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Conservative Judaism/Women in the Rabbinate

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Expert: - 3/15/2010


Question
What you estimate the percentage of female rabbis in Conservative Judaism to be?  Do you have any feeling for the percentage in other (Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist) movements?

Thank you very much for your time and consideration!

Answer
Dear Samuel,

thanks for writing.

It's an interesting question with several possibilities in answering:

In each movement, what is the number of male and female applicants to each institution, and then what is the current gender % of each class from each institution?  Then, what is the total makeup of each graduating class from all the institutions for each movement?

What will also skew the statistics is that one has to consider that different movements and schools began admitting women as candidates for the Rabbinate across a significant span of years, and hence the "membership" of the rabbinical association for each movement may not reflect the current makeup of the classes studying to become Rabbis.

I don't know who would be keeping accurate score of this topic, but I would urge you to contact the reference desk of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, JTSA.edu, and request up to date statistics.

My personal guessestimate is that today we are approaching roughly 50% men and women being ordained.

Best wishes for Pesah. Enjoy my website and free Passover downloads at www.jewishfreeware.org.

Rabbi Dov

Conservative Judaism

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Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner

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Write to me with questions about Jewish customs and law, history, philosophy and tradition for answers from a Conservative perspective or conversion. I am a graduate of The Jewish Theological Seminary and a member of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly. Having served in congregational pulpits since 1970, I now am President of the Foundation For Family Education, Inc. a non-profit educational endeavor. I established it to create new formats of hands-on programs and provide free educational downloads at www.jewishfreeware.org. In addition to general informational questions I welcome your questions about programs for social action, outreach to dual-faith families, inter-faith clergy projects, healing services, education for conversion, adult education for the congregation and the community. If you have questions about Informal and Formal Education I am ready to share my extensive experience with Youth Activities, Camping and Religious School/Hebrew High School on a congregational, community and national/international level.

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I have served on the National Youth Commission for more than 25 years and serve on the Boards of the Conservative Zionist movement MERCAZ and the World Council of Synagogues. I have always dual-families and taught candidates for conversion with a great sense of fulfillment. I am very proud of 25 years on the Jewish camping staff of Camps Ramah. My greatest source of pride is my family! Ask me about them, please!:-)

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