Conferences
These discussions involved larger numbers of rabbis and, to some extent, lay leaders. The first rabbinic Conference was held in Brunswick in 1844; both divorce and halitzah were on the agenda. Civil divorce was accepted as a precondition for a religious divorce, and both marriage and divorce laws were given to a committee for further study.” At the next rabbinic conference, in Frankfurt , in 1845, matters went further, as there was a motion by Samuel Adler that women be considered absolutely equal to men with all religious obligations; this was referred to committee since there was not sufficient time to discuss it thoroughly. They also decided that“modern bathing establishments” could serve as a miqueh.*
A year later in Breslau (1846) halitzah was declared abolished.” A six point program was read to the Conference, but owing to lack of time was not passed. It reccommended that the rabbinical conference declare women to be entitled to the same religious rights and subject to the same religious duties as men, and in accordance herewith make the following pronouncements:
1. That women are obliged to perform such religious acts as depend on a fixed time, in so far as such acts have significance for our religious consciousness.
No
That women must perform all duties toward children in
the same measure as men.
3. That neither the husband nor the father has the right to release from the vow a daughter or a wife who has reached her religious majority.
4. That the benediction shelo asani ishah(Praised be Thou,
O Lord, our God , who hast not made me a woman),
which owed its origin to the belief in the religious
inferiority of women be abolished.
ol
That the female sex is obligated from youth up to participate in religious instruction and the public religious service and be counted for minyan, and finally,
6. That the religious majority of both sexes begin with the thirteenth year.