Author: Rabbi Esther Lederman

Categories
News

Why Requesting the “Male” Rabbi Just Isn’t Acceptable Anymore (if it ever was)

The email arrived Thursday morning – a couple set to be married on Sunday was in desperate need of an officiant. Their rabbi had a medical emergency and could no longer perform the ceremony.  A friend had forwarded the query – could anybody help?

It seemed clear from the wording that any rabbi – Reform, Conservative, Orthodox would work.   Never one to not do my best and knowing a couple of rabbis in the town where the ceremony was to be held, I reached out to see if they were available.  It was only upon speaking to one of them that I learned a key element of the request had been missing. The request was for a male rabbi.  As it turned out, the couple or their family had made inquiries and it had been made clear – they were in search of a male rabbi who could perform the ceremony.

I was a little more than ticked off.  I was mad. Pretty mad. A female rabbi was insufficient, even when a family was in a pinch because their original choice had a medical emergency,

There wasn’t much I could do with my anger.  I informed my friend and the other rabbis who received the original request as to what had happened.  I think I wanted company in my anger.

That led to a fascinating exchange with a close friend who is, like me, a female rabbi. The conversation made me realize that although this example may seem like a little deal to some, it actually has lasting implications for the equity of female clergy in our movement and in our country. 

When a couple, or in some cases, their parents, ask for a male rabbi to perform a wedding ceremony, the result is that clergy as women become invisible, and are viewed as less than.  Even though the intention may not be present, the impact is no different.  This is so much more than hurting an individual woman’s feeling.  This is about an injury to women as a class of people, women as rabbis, or women as cantors.  In the business world, we call this sexual discrimination.  In the congregational world, some call it “individual religious freedom.”

I would add that I also have no tolerance for the family who asks for the female rabbi to do the bat mitzvah, or the funeral.  There is no special magic either gender, or non-binary individuals, receive  during that moment of ordination at the Ark.  We are who we are, equally capable in our abilities to preside at liminal, sacred moments of our people no matter the biology or gender identification we carry.

Allow me for a moment to inject some discomfort here – particularly for the reader who may still not be convinced.  I would like you to replace the binary of male/female and replace it with white/black or straight/gay.  Imagine someone calling up and asking that the white rabbi do the ceremony, and not the Jew of Color rabbi.  Imaging someone calling up and saying, ‘I don’t want the gay rabbi to do our son’s wedding.’  The answer seems obvious, doesn’t it? 

Sometimes our jobs as clergy is to listen to our people, and sometimes our job as clergy is to be truth-tellers, even when it might be hard for them to hear.   The next time you, or your colleague, or your congregation receives a request for the male rabbi, please consider saying some version of the following:  “I would really love to help you, but fulfilling that request would require me to go against my values of gender equity and seeing people in their wholeness as a human being, and not simply by their biology. I hope we can help you in the future.”

And the beautiful nechemta (comforting ending ) to the story with which I began – the couple were successfully married on Sunday, by an able and accomplished female rabbi, fairly pregnant with her first child.  I don’t know what the reaction was to that visual. My hope and prayer is that in that moment, a taste of redemption could be felt by all those in the room. 

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Rabbi Esther L. Lederman is the Director of Congregational Innovation at the URJ and sits on the CCAR Task Force on the Experience of Women in the Rabbinate.

Categories
gender equality

I Am a Woman, and I Have Gender Bias

Far too often, members of congregational search committees say they don’t need to worry about gender bias because they have women on the committee. Yet most of us, including women, carry implicit gender bias.   It is implicit because it remains unexpressed. The more we are aware of our biases, the more we can address the challenge. When they remain hidden, there is very little we can do to tackle them.

Back in 2008, when then Republican presidential candidate John McCain nominated Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, I was very critical of the choice, and not because she had limited government experience. I simply didn’t believe that a mother of five children, especially when the youngest was living with a disability, could handle the job. I eventually shifted my thinking, thanks to numerous conversations with friends. I realized I would have never argued that a father of five couldn’t manage a high-level political job. It was the first time I was aware I carried gender bias, one that negatively impacted my view of what jobs mothers could do. My gender bias had been implicit until it became explicit, thanks to dialogue, conversations, and a openness to challenge my thinking.

There may have been several reasons why I held such a bias in the first place. At the time, I carried some ambivalence to becoming a mother, worried that being a mother would hold back my career ambitions. I didn’t understand how in many ways, working mothers are eminently qualified for their jobs because they are mothers. In addition, there is a cultural norm that it is ok to negatively judge other women when they make choices you wouldn’t for yourself. Of this, I am guilty.

Why do we as a Movement need to care about implicit gender bias?

The mission of the Union for Reform Judaism is to build a world of justice, wholeness, and compassion. We will not be successful at achieving this without an awareness of how our gender biases affect our ability to build that world.

We will not build a world of wholeness if we implicitly believe that mothers are not able to do the same work that fathers can, especially as senior rabbis of congregations.

We will not build a world of justice if those same gender biases affect our ability to pay mothers and women in general at an equal level that we pay fathers and men.

Compassion is defined as the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. We will not build a world of compassion if we are not conscious of the degree to which being a woman, or being a mother, is seen as a disadvantage in the congregation, and doing what we can to change that. This requires rethinking what we consider the qualities we want in a leader, as well as the prior experiences we expect. We often discount the experiences of parenting, for example, as a job qualification, or look for qualities, like gravitas, that we don’t associate with women.

There is no way to avoid having implicit biases. We all have them. Our aim is to become aware of them and call ourselves out as we recognize them. I recently had to call myself out again.

It was Friday evening. My friend Josh, a rabbi in our congregation, and I found ourselves chatting while the kids ran around. Josh and his wife have three young children, and he was sharing how his wife Nani was away on a work trip for a few days. I asked, “Did your mom come down to help?”

As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized I was guilty. Guilty of an assumption that feeds into the beast that is gender bias. I needed to name it, more for myself than for my friend. “Josh,” I said, “I feel terrible. If Nani were standing right here, and she had told me that you were away on a work trip for a few days, I never would have asked her if your mom had come down to help. I would just have assumed she could handle it, because she is the mom.”

I made an assumption that a father is less well-qualified to take care of his children, especially because he had a job as a congregational rabbi. This job requires evening work, and Shabbat responsibilities. How would he handle that if his spouse was not around to help? What was even stranger is that I had been in those exact same shoes myself, as a working mother with bimah responsibilities only a few years before!

How does this implicit assumption hurt women in our congregations, in particular the future rabbis and cantors we may hire to lead? If we assume a father is less well-qualified to take care of his children, what leaps of imagination do we have to do when faced with a mother who wants to become the next senior rabbi? Do we bring in our own biases of how children should be raised?

Project Implicit, out of Harvard University, has access to free implicit bias tests around a variety of themes. Consider taking it, or asking your board to consider it. The first step in addressing implicit gender bias is simply becoming aware.

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Rabbi Esther L. Lederman is the Director of Congregational Innovation at the Union for Reform Judaism and sits on the CCAR Taskforce on the Experience of Women in the Rabbinate.

Categories
Immigration News Rabbis Social Justice

We All Need a Little Netzach: We Stand with Ruth

This blog is the fourth in a series from Rabbis Organizing Rabbis connecting the Omer to Immigration Reform.  This Shavuot, we recommit ourselves to working with the modern-day strangers among us. This Shavuot, we stand with Ruth.  Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is a joint project of the CCAR’s Peace & Justice Committee, the URJ’s Just Congregations, and the Religious Action Center. Learn more and join the mailing list. 

I never intended to become an immigrant to this country.  Like much of life, it just happened.  I took a job, and then another, and then went to graduate school. Before I knew it, I had lived in this country for fifteen years.  America had gradually become my home.  It is where my best friends lived, where I found my calling as a rabbi, where I had my first congregation, where I fell in love with the man who would become my husband, where I gave birth to my first child.  Yet I was no closer to being a permanent resident than the day I had moved here fifteen years ago.  And then my application for permanent residency was denied.   Like Ruth, I was at risk of losing my home, of everything I knew, of losing that sense of rootedness and stability I had taken for granted.

Like Ruth, I was lucky. My story eventually has a good ending.  I reapplied and was accepted, thanks to my American husband, (and no, his name is not Boaz) and am now the proud owner of a green card, looking forward to that day when I will be able to become an American citizen.  The ground on which I stand feels strong.

But for millions of immigrants to this country, the millions of Ruths that exist out there, there is not yet a happy ending.  Millions of immigrants live here, in the shadows, struggling to remain a part of the fabric of our country, fearful of driving down the street, unable to pay for college, without the protection of family or an ID.  Thousands of parents are being deported every day, taken from their children, leaving their kids parentless, entering foster systems, taking on jobs, failing in school.

rabbi-ledermanFor these millions of souls, there is not yet a happy ending. The key word in that sentence is yet.  Their story and fight is not over.  This is the week of Netzach in the counting of the Omer.  Netzach stands for endurance and fortitude, and ultimately, victory.  It defines an energy that will stop at nothing to achieve its goals.  It is the readiness to go all the way, to fight for what you believe.  It stands for the ability to endure in the face of challenges and hardship and believe that things are possible.

Being an immigrant requires Netzach.  Being an ally in the fight for immigration reform requires Netzach.  With legislation stalled in the House, with deportations at an all time high, we all need a little Netzach.

This Shavuot, I encourage you to stand up and say:  I stand with Ruth.  I stand with the millions of Ruths in this country who have the Netzach to see this fight through to the end, because their lives depend on it.

Post this message on your Facebook timeline and share why YOU stand with Ruth.

Next week’s We Stand With Ruth Omer message will include a liturgy and teaching session you can use for Shavuot. Will you show us your support by publically pledging to use one or both of these resources? Pledge to stand with Ruth this Shavuot here!

Rabbi Esther Lederman serves Temple Micah in Washington, DC.