Reform rabbis debate women's ordination

June 30, 1922

On June 29, 1922, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement's professional organization, meeting in Cape May, N.J., debated a resolution declaring that "women cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination [as rabbis]." After tabling the resolution overnight, the Conference voted 56 to 11 on June 30, to affirm in principle the right of women to become rabbis. The debate, notable for its invitation to the women present (mainly rabbis' wives) to participate in the discussion, may have been successful in changing some minds. The New York Times reported on the morning of June 29 that a majority of conference attendees were opposed to the resolution, but on June 30 the same newspaper reported that "the sentiment [was] seemingly largely in favor of the entry of women."

The Cape May resolution was inspired indirectly by the ratification of the 19th amendment, in 1920, and directly by Martha Neumark, a 17-year-old student at Hebrew Union College (HUC) in Cincinnati, who, that same year, asked to be assigned, like her male rabbinical school classmates, to a high holiday student pulpit. Her request raised the possibility that Neumark, daughter of a HUC faculty member, might ultimately present herself as a candidate for ordination.

When the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote, it aroused an expectation among at least some Americans that all barriers to women's full equality in American society would subsequently fall. Reform Judaism, which had already instituted many changes meant to bring Judaism into accord with the spirit of the times and which had long advocated women's equality, might have been expected to drop barriers to women's full participation. The rabbis' resolution, in fact, noted the "revolution" in the status of contemporary women and explained the vote as an acknowledgment of the "enrichment and enlargement of congregational life" which had grown out of women's contributions.

Despite the CCAR resolution, Neumark was never ordained. The College's governing board voted in February 1923 to bar female ordination, indicating that there did not seem to be any practical need for such a step. Neumark eventually withdrew from HUC (having completed 7½ years of the 9 year curriculum). Although other women would study at HUC over the years, some completing the rabbinical curriculum and many earning other degrees, no woman in the United States would be ordained as a rabbi until 1972, when Sally Priesand became the first, 50 years after the CCAR first resolved to make it possible.

See also: This Week in History for May 12, 1985, and June 3, 1972.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1115-1120, 1136-1140; New York Times, June 29, June 30, July 1, 1922; Ellen M. Umansky, "Women's Journey toward Rabbinic Ordination," in Women Rabbis: Exploration and Celebration, Papers Delivered at an Academic Conference Honoring Twenty Years of Women in the Rabbinate, 1972-1992, ed. Gary P. Zola (Cincinnati, 1996): 171-179; Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination, 1889-1985 (Boston, 1998); Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism/?id=JWA059.

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Irna Phillips produces "The Guiding Light" on TV

June 30, 1952

The Guiding Light debuted on CBS television on June 30, 1952. Its creator was Irna Phillips, who also created the soap operas As the World Turns and Days of Our Lives. Born in Chicago in 1901, Phillips was educated at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. Although she aspired to become an actress, the young Phillips earned degrees in education and taught English, public speaking, and drama at colleges in Missouri and Ohio.

After volunteering at Chicago radio station WGN during summer vacations, Phillips turned to scriptwriting in 1930. Her first program, Painted Dreams, was one of the earliest radio soap operas, for which Phillips and a colleague played all six parts and also provided the sound effects. A second program, Today's Children, debuted on NBC radio in 1932. In 1937, The Guiding Light debuted as a 15-minute radio program featuring a fictional minister giving solace to his parishioners. The advent of television spelled the end of many radio dramas, but Guiding Light (which dropped the "The" in 1977) was among the few to move successfully to the new format. For a few years, the show aired on both radio and television, with the cast performing live twice a day, once for each medium. The show was expanded to 30 minutes in 1968, and to a full hour in 1977.

While writing Guiding Light, Phillips also produced such other popular radio serials as Woman in White, The Right to Happiness, and Lonely Women. These programs focused on realistic families coping with socially significant issues such as adoption, divorce, juvenile delinquency, and the return of war veterans. At the same time, however, Phillips was among the first writers to use what became such soap opera standards as the amnesia victim and the murder trial in her plots. She was also well known for her use of organ music to create moods, suspenseful cliff-hangers, and for having characters from one show appear on another.

After the shift to television, Phillips wrote for such shows as The Brighter Day, The Road to Life, and Another World, and served as a consultant for the prime-time series Peyton Place. Phillips died of a heart attack in 1973. Although the issues confronting characters on Guiding Light have changed considerably since its television debut more than 50 years ago, the show remains successful. It is now the longest-running daily program on television.

Sources: Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1055-1056; New York Times, December 30, 1973, June 30, 1987; www.cbs.com/daytime/guiding_light .

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Meetings held to plan National Organization for Women

June 30, 1966

Born Bettye Naomi Goldstein, feminist revolutionary Betty Friedan (1921–2006) was considered by many to be the “mother” of the second wave of modern feminism. Her struggles against the "Feminine Mystique" and in favor of gender equality led to a fundamental transformation, not only in the way American society views women, but in the way American women view themselves.

Institution: Online repository

The foundation for the National Organization for Women (NOW), now the largest feminist organization in America, was laid in Washington, DC, at a meeting in Betty Friedan's hotel room during the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women. Although the Commissions had reported widespread discrimination against women as early as 1963, conference rules prohibited passage of any resolution suggesting that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission act on its mandate to end sex discrimination. Stymied by the rules, Friedan and 27 like-minded women decided to launch a new campaign for combating bias against women. Four months later, the group met again to approve a Statement of Purpose and by-laws for a civil rights organization dedicated to advancing gender equality. The organization's goal was "to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American Society NOW, assuming all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in fully equal partnership with men."

NOW was officially incorporated on February 10, 1967, at which time Friedan became its first president. By the time she took the helm of NOW, Friedan was already well known as the author of The Feminine Mystique, the book that many people credited with sparking the modern feminist movement by exposing the structural bases of women's problems. As president of NOW, she helped the new organization become the leading feminist voice in American society and politics. Today, NOW claims more than half a million members in 550 chapters in all 50 states. NOW works on issues ranging from economic equality to abortion rights, and from opposing racism to ending violence against women. Working through local, state, and national offices, NOW members and staff write letters, lobby elected officials, support feminist candidates at all levels of the political system, and work to educate the public on issues of concern to women.

Despite Friedan's role in founding NOW, Jewish women have not always felt welcome in the feminist movement. In particular, leftist criticism of Israel and feminist criticism of organized religion have put Jews on the defensive against women who had otherwise been their allies. In turn, some Jewish feminist leaders, including Friedan, have been criticized for being insensitive to the needs of non-white and non-middle-class women. However, as the American feminist movement has matured over time, becoming more aware of its various members and constituencies, Jewish women have found—and made—an increasingly comfortable home there. In addition, Jewish women inspired by secular feminism have found ways to bring feminist ideas and concerns into Jewish communal life.

Whatever the internal conflicts have been, Jewish women have played key roles in every aspect of the feminist transformation of American culture. In addition to Friedan, Jewish women who have figured among the most important and well-known theorists and activists of the modern American feminist movement include Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Shulamith Firestone.

See also: This Week in History for February 17, 1963; September 12, 1995.

Sources:www.now.org; www.library.unlv.edu/women/now.html; Maryann Barakso, Governing NOW: Grassroots Activism in the National Organization for Women (Ithaca, 2005); Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism (Amherst, MA, 1998); Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution, jwa.org/feminism; Sonia Pressman Fuentes, Eat First – You Don't Know What They'll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter (Philadelphia, 1999).

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Anne Lapidus Lerner Named Vice Chancellor of JTS

July 1, 1993

After earning bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Anne Lapidus Lerner joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1969, becoming the first American-born woman to hold a full-time position there. JTS trains rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement and offers a range of masters and doctoral degree programs. On July 1, 1993, she became Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, the first woman to hold that post. As Vice Chancellor, Lerner was one of the highest-ranking women in all of American Jewish institutional life. In that role, she devoted her energy to adult education, working to bring Jewish education to the lay community.

Today, Lerner is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at JTS, where she teaches courses in Hebrew and American Jewish poetry, modern Jewish literature, and the portrayal of women in Jewish literature. In addition, she is the director of the JTS Jewish Women's Studies Program, which she also founded, and Director of the Jewish Feminist Research Group. In 2001-02, she was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School.

Lerner's books include Passing the Love of Women: A Study of Gide's "Saül" and Its Biblical Roots, which examines how the Biblical book of Samuel inspired a novel by French author André Gide; Who Has Not Made Me a Man: The Movement for Equal Rights for Women in American Judaism, which discusses the interaction between Judaism and the modern American feminist movement; and Eternally Eve: Images of Eve in the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and Modern Jewish Poetry. In addition, Lerner has published a range of articles, and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Women's League Outlook, Hadassah, Judaism, Nashim, and Lilith.

Source: www.jtsa.edu/x1793.xml?ID_NUM=100334.

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"Life on the Fringes" explores Orthodox feminism

July 1, 2000

Haviva Ner-David's book, Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, was published on July 1, 2000. The book, which is part memoir and part halakhic commentary, tells the story of Ner-David's integration of feminism and Orthodox Judaism over a lifetime and argues for the ordination of women as Orthodox rabbis.

Haviva Ner-David was born and raised in a modern Orthodox family in the New York City suburbs, attending traditional day schools where girls and boys sat separately for daily prayer and boys were taught to recite the traditional blessing thanking God "for not having made me a woman." Though raised with a love of Jewish tradition, she also struggled to accept traditional teachings about women's limitations. Study at New York's Drisha Institute and a subsequent move to Jerusalem left Ner-David with a thorough education in Jewish law and the conviction that new roles and opportunities for women could be found within tradition. Her book explores both her personal journey and many of the specific halakhic issues that have been taken on by feminist Jews. Throughout the book, Ner-David also reflects on what she will teach her sons and daughters about Judaism, feminism, and the roles of men and women.

In Jerusalem, Ner-David found a teacher who was receptive to her desire for ordination. Like his student, Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky believes there are precedents in Jewish history for Orthodox women rabbis. On the eve of Passover 2006, Ner-David was ordained as a rabbi in Jerusalem. Rabbi Strikovsky signed her ordination, but did not give Ner-David the title of Rabbi, noting that it is the role of the community to determine her official title. Two other Orthodox women, Mimi Feigelson and Eveline Goodman-Thau, claim to have been privately ordained, but their ordinations are not recognized by any Orthodox seminary, synagogue, or official body.

Learn more about Haviva Ner-David on Jewesses With Attitude.

Sources:New York Times, December 21, 2000; Haviva Ner-David, Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination (Needham, MA, 2000); JWA Blog, jwablog.jwa.org/node/23; www.jpost.com/servlet/ Satellite?apage=1&cid=1145961278294&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.

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Adrienne Rich rejects National Medal for the Arts

July 3, 1997

The impact of Adrienne Rich on poetry in America since the second half of the twentieth century has been enormous. Too richly talented to be ignored by the literary establishment, she has at the same time been too politically oriented to be comfortably digested.

Institution: Steven Barclay Agency

On July 3, 1997, poet Adrienne Rich informed Jane Alexander, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, that she would not accept the National Medal for the Arts. To accept the award, she felt, would be hypocritical in view of the country's widening socio-economic gap. In her typical hard-hitting style, Rich wrote that, "art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." Both the national recognition and Rich's principled refusal were emblematic of the place this poet has come to occupy in American culture.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 16, 1929, Rich is one of American poetry's foremost feminist and liberal voices. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951 and published her first book of poetry, A Change of World, the same year. Her next book of poetry, The Diamond Cutters and Other Poems, appeared in 1955; both books were met with critical acclaim. Rich's next works, however, were met with as much consternation as praise. Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, published in 1963, was Rich's first explicitly feminist book, and as such it garnered criticism from those who thought it too militant and acclaim from those who admired its vision. The book, and later work collected in Diving into the Wreck (1973), reflected Rich's growing involvement in the antiwar movement and the civil rights movement as well as her commitment to outspoken feminism. Diving into the Wreck won the National Book Award; Rich refused to accept the award in her own name but accepted instead in the name of all women. She donated the prize money to charity.

Through the late 1970s and 1980s, Rich published several more volumes of poetry and prose that together addressed motherhood, lesbianism, politics, and feminism. Her first prose book was Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976). Later work included The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977; A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems 1978-1981; Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978; and Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1986.

Beginning in the 1980's, Rich's work increasingly included references to her Jewish heritage. Her powerful and influential essay "Split at the Root" (1986) explored her complex relationship to her own Jewish identity. What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1994) also included meditations on Jewishness and whiteness. Rich's later work has continued to be politically engaged, filled with both passion and compassion. To date, she has published a total of 22 books of poetry and four of prose. Her most recent published works are The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000–2004 and Poetry and Commitment: An Essay (2007).

In addition to writing, Rich has taught at colleges and universities including Swarthmore College, Brandeis University, Bryn Mawr College, Cornell University, Stanford University, and Rutgers University. She has been active in the Boston Woman's Fund and New Jewish Agenda. Her work has been recognized by numerous organizations. Among other prizes, she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, a Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Learn more about Adrienne Rich in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Sources:Cheri Landell, Adrienne Rich: The Moment of Change (Westport, 2004); Alice Templeton, The Dream and the Dialogue: Adrienne Rich's Feminist Poetics (Knoxville, 1994); Liz Yorke, Adrienne Rich: Passion, Politics, and the Body (London, 1997); Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 1146-1148; www.nortonpoets.com/richa.htm; www.barclayagency.com/rich_a.html; www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/biblio.htm; Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1997; New York Times, July 11, 1997; JWA Blog, jwablog.jwa.org/node/124.

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Birth of advice-givers Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren

July 4, 1918

Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer and Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips were born seventeen minutes apart on July 4, 1918. The world has come to know them as the advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren (Dear Abby). Raised in Sioux City, Iowa, the sisters were in their late thirties before first Esther, then Pauline, entered the advice business. Esther, known as Eppie Lederer, won a contest to replace the original author of the "Ask Ann Landers" column for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1955. By 1993, the Ann Landers column appeared in 1200 daily newspapers with 90 million readers, making her the world's most widely syndicated columnist. The column has also been translated into more than twenty languages.

When Lederer began writing the column, her sister contributed by reading some of the letters and suggesting answers. The Sun-Times, however, forbade the partnership, and Phillips (known as Popo) soon decided to write her own column. "Dear Abby" took off, and soon became the chief rival to "Ann Landers," leading to a brief feud between the sisters.

Both columns were characterized by a straightforward tone, practical advice, and a firm but modern moral sensibility. In a change from previous advice columns, both women used humor, including sarcasm and one-liners, in their responses. "Dear Abby," for instance, once published a letter from a reader inquiring whether a woman could get pregnant under water. Abby's response: "not without a man." With an open-mindedness grounded in practical morality, both columnists won loyal followings. A reviewer writing about a collection of "Dear Abby" columns characterized their author as "just the person you'd want to go to with a problem—the aunt with the wise mouth and the heart of gold." Psychology Today once credited Ann Landers with having a greater effect on the way people deal with their problems than any other living individual. Both women were politically liberal, and used their columns to condemn racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism and to advocate for women's rights.

Esther Lederer died on June 22, 2002. The "Ann Landers" column died with her, but has been replaced in many newspapers by "Annie's Mailbox," edited by Lederer's former staff. Pauline Phillips, ill with Alzheimer's, has retired from writing "Dear Abby." Apparently, advice-giving runs in the family. "Dear Abby" is now written by Phillips's daughter, Jeanne, while Lederer's daughter, Margo Howard, writes the advice column "Dear Prudence."

Learn more about Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

Sources:Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 789-790, 1435-1436; Associated Press, June 22, 2002; New York Times, November 1, 1981, June 10, 1993; Jan Pottker and Bob Speziale, Dear Ann, Dear Abby: The Unauthorized Biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren (New York, 1987).

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