Leading Rabbi Quits Local Court Citing "Agenda of Feminists"

By Hannah Dreyfus
Jewish Week
October 30, 2014

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national/leading-rabbi-steps-down-citing-agenda-feminists

A high-ranking officer of the Rabbinical Council of America resigned from Bergen County's rabbinic court following the Council's decision to include women on its new conversion committee.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, who serves on the executive committee of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), quit the Beit Din of Bergen County after the RCA announced yesterday that it is convening a new conversion committee with five female members. He is keeping his position as dayyan, or judge, on the RCA-supervised Beth Din of America, the national rabbinic court.

The new conversion committee, composed of six male rabbis and five women of differing professions (including a litigation attorney, educator, psychotherapist and a Yoetzet Halacha, who advises women on family purity laws), was created in response to the arrest of Rabbi Barry Freundel of Congregation Kesher Israel on charges of voyeurism on Oct. 14.

The committee will review the Beit Din of America's Geirus Protocol and Standards (GPS) conversion process and suggest safeguards against possible future abuses.

In a statement posted on his personal blog, Pruzansky accused the RCA of bending to media pressure and promoting "the agenda of feminists."

"The committee consists of six men and five women, bolstering the trend on the Orthodox left to create quasi-rabbinical functions for women," he writes. "What role can they [women] play in 'review[ing]' the GPS conversion process?" He concludes the paragraph by calling the conversion process a "purely rabbinical role."

He also criticized men on the original committee, whom he said "never liked the GPS guidelines, and do not follow them."

Pruzansky is still a member of the RCA's Executive Committee, where he used to share the company of Rabbi Freundel before his arrest.

Freundel allegedly planted video cameras in the local mikvah and watched women bathe naked. Many of Freundel’s alleged victims were female converts.

Pruzansky has not yet responded to request for further comment.

"There are very few members of the committee who were part of the original committee, which entirely consisted of Rabbis," Pruzansky writes in his post. "Of course, they will have to water down the standards — they’ll call it a 'revision' and an 'improvement.'"

According to Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, honorary president of the RCA and chair of the new conversion committee, this represents the largest appointment of women to an RCA committee in the organization's history.

“It is within the best interest of the community for converts to have a system that displays a standardized approach to conversion,” said Rabbi Goldin, who explained that the committee will review complaints filed by people going through the conversion process. The committee will convene for the first time next week.

Rabbi Pruzansky wrote that "the GPS system did not fail in DC; a person failed." The new committee reflects a larger “climate change," he wrote.

Pruzansky also serves as the rabbi of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, the largest Orthodox synagogue in Teaneck, N.J.

Goldin, speaking for the RCA, declined to comment on Rabbi Pruzansky abrupt departure. “It was a personal decision,” he said.

“This change is here to stay,” said Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. Though the committee was appointed in response to Freundel’s abuse of power and the outrage that ensued, it has hastened a necessary turning point in the Orthodox community, she said.

“Progress happens in different ways, but this is very definitively a positive step forward for the RCA,” she said. “We asked the RCA to be transparent, and they’re being transparent. It’s a huge milestone.”