UK’s first Orthodox female pulpit rabbi confident that more change to come

A woman about to graduate from Yeshivat Maharat in New York, Miriam Lorie, is poised to become Rabbi Lorie next month, one of the first group of Orthodox women to lead a community in the UK.

Ms Lorie says she has chosen to be known as “rabbi” rather than “rabba”, the title used by London School of Jewish Studies lecturer Lindsay Taylor-Gutharz, because “the word in Hebrew is not gendered. It simply means ‘teacher’, so it doesn’t need a gendered addition. And I think we’re at a place where women can take that title without the same controversy that it would have had a few years ago.”

Currently “rabbi-in-training” at Kehillat Nashira, the partnership minyan in Borehamwood, Rabbi-elect Lorie is optimistic about the pace of change within the Jewish community and the Orthodox world in general.

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She told JN: “It is very hard to find halachic objections to women conducting life cycle events. Perhaps the only thing that might be called into question would be a wedding — and even so, a rabbi who conducts a wedding is a bit like a master of ceremonies role. You give the dvar Torah, but you’re not actually the one who marries the couple. They are married by having two witnesses, having the ketubah, the ring, and the right combination of words at the right time. So if I conducted everything in the halachic way, which I have been taught to do, I don’t think even that could be called into question.”

The Chief Rabbi has previously sent a message to United Synagogue rabbis and rebbetzins about partnership minyanim, telling them that such services could not be held in US congregations. He said there was “virtually complete consensus within the Orthodox rabbinate” on the matter.

But the future Rabbi Lorie was more confident that there was a shift in opinion — “even within the United Synagogue”. She said: “I think the fact that we are struggling to find halachic objections to life cycle  events indicates that it is very hard to find halachic objections to women becoming rabbis.” There was increasingly, she said, “a recognition that in the world we are living in, women are judges and lawyers and doctors”. It did not make sense to say women could not have that level of authority within Judaism.

And she was hopeful that within the next decade the idea of partnership minyanim would be accepted within the United Synagogue, which she praised for “working very hard” to improve the role of women in its lay structure.

Three other British-based women are currently enrolled in the Yeshivat Maharat training programme and will graduate in the next few years.