Rabbinical Students Speak Out
JTS Rabbinical Students Speak Out on Gay Ordination
Ari Paul The Conservative movement in American Judaism does not allow ordinations of openly gay rabbis, but some aspiring rabbis at the Jewish Theological Seminary, its main seminary in New York, think its time for a change.
“I really think it is a watershed issue for this movement,” said Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, a Conservative rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a gay and lesbian synagogue in New York. “It is a chance for the movement to speak up in an intelligent way about its commitment to Jewish law and commitment to the modern world.”
The debate was sparked in March when it was reported that the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which guides the policies of the Conservative movement, met in Baltimore and revisited the issue. The Committee indicated to the press that the ban could potentially be reversed.
The more liberal Reform movement currently ordains gay rabbis.
In response to the Committee’s decision to revisit the issue of ordaining gays and the impending retirement of the current chancellor of JTS, a student group called Keshet has aimed to influence the elders of the movement to reverse the ban.
Keshet organizer Daniel Klein insists that many rabbinical students in the movement would favor ordaining gays. Speaking to the New York Times, he said, “Imagine what will happen 10 years from now when some of my colleagues are on the law committee, when people from my generation are on the law committee...It’s not going to be a close vote.”
Part of Keshet’s on-campus campaign includes distributing buttons that say “Ordination Regardless of Orientation.” JTS student Kara Tav, 37, wears one of these rainbow buttons on her book bag.
“Jewish tradition respects all humans as created in God’s image,” she said.
Tav insists that the Conservative movement, which sits between the Reform and Orthodox denominations in terms of observance, believes that Jewish law is to be reexamined as the times change. While the book of Leviticus says that a man shall not lie with a man in the way he would lie with a woman, Tav explained that the Torah also says that those who gather sticks on the Sabbath are to be stoned.
“That was reinterpreted,” she said. “I don’t see this decision as different.”
Eytan Kenter, 25, another student at JTS, believes that the issue goes far beyond just ordination. If the movement changes its position on ordaining gays, Kenter says, it will in turn change the entire status of homosexuality for Conservative Jews, effecting issues such as gay marriage.
Kenter does not align himself with classmates like Tav. “It’s not up to us,” he said. “It’s up to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.”
The Committee met in March to discuss the issue but has not come to a conclusion about the ban and has postponed a vote until a later date.
Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor of JTS who will be stepping down in June, is maintaining his hard stance against ordaining gays and is warning the movement not to modernize too much after he retires.
“If the Conservative movement chooses to do something at the expense of the halachic system,” he told The Forward, “then it’s going to pay the price down the road.”
Ari Paul is a student at the Columbia School of Journalism in New York City.