UNITED STATES
Second City Torah
October 23, 2014 by Rabbi Ben Greenberg
It has now been more than a week since the revelations occurred in the media of the alleged voyeuristic spying committed by one of the most influential and powerful Modern Orthodox rabbis in America, Rabbi Barry Freundel. If it was not horrible enough that women, most of them in the process of converting to Judaism, were violated in one of the most special and intimate ritual places in Judaism, it is now clear that the problems go back for years. Abuses of a sexual nature are often more about exerting power over someone as much as they are about sexual gratification. Secretly filming women nude at their most vulnerable in a time of their lives during a conversion process when they are particularly vulnerable is about unequivocally declaring, “I have absolute power over you: your soul, who you will marry and when you will marry them and, yes, even your very body.” The violations of rabbinic propriety that surfaced beginning in 2012 (and perhaps earlier) were also abuses of power.
These abuses of power are not unique to Rabbi Freundel or to the Orthodox rabbinate as Rabbi Ruth Abusch Magder pointed out in a blog post on MyJewishLearning.com. They do send a very powerful message though: The time has long come to open up the door for learned women working in clergy roles in the Orthodox community to join all of the Modern Orthodox rabbinic associations. The time has long come to make sure every mikvah has women serving on its board of directors.
Opening up the power structures to women is not because all men have failed, it is because men in conversation only with themselves fail. Men and women together can make better decisions, hold each other accountable and make sure that the needs, concerns and voices of both women and men are respected.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.