US haredi organization rejects Open Orthodoxy
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America issues proclamation stating that the liberal movement of US Orthodox rabbis is a 'dissident movement' and 'not a form of Torah Judaism.'
A manifesto published by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America (Council of Torah Sages), which serves as Agudath Israel of America’s highest rabbinic body, and signed by senior haredi rabbis, states that Open Orthodoxy and its leaders and affiliated entities "are no different than other dissident movements throughout our history that have rejected these basic tenets.
"We therefore inform the public that in our considered opinion, 'Open Orthodoxy' is not a form of Torah Judaism (Orthodoxy), and that any rabbinic ordination (which they call "semicha") granted by any of its affiliated entities to their graduates does not confer upon them any rabbinic authority."
Click here to read the full statement.
The harsh proclamation comes just days after the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the main Modern Orthodox rabbinical association in the US voted to ban its members with positions in Orthodox institutions from ordaining women into the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title used, or hiring a woman into a rabbinic position at an Orthodox institution, or allowing a title implying rabbinic ordination to be used by a religious studies teacher in an Orthodox institution.
In 2010, the RCA issued a softer statement, in which it welcomed "the flowering of Torah study and teaching by God-fearing Orthodox women in recent decades," defined it as "a significant achievement" and declared that it "encourages a diversity of halachically and communally appropriate professional opportunities for learned, committed women."
The organization clarified at the time, however, that " Due to our aforesaid commitment to sacred continuity, however, we cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title."
Three years later, following the ordination of women by Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss of New York (who has quit the RCA in the meantime), the organization issued a harsher statement, saying it "views this event as a violation of our mesorah (tradition) and regrets that the leadership of the school has chosen a path that contradicts the norms of our community."
