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THE WINDS OF CHANGE
Twelve years after the Monica Dennis Goldberg Women's Advocates Program began training the world's first female rabbinical court advocates (toanot), the program's 120 graduates are representing clients in rabbinical courts across Israel. "We're an integral part of the landscape," says Nurit Fried, who directs the program. "I'm constantly told by rabbinical court judges how impressed they are with the knowledge and proficiency of the toanot."
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Director Nurit Freid:
Defending women
and encouraging them
not to give in or give up. |
That's a far cry from the rabbinic establishment's reaction, slightly more than a decade ago, to Ohr Torah Stone's intention to train female advocates. It took one lawsuit to change the eligibility requirements that only allowed men to take the qualifying exam as an advocate; another suit followed to remove the nearly-insurmountable hurdles that were created to prevent the women from passing. "Even under these difficult circumstances, an impressive number of our first students passed the test," Fried recalls. "But then they faced discrimination, difficulties and even lockouts from certain rabbinical courts."
Today, while only one third of the male applicants pass the exam, more than two thirds of all female candidates qualify, and the field is wide open for women. "Our current students are younger on the average than their predecessors," says Fried. "The first participants were primarily women in their 30's and 40's who wanted a career change. Now that the profession is an established one, many of our students come to us straight from university.
"But throughout the years, our goal has remained the same: demanding and protecting a woman's rights for a fair settlement in the rabbinical courts. Lawyers and judges routinely urge a woman to compromise. We are there to defend her and encourage her not to give in or give up."
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| Rabbi Menachem Ben-Ya'akov prepares future advocates for the qualifying exam |
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