Fierce debates this month over women clergy represent the most fractious internecine conflict in the Orthodox Jewish community in a generation. After the progressive movement known as Open Orthodoxy ordained its first women, denunciations by centrist and right-of-center Orthodox rabbis alike were inevitable.
Written and verbal critiques of the ordination of women have largely focused on its propriety in the halachic (Jewish legal) system. But the halachic arguments miss the most important reason advocacy of women’s ordination smells treyf (not kosher): Open Orthodoxy seems largely motivated by the ideology of a certain f-word.
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