Y.

So let's see if the rabbi is exaggerating just a little bit.

In 2002 the JW did use the term "Orthodox Shul" in its story headline. One for the rabbi.

But the story then says, the shul is "Orthodox in practice" and then explicitly explains, "The 10-year-old congregation is not officially affiliated with the Orthodox movement but describes itself as halachic, or adhering to traditional interpretations of Jewish law." One for the JW.

In 2006, well the rabbi ought to take another look.

The article, from the first paragraph, is quite clear, and not at all as the rabbi mischaracterizes it:

With the hiring of a woman as spiritual leader, an Upper West Side congregation — largely Orthodox in practice though not in name — may be charting new territory in the terrain of religious practice.

In a decision that could be seen as fracturing the stained-glass ceiling or at least rendering a tiny fissure, Congregation Kehilat Orach Eliezer (KOE) has hired Dina Najman-Licht, a scholar of Jewish law with an expertise in bioethics, as its rosh kehillah, or head of community.

One more for the JW.

But the rabbi on this very topic wrote some nasty things about the JW and published them in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere:

UNFORTUNATELY, there is a pattern of precisely such carelessness in certain ostensibly neutral Anglo-Jewish publications (which, in turn provide fodder for far more widely read media like The New York Times). And it is both journalistically and Jewishly treif.

We say to the rabbi, show us the "pattern of precisely such carelessness." It looks to me like they don't say what you say they say.

And even if what you said were true, show us where it says in the Shulchan Aruch that this makes the newspaper "Jewishly treif." It seems to this writer that perhaps the rabbi ought to tone down the rhetoric because that's all he has here. Rhetoric.

And out there, well out there we have real enemies. The Jewish Week is just not one of our enemies. Really, it isn't.