Ohio Jewish chronicle. (Columbus, Ohio), 1985-02-28

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LIBRARY,. OHIO   HISTORICAL   SOO**/!-^
1982   VELMA   AVE.
OOL.S.  0,     43311 EXCH
VOL.63   NO.9
FEBRUAUY 28,1985-ADAR 7
Devoted to American
and Jewish Ideals
Rabbinical Assembly Clears Way for
Acceptance Of Its First Woman Rabbi
s
?■
"Mother/Daughter Day" models Lori (left) and
Margie Myers are checking out the latest spring
fashions from The Limited.
'Hats Off To Mothers And Daughters'
Annual Mother/Daughter Day Theme
Christie Sroufe, assistant
director of Barbizon School
of Modeling, will run a workshop on "How to Make the -
Most of Your Looks and Personality." The workshop will
include make-up demonstrations.
Local psychologists, educators and health-related
professionals will lead small
discussion  groups  on  a
"Hats Off To Mothers And
Daughters" is the theme for
the Second Annual
"Mother/Daughter Day" to
be held Sunday* March 10,
12:45 to 8:30 p.m. at the Leo
Yassenoff Jewish Center,
1125 College Ave..
"Exciting spring fashions
from The Limited Stores of
Kingsdale will be modeled
by mothers and daughters
during the dinner hour,"
says Denise Blank, chairwoman for the event.
' Mindy Coffee, educator
. and lecturer from Dayton,
will deliver the keynote
■ speech, "The Care and Feeding of Mothers, Or How to
Turn Your Mom from Your
Worst Enemy into Your Best
Friend." Coffee will also
lead three workshops during
the day: "Interpersonal
Relationships," "How to be
Your Own Best Friend" and
"101 Ways Not to Go Crazy in
a Crazy World."
I Ahavas Sholom Men
Organize Brotherhood
Congregation Ahavas Sholom Brotherhood was
formed recently in order to
assist with social, educational and religious programming at Congregation
Ahavas Sholom, to help fund
youth activities and to work
with the congregational
leadership in meeting the
needs - of the congregation
and the community at large.
The following officers
were elected at the organizational meeting on Feb; 11:
Steven Factor, president;
Dr. Philip Weinerman, vice
president; Jack Levey,
secretary; Paul Tanenbaum, treasurer; Dr. Bruce
Kay, Dr. Sanford Bloom, Ed
Mellman and Harold Shin-
del, directors. A kickoff program is scheduled for somer
time in early spring.
Membership in the Brotherhood is open to all adult
Jewish men. Anyone interested in joining or getting involved in brotherhood activities should contact Steve
Factor at 231-5990 or Membership Chairman Phil
Weinerman at 237-8047.
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 12)
NEW YORK (JTA) - The
Rabbinical Assembly (RA)
.— the international organization of Conservative
rabbis—has cleared the way
for the acceptance of its first
female member. She is Amy
Eilberg, 30, who is scheduled
to be the first woman to
graduate from the Rabbini-..
cal School of the (Conservative) Jewish Theological
Seminary (JTS) and be
ordained in May.
The roadblock to the acceptance of Eilberg — and
other Conservative women
rabbis following in her footsteps — was cleared by the
passage of an amendment to
the RA's constitution, the RA
announced at a recent news
conference.
According to the amendment, all graduates of the
JTS will automatically
become RA members upon
ordination. The amendment
passed by a vote of 636-267
Hashachar Young Judaea
Celebrates 75th Anniversary
By Judith Franklin
Chronicle News Editor
Hashachar Young Judaea,
a co-ed group for young people, aged 9 through 18, which
stresses Jewish identity within a Zionist framework, is 75
years old this year.
To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the group has designated March 3-10 as "Chag
Ha'Tunah" week—a time to
"celebrate the movement."
Founded in 1909, Young
Judaea was a natural offshoot of the early Zionist
movement in the United
States. In 1918, a special education department was
established by the Zionist organization with Hadassah
founder Henrietta Szold at
its head,  and since, 1967,
pumu
srixiT
Purim — the happy
noisemaker among all
holy days — is a joyous
festival celebrating the
deliverance from
Hainan's plot to destroy
the Jewish people in the
days of the Babylonian,
exile.. It is celebrated on
the 14th day of Adar, this
year the evening of
March 6 and on March 7.
Hadassah has been the
group's sole sponsor.
Hashachar (The Dawn)
Young Judaea is a peer-led
group of 8,000 members,. Its
college counterpart, Hamag-
shimim (The Fulfillers)
sponsors Zionist centers on
campuses and aliyah support groups. Young Judaea
programs consist of year-
round clubs, leadership
training seminars, summer
camps and Israel programs.
Here in Columbus, the
headquarters of the Ohio-
Kentucky-W. Virginia Region,' a .group^ for younger
children has been active for
many years ahd a high
school group is just getting
started. Under the leadership of Advisor Amy Rosenblatt, an Ohio State University senior from Toledo, the
group is busy planning its
own anniversary events.
"It was difficult to begin
the high school group,"
Rosenblatt ex plained, "because so many other organizations were so well established here." But because of
a commitment to Young
Judaea and Israel, which included taking part in a summer program were after her
graduation from high school,
Rosenblatt has been successful in recruiting a core of
seven high schoolers led by
David Brody and Jennifer
Sokolov, the nucleus around
which the • Columbus club
will be built.
"These kids are what
Young Judaea is all about,"
•* (CONTINUED ON PAOE 71
conducted in a recent mail
ballot of the RA membership. ...'■■'•'"..
Previously, graduates had
to be voted into RA membership individually by 75 percent of the delegates to an
RA convention — which
remains the procedure for ■■■
non-JTS rabbis who apply.
The amendment was conceived to avert a possible
floor fight on such a vote on
Eilberg's acceptance into
the RA membership,
according to sources familiar with Conservative movement politics.        '
Reasons For Concern -
Behind the concern was
the fact that at floor fights
for two years in a row, RA
conventions rejected the
application of Rabbi Beverly
Magidson, who was ordained
as a Reform rabbi in 1979,
while accepting into membership several male
Reform rabbis.
At the 1983 convention,
held in Dallas, the vote on
Magidsori's application was
210 in favor to 75 opposed —
only four votes short of the 75
percent required. At the 1984
convention, held in April in
Kiamesha Lake New York,
Magidson received 230 votes
to 99 against — or 17 votes
short:
The repeated rejection of
Magidson's application and
the seeming decline in support for her admission to the
RA largely were attributed
by knowledgeable sources to
the feeling in theorganiza-
tion that the first woman it
admits should be a JTS
graduate. This would then
pave the way for the acceptance of women rabbis who
were not JTS graduates,
such'as Magidson, in the
future, j.
What made possible the
application of a woman ordained by JTS was the decision of its Faculty Senate to
accept women as rabbinical
Students, reached by a 34-8
vote in Oct. 1983 after oyer
ten years of heated and often
bitter debate within the Con-;
servative movement.
In keeping with the decision, 18 women were admitted as students in the JTS
Rabbinical School's incoming (1984-85) class —
comprising approximately
50 percent of the students,
Several of the women students, who had taken
courses at JTS during the
past few years, will now
receive credit and. be ordained before the end of the
usual six-year period of
study.
Opponents To Ordination Of Women
As Rabbis Protest RA Announcement
NEW YORK (JTA)-Op-
ponents to the ordination of
women as... rabbis — both
within and outside the Conservative movement —have
come forward to protest the
recent announcement by the
Rabbinical Assembly (RA)
that it had cleared the way
for the acceptance of its first
female member, 'Amy Eilberg, upon her graduation
from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America's Rabbinical School in May.
The Union for Traditional
Conservative Judaism, a
group of rabbis and laity who
oppose women's ordination
in the Conservative movement, said that the passage
of an amendment to the RA
constitution — which guarantees the acceptance of
women by mandating the
automatic admission pf each
entire JTS graduating class
— "should not be seen as a
wholehearted endorsement"
of women as rabbis.
The Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations condemned the RA decision as
representing a "radical and
definitive break with Jewish
tradition, shattering all
claims and pretenses that
the Conservative movement
is a branch of halachic
Judaism."
Charging that the decision
is part of the movement's
"continuing breach with
traditional Judaism," Union
president Sidney Kwestel
'called it "religion by popular
demand, a pandering to
pressure groups" that "further obliterates the distinc-
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 7)
So Your Mother Always Wanted You
to Become a Writer . . .
The Second Annual Ohio Jewish Chronicle
THE OHIO JEWISH CHRONICLE—in cooperation with Jewish mothers everywhere and In its continuing efforts to
provide a medium for the exchange of
ideos of concern to the Jewish community—is encouraging lis readers to participate in an editorial forum by submitting
feature articles for possible publication In
the paper.
. This is on opportunity for all members of
the community—regardless of age, occupation or affiliation—to openly express
ond share their ideas'.' It is hooed that this
forum will also stimulate reader involvement In the Chronicle ond ultimately will
result In more letters to the editor and
other reader contributions.
Articles should focus on a contemporary
Judoic Issue or on one or more of the religious and/or cultural themes of the High
Holy Days. They may be fiction or nonaction.
Articles submitted will be evaluated by
the Chronicle staff on the basis of style,
content and originality.
Those manuscripts which best fulfill the
criteria will be published in the 5746 New
Year Edition of the OJC. Their authors will
be notified prior to publication ond will receive a $05 honorarium on publication of
the articles.
Manuscripts, 1000 to 2000 words in
length, should be typewritten, double
spaced, clearly marked with the writer's
name,. address and telephone number
and, in the cose of authors under 21, their
age.' A short paragraph of biographical
data about the author should also be included. Deadline Is March 31.
All articles submitted become the property of the Ohio Jewish Chronicle ond
may be printed In future Issues of the
paper. No manuscripts will be returned.
Send articles to the Ohio Jewish Chronicle. P.O. Dox 09744, Cols., 0.43209  ■