Agudah welcomes new title for controversial clergywoman

By Mayer Fertig

After years of beating around the bush, Rabbi Avi Weiss came right out this past week and said what everyone assumed he’s been thinking all along: Sara Hurwitz, the woman he has mentored and trained to function as an Orthodox cleric is, in his view, an Orthodox rabbi.

Rabbi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, who founded both Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (for men) and Yeshivat Mahara”t (for women), announced that after a year-long trial run for Hurwitz with the title “Mahara”t” — an acronym for Manhiga Hilchatit Ruchanit Toranit — she will henceforth be known by a more familiar-sounding title: “Rabbah.”

“This will make it clear to everyone that Sara Hurwitz is a full member of our rabbinic staff, a rabbi with the additional quality of a distinct woman’s voice,” Rabbi Weiss explained.

“Over this past year, I have, on numerous occasions, in talks and symposia around the country, said as clearly as I could that Mahara”t means rabbi, and that Sara Hurwitz has received semicha. Having studied the same curriculum as any man would study for ordination, she has achieved this goal.”

But outside of his shul in Riverdale, the title of Mahara”t wasn’t really working, Rabbi Weiss indicated.

“When Sara Hurwitz has officiated at funerals or visited hospitals or when the title Mahara”t appears in newspapers, it has not resonated. Moreover, at times the term Mahara”t has been used inappropriately in a disrespectful way,” he said.

The announcement was met with approval from Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, though perhaps not for the reason Rabbi Weiss might have been looking for.

“It is laudable that the disingenuous title has been abandoned, the new one better reflects the intention of its conferrers. Now it would be good for them to come clean, too, about what the entire venture really is: an essential break with the mesorah of Klal Yisrael,” Rabbi Shafran said.

“It saddens me when people accuse me of being the cause of a potential split in the community,” Hurwitz, 33, told The Jewish Star, but “the community has a lot of problems; I’m not going to wear that on my shoulders.”