Before the New York Ezrat Nashim group went to the Rabbinical conference in 1973, three of them came to Boston and three of us from Boston met with them. I was one of the three, Sharon Schumack was another and I will have to ask Sharon who was the third. We spent a whole weekend together. We thought the moment of approaching the Rabbis was maybe 3 years away. We thought we would have to do all the Halachic research to prove that women could be rabbis. The first research task was to go to the JTS library and look up women rabbis to see what they had. To our surprise, we found an already done Responsa from about 10+ years before. Arlene called me with the news that in fact, we had enough material to go to the Rabbinical Assembly that year. There, Arlene went to talk first to the Rabbi's wives who fully supported this. A lot of them married rabbis because it was the closest thing to them being rabbis themselves. The wives talked to their husbands. The word was that they said they would withdraw sex if they didn't vote for this but I cannot verify that. In any case, it passed. You can call me for more information if you want to include this part of the story in your article. BTW, NewCAJE is being dedicated to Arlene this June and we are doing a Rosh Hodesh ceremony led by Eliana Light.
Before the New York Ezrat Nashim group went to the Rabbinical conference in 1973, three of them came to Boston and three of us from Boston met with them. I was one of the three, Sharon Schumack was another and I will have to ask Sharon who was the third. We spent a whole weekend together. We thought the moment of approaching the Rabbis was maybe 3 years away. We thought we would have to do all the Halachic research to prove that women could be rabbis. The first research task was to go to the JTS library and look up women rabbis to see what they had. To our surprise, we found an already done Responsa from about 10+ years before. Arlene called me with the news that in fact, we had enough material to go to the Rabbinical Assembly that year. There, Arlene went to talk first to the Rabbi's wives who fully supported this. A lot of them married rabbis because it was the closest thing to them being rabbis themselves. The wives talked to their husbands. The word was that they said they would withdraw sex if they didn't vote for this but I cannot verify that. In any case, it passed. You can call me for more information if you want to include this part of the story in your article. BTW, NewCAJE is being dedicated to Arlene this June and we are doing a Rosh Hodesh ceremony led by Eliana Light.