Partnership minyanim to be discussed at Sephardi venue

ONE OF the leading Orthodox supporters of partnership minyanim is to participate in a public discussion on women and Jewish law organised by the Sephardi community in London.

Rabbi Daniel Sperber, the Britishborn president of the Institute of Advanced Torah Studies at Israel’s BarIlan University, has argued for the religious validity of services where women can read from the Torah and lead some of the prayers.

He will appear on a panel with Rabbi Dr Michael Rosensweig, a more conservative Orthodox voice, who is rosh yeshivah at the theological seminary of New York’s Yeshiva University; and Rabbanit Chana Henkin, founder of Nishmat, which offers advanced Torah studies for women in Israel. The Lauderdale Road Synagogue event is being staged by the Montefiore Endowment, which runs the UK’s only mainstream Orthodox semichah programme.

Rabbi Abraham Levy, a trustee of the endowment, believes it will be the first open discussion of its kind in a mainstream London Orthodox shul.

“I feel there is a lot of misunderstanding and bad feeling around issues connected with women, such as partnership minyanim, agunot and women becoming rabbis,” he said.

“Rather than attacking each other, it is better to sit down in a civil way and hear different points of view.”

Several partnership minyanim operate in London, despite the view of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis that they are outside the boundaries of Jewish law.