(RNS) — Israel’s state rabbinate must open up its rabbinic expertise exams to women, Israel’s supreme court said on Monday (July 14) in a ruling hailed by advocates for pluralism and egalitarianism in the Jewish state’s religious institutions.
“Discrimination between women and men regarding eligibility to take the Chief Rabbinate exams is unacceptable, just as discrimination between women and men regarding eligibility to enjoy any other service provided by a public authority in the State of Israel is unacceptable,” Justice Ofer Grosskopf wrote in the court’s decision.
The ruling, however, does not call for the strictly Orthodox rabbinate to ordain women as rabbis, but it opens up to women the body’s licensing exams that test in a variety of areas of Jewish law.
The rabbinate gives more than a dozen exams, on topics ranging from kosher slaughter to ritual purity to business and agricultural law, and requires a certain number to be completed to be eligible for the rabbinic positions it administers. For example, a neighborhood rabbi must pass six, while a city one must have passed 11.
It also awards certificates based on the completion of exams that are treated as equivalent to university degrees and are associated with benefits and salary expectations.
In 2018 Shas, the Sephardic Haredi party, …