MERCAZ USA Newsletter — Fall 2009

Conservative Movement: Women Rabbis to Be Called "Rabba"

The ordination of women rabbis within the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Movements has been an established fact for more than 25 years; yet a question has remained as to what the proper Hebrew title should be for a female rabbi. While the English term "rabbi" is not gender-specific, the question arises in Hebrew since Hebrew qualifies most titles according to gender.

For example, in Hebrew, a male teacher is a "moreh" and a female instructor is a "morah", just as a male doctor is a "rofeh" and a female physician a "rofah", etc.

However, this rule is not absolute, for there are some titles that are used interchangeably for both men and women. Thus, "rosh ha'memshalah" (prime minister), was used for both Golda Meir and all her male counterparts, stretching from David Ben-Gurion to Benjamin Netanyahu.

As a result of this uncertainty, there has been no uniformity of title. Some women rabbis ordained from the Reform and Conservative/Masorti Movements have adopted the title "rav" as their male counterparts, while other have adopted the feminine version "rabba". Some, like the left-leaning Orthodox leader Rabbi Avi Weiss, have even created a new term "maharat" (a Hebrew acronym that stands for "Torah leader, halachic and spiritual") for the woman that his congregation recently hired for its professional staff.

Parenthetically, another option, "rabbanit", that was proposed in the past has been uniformly dismissed, although grammatically possible, as it traditionally refers to the rabbi's wife.

Finally, an answer has been given.

Recently, participants in the Kolech Religious Women's Forum conference in Jerusalem voted in favor of "rabba". The Kolech Board of Directors are now appealing to the Hebrew Language Academy in Israel to make the word "rabba" (plural "rabbot") an official part of the lexicon.

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