In the 500 responsa written by Solomon B. Freehof and another 500 by me,* only a few major women’s issues have arisen, such as the ordination of women and nonlineal descent. Some took new directions; others followed the path set by earlier responsa or practices and clarified them. When they dealt with ritual questions like may women recite kaddish, read from the Torah , or be counted as part of a minyan, along with other issues, equality was taken for granted and did not need justification.
As we review almost two centuries of the Reform movement, we see that traditional halakhah connected with women has sometimes been successfully reinterpreted; resolutions, and popular decisions have been given equal significance and have reshaped the role of women within Judaism . Here as in other movements in Judaism , Reform , Conservative , and Reconstructionist leaders have made dramatic changes through resolutions, minhag, and halakhah. For our time these have brought major changes to rabbinic Judaism while continuing the path set at its beginning through the creative adjustment to new cultural and intellectual forces by the ancient Pharisees and their successors through two millenia.
Notes
I. D. Tama(ED. Kirwan(trans.), The Napoleonic Sanhedrin, London , 1807 J| the Middle Ages, New York , 1964,
2. Louis Finkelstein , Jewish Self-Government in 1 pp. 111 ff
3. Two generations later figures like Bertha Pappenheim emerged as well as a few forerunners both in Germany and in Eastern Europe , but they remained on the rim of society
4. FE W. Riemer, Mitth
ungedrucki
ilungen iiber Goethe aus miindlichen und schriftlichen und
n, Berlin 1841, pp. 428 f. Michael Meyer, The Origins of the
en Quelle Modern Jew, Detroit , 1967, pp. 85 ff
I have not been able to find any reference in the responsa literature of the time to the salons or to the women involved in them. The rabbis were well
5]
as he corresponded with some of them. They saw the translation as dan
Mendelssohn Philadelphia, 1973, pp. 376 ff, 382)