N.Y. Yeshiva Graduates Its First Class of Female Religious Leaders

Yeshivat Maharat, which trains Orthodox Jewish women to be religious leaders, held its first graduation ceremony on Sunday.

• Streisand, on tour of Israel, slams ultra-Orthodox treatment of women
• Jerusalem's women have won some battles, but the struggle for equality is not yet over
• Dispelling nine myths about Women of the Wall
• Roles for Orthodox women take leap forward with graduation of maharats
• Women are fighting for an Orthodox Jewish revolution - in Manhattan and beyond
• Making progress on women's place in modern Orthodox community

The ceremony, in which Ruth Balinsky Friedman, Rachel Kohl Feingold and Abby Brown Schier graduated, was attended by some 500 people.

The graduates are set to work for Orthodox synagogues and institutions.

Maharat is a Hebrew acronym for Manhiga Hilkhatit Rukhanit Toranit, or leader in legal, spiritual and Torah matters.

Each graduate of the New York yeshiva will use the title of maharat rather than rabbi or rabba - the title given to Sarah Hurwitz, the dean of Yeshivat Maharat, when she was ordained by Rabbi Avi Weiss.

The movement to confer religious authority on women in the Orthodox community, which began in 2009, remains controversial in the Orthodox community.

Last month, the Rabbinical Council of America reissued a 2010 statement that said, We cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.