Our anonymous Conservative rabbinical student returns with a third installment, commenting on JTS’s decision to permit openly gay students. I reiterate, as has become necessary from the last two posts contributed by this individual, that I am not the author.
This is the third in my series of “Both Proud and Ashamed” to be a student, preparing for the rabbinate, within the Conservative Movement. The “Gay issue” has generated more ink for the Conservative Movement than any issue in recent memory. The secular press has carried stories, the Israeli media has taken an interest, the Orthodox Jewish media vehicles have been relentless in their criticism, and there has been much back and forth within the Conservative community.
Overall, dialogue is healthy. I am proud that the Conservative Movement is taking on an issue, in Halachic terms, that profoundly touches the lives of untold numbers of people. In this sense I think we are about two decades ahead of the Orthodox.
We saw this with regard to the woman’s issue. Today, many have nothing but praise for Shira Hadasha, an Orthodox congregation with deep ritual involvement of women. Women study Torah and Talmud in a myriad of Orthodox institutions. Women are trained to serve as “lawyers” in the all male Hardei rabbinic courts. This may have not come about without the progressive Halachic positions taken within the Conservative community.
Last month Chancellor Arnie Eisen (the new head of the Jewish Theological Seminary) appointed as dean a rabbi who holds in favor of the acceptance of Gays and Lesbians into the rabbinate. This made me proud.
The University of Judaism’s Zeigler Rabbinical School has already accepted, to begin their studies in September, at least two out Gays. For this I am proud.
On Monday, JTS sent out an announcement that they would extend the deadline to allow Gays and Lesbians to apply for this coming academic year. This following a vote of the faculty, which lent substantial support to the move. Stogy old JTS now wearing rainbow colors – I am so proud.
But fast forward to today. The newspapers today are reporting, what seemed inevitable – that the Schechter Rabbinical School, where I and the other Conservative rabbinical school students are spending the year, will bar Gays and Lesbians from applying. The decision was taken by our dean, Rabbi Einat Ramon. For this decision I feel shame.
Rabbi Ramon was thought to be, by many of us, a committed feminist who cared deeply about advancing the rights, obligations, and participation, of those neglected by the Jewish world.
Indeed, when Israel was slow to ordain women as rabbis-she left the country to follow her heart and was ordained at the very Seminary she now criticizes. She saw the flexibility of Jewish Law when it came to the women’s issues.
Yet, in the Schechter press release it states:

In a position paper that Rabbi Ramon distributed to the Executive Committee, she called attention to the historic centrality of heterosexual marriage in Jewish life. “Jewish theology regards the union between a man a woman who are sexually and emotionally different from one another as a complementary covenant of friendship and intimacy, which forms the basis for procreation and childrearing. This is why Jewish law has so fervently opposed sexual relations between members of the same sex”, she explained, “and why the heterosexual family has played such a vital role throughout the ages in the transmission of Jewish values and the survival of the Jewish people”.

I would like to remind Rabbi Ramon that most Gays were raised in two parent (male-female) homes. Most children raised by Gay parents are heterosexual (“not that it matters”). So just how does the Gay family hurt the Jewish community?
In the past Rabbi Raman has spoken of Homosexuality as being a choice – something that one may be able to work hard to overcome. She has spoken about strengthening gender roles to lessen the instances of homosexuality. She has spoken of a homosexual agenda (see my previous Jewschool post) to destroy the concept of traditional family.
Ramon states: “We have always admitted students committed to an observant life-style,” continued Ramon, “including Kashrut, Shabbat, and the sanctity of the heterosexual family. Today in particular, when the traditional family is in trouble, it is especially important that we ordain modern rabbis who are devoted to this institution and identify with this worldview.”
So what do I tell my friends now? I am studying at an institution that not only adheres to a traditional halachic stand when the rest of the Conservative world has seen that is not the way. I, in essence, support Schechter financially through my tuition. I feel shame, shame, shame.
But as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a’ changing.” Stay tuned.
*Despite the calls from others, perhaps more brave than I, that I identify myself by name, I choose not to do so. I am a Conservative rabbinical student studying in Israel for the academic year. I do not think that my views on this subject will be held against me. But I can not be certain of this. So for now, I will just be “Gaavah and Ashma.-Proud and Ashamed.”