One of the most fundamental principles uniting virtually all Reform, Reconstructionist, and most Conservative congregations (that is, most American Jews) is that of egalitarianism. Hence at a Reform synagogue it is taken for granted that its members would not join a Jewish congregation which was not gender neutral, one which falls short of being fully egalitarian.
Reform, Reconstructionist and many Conservative congregations mean by this that no privileges, duties, ritual honors and positions of importance in the synagogue will be determined, affected, or influenced in any way, by gender. Men and women are equal in all respects. As it has been stressed previously, by now the commitment and devotion to gender equality has become a 21st century axiom.
Prayer books for Jewish worship are gender neutral. Contemporary women have written new prayers for important milestones, events, and rites of passage that they alone experience: for the onset of menses and menopause, for giving birth as well as for infertility, miscarriages, abortions and still births, for surviving the trauma of rape, for becoming a mother in law and grandmother, and even for separation and divorce. Today Jews refer to God in feminine (for example, “Shechina,” translated as Presence, Providence) as well as in masculine terms. Women can become - and have become - cantors, educators and presidents of congregations.
And rabbis! Regina Jonas in Germany became the first ordained woman rabbi in 1935. In the United States the Reform movement’s Yeshiva/Rabbinical Seminary began ordaining women in 1972, the Reconstructionist movement in 1974 and Conservative Jews ordained their first woman rabbi in 1985.
It is also useful to remember now and again that there has never been an "obey" clause at a Jewish wedding ceremony in any of the streams of Judaism. Mothers as well as fathers accompany their sons and daughters to the marriage canopy together and at their side. Brides are never "given away" by the father as the mother watches from elsewhere on the aisle as though she were a second level parent.
More than a few non-Jewish brides are brought up anticipating the fulfillment of their romantic childhood fantasy of processing toward their groom on the arm of their father. Mothers watch but do not accompany their daughter down the isle. Most Jewish brides and grooms understand that being escorted by both parents to the wedding canopy is a statement expressing equality. It is egalitarian. For a Gentile bride the accommodation that positions her mother walking beside her represents a significant reevaluation of her values, mores, and principles. Non-Jewish brides soon realize that they are undergoing a major adjustment to overarching cultural changes in their way of life. Many understand their future as symbolized by the overarching canopy beneath which, as brides, they choose to pronounce their vows to a beloved Jewish groom. In addition, increasingly, wedding ceremonies climax with brides as well as grooms joyfully stomping upon and crunching glass underfoot. They are proclaiming that their marriage is of equal partners. Either one can make or break it.
Nowhere does it say in any Jewish sacred text that women cannot be religious leaders, rabbis, or cantors, although with few exceptions that didn't happen until the late 20th Century. It was with the advent of Reform and Reconstructionist (non-Orthodox) Judaism that women in relative short order - given the span of Jewish history - officially counted as part of the minyan (quorum) of ten adult Jews required for a religious service, acquired the honor of reciting the Torah blessings, celebrated bat mitzvah ceremonies before their congregations at Sabbath morning services, became cantors and were ordained rabbis.
Today, every Reform and Reconstructionist rabbi would support these rights vigorously. The Orthodox would counter by pointing out that women are given different and no less honorable responsibilities than those required of men and that their duties are centered in the home rather than the synagogue. Not surprisingly, gender issues often underscore the major differences between Orthodoxy and Polydoxy. But even within the Orthodox community the question arises, "How far can Orthodoxy accommodate the needs of the new Jewish woman without losing its Orthodoxy?”
“There are also myriad specific questions: Will every girl in the community be expected to study Talmud? Will Orthodox women become rabbis; make halachic decisions as yoatzot, advisors, or poskot, decisors? Will they be dayanot, judges in the rabbinic courts of law, presiding over matters of divorce? Will the gendered language of the prayerbook undergo a transformation or will the original language be preserved, with commentary and caveat sensitive to kavod hatzibbur, the honor (of women) in the congregation? And most of all, who will prepare for Pesach? (Just kidding.)
“Who would have imagined that women … would serve on Israel religious councils, or as congregational interns in Orthodox shuls? Who would have pictured a woman reading the Torah portion at a woman’s tefillah (prayer) group?” [1]
In the various non-Orthodox (Polydox) congregations I have served as rabbi, gender issues have never surfaced. For over forty years I have shared the pulpit with as many female presidents and cantors as male, and every congregation treated all members equally in the life of the synagogue and did so well before I arrived on the scene.
As is the case with other rabbis, I would not consider taking a pulpit as rabbi of a synagogue that followed non-egalitarian traditions. Increasingly, this principle of equality is being applied also to the line of religious descent of children, otherwise known as lineality or lineage. Progressive rabbis today use the term equalineality, or co-lineality, to mean that Jewish identity can be conferred by either the father or the mother. Gender equality requires as much.
Bibliography:
1. Blu Greenberg, Sh’ma, January 2000, Sh’vat 5760.