From the Orthodox perspective, the answer is unambiguous. A rabbi is not simply a communal professional, nor a role defined by pastoral function.
Rabbinic authority emerges from a halachic system with defined parameters – including semichah, responsibility for psak (halachic decision-making) and participation in a continuous chain of religious authority that has never included women. This is not a historical accident or a cultural lag. It is a structural feature of Orthodox Judaism.
For this reason, leading rabbinic bodies across the Orthodox world have addressed the issue directly. The Coalition for Jewish Values and the Conference of European Rabbis have both issued clear statements rejecting the conferral or adoption of rabbinic titles for women and rejecting what is often described as “Open Orthodoxy”.
In fact, there is no mainstream Orthodox rabbinic body anywhere in the world – including the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America, the National Council of Young Israel, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, or the London Beth Din – that recognises women, or those ordained by Open Orthodoxy, as rabbis.
Guardians of tradition: Conference of European Rabbis[Missing Credit]
The issue here is not exclusion, but definition. Words matter in Judaism. Titles matter. When long-established halachic terms are repurposed to mean something else, confusion inevitably follows – both within Orthodox communities and among the wider Jewish public. The question is not whether new communal roles may be created, but whether foundational roles can be redefined without altering the movement itself.
Supporters of these innovations often argue that the functions being performed – teaching Torah, offering pastoral care, mentoring – are valuable and long overdue. That is true. Orthodox communities have long benefited from women serving as Torah educators, scholars, advisers and mentors, and serious women’s Torah learning has expanded dramatically in recent decades. None of that is in dispute.
But function alone does not confer rabbinic status. A rabbi is not simply someone who teaches or counsels. Rabbinic authority carries formal halachic weight and communal responsibility.
Titles function as signals – to congregants, to other communities and to the wider Jewish public. When the same title is used to describe fundamentally different forms of authority, the title itself loses meaning.
By way of context, I write in my capacity as international liaison for the Coalition for Jewish Values, and on behalf of its work in the UK. CJV is an international Orthodox Jewish public policy organisation engaged in articulating traditional Orthodox perspectives in the public sphere, including here in Britain.
Questions of rabbinic authority and Orthodox definition are not confined to any one country. They arise across Orthodox communities internationally, shaped by shared cultural pressures and an increasingly connected Jewish public sphere.
None of this requires questioning the sincerity, commitment or good faith of those involved. Orthodox Judaism has always insisted on derech eretz and respect for individuals. But respect for persons does not entail acceptance of redefinitions that alter the substance of Orthodoxy itself.
Orthodox Judaism operates with clear halachic definitions. Where those definitions are crossed, the issue is no longer one of diversity within Orthodoxy but of departure from it.
Altering the halachic parameters of rabbinic authority does not extend Orthodoxy; it places the resulting model outside the framework recognised by Orthodox rabbinic institutions in the UK and worldwide.
Orthodoxy endures not because it adapts every contemporary impulse, but because it preserves its defining structures with discipline and clarity. Redefining rabbinic titles does not renew Orthodoxy. It attempts to replace it while retaining its name.
Orthodoxy is not a start-up.
It is a received tradition, sustained by boundaries that have preserved — and continue to preserve — its coherence and divinely mandated truth across generations.
