What we now call semichah is something else entirely; it is an acknowledgement by contemporary teachers that a student has mastered certain areas of Jewish law and can teach, guide and in some cases issue rulings. In today’s day and age, semichah is a community-based credential that signals trust and competence.
Once you accept that, the argument that only men can be rabbis because only men were part of the original chain becomes much harder to sustain. No one today is part of that original chain, so the question is not who historically held a form of authority that no longer exists, but who today is educated, capable and accepted by their community to serve in roles of learning, leadership and pastoral care.
Rabbanit Nomi Kaltmann[Missing Credit]
I also want to be upfront about where I sit in this conversation. I am one of Australia’s first ordained Orthodox female rabbis, a 2023 graduate of Yeshivat Maharat working in Australia, and I do not spend my days arguing about my title of Rabbanit.
Rather, I spend my days engaging in pastoral care, teaching, community leadership, advocacy and representation, often in spaces where there are very few Orthodox voices at all, let alone female ones. In the communities I serve, I am not asking anyone to change their synagogue policy or their theological comfort zones. Rather, I am answering questions, supporting people and carrying responsibility.
Without a recognised title, Orthodox women’s voices are far easier to sideline,
At the same time, in the contexts where I operate, particularly in interfaith settings, public advocacy, and in my work as the founder and inaugural president of JOFA Australia, titles can be important. They signal to outside institutions that I am not a volunteer with an opinion, but a recognised religious professional authorised by my community to speak and lead.
When I sit at tables with Christian clergy, Muslim leaders, government bodies or media, the language we use matters because that is how legitimacy is read in the public square. I am not seeking validation from people who do not want to recognise my role as an Orthodox female rabbi. I am simply naming the practical reality that in some spaces, without a recognised title, Orthodox women’s voices are far easier to sideline, no matter how much Torah we have learned or how much work we are doing.
This is where Maharat and women serving in Orthodox religious leadership sit in a genuinely nuanced area of Jewish law and communal practice. My colleagues are not claiming to be medieval dayanim or members of the Sanhedrin.
We are women who have undertaken four years of serious Torah study, with the exact semichah curriculum as male rabbinical students, and we have the knowledge to teach, counsel, answer questions and lead in various ways.
It is also worth remembering that halachah has always distinguished between formal judicial authority and other forms of leadership and scholarship. Jewish history is full of women who were teachers, advisers and communal figures, even if they did not carry official titles.
The absence of a title in earlier generations does not mean the absence of influence or responsibility. What has changed is not women’s engagement with Torah, but the willingness of some communities to publicly acknowledge and structure that engagement in leadership roles.
I am not suggesting that every Orthodox synagogue must employ a woman with the title of rabbi, or that discomfort with these developments is inherently illegitimate. Communities are allowed to draw boundaries around what they are comfortable with, and Orthodoxy has always contained a wide range of approaches to change.
What I do object to is the framing of this issue as if there is a single clear halachic line that has been crossed, when in reality the halachic landscape is far more contested and complex.
To say that there is no room for a woman rabbi in any Orthodox synagogue as a matter of principle is to collapse a wide debate into a single conclusion, and to present that conclusion as self-evident when it is not. It suggests that those who disagree are simply ignoring halachah rather than engaging with it differently.
That is not how serious Jewish legal argument has ever worked.
There is also something a little uncomfortable about invoking tradition as fixed and immovable in areas where history tells a much messier story. Titles, communal roles and models of leadership have shifted repeatedly across Jewish history depending on social, political and educational realities.
The rabbi as we now understand the role is itself a product of historical development, not a frozen biblical category. Treating current institutional forms as if they are timeless risks mistaking custom for law and habit for principle.
At a deeper level, I think this conversation reflects anxiety about continuity and identity in a rapidly changing world. That anxiety is understandable, particularly for communities that already feel under pressure.
But protecting tradition does not require pretending that legitimate debate does not exist. It requires the confidence to acknowledge disagreement without casting one side as beyond the pale.
If a community does not want to recognise women as rabbis, that is its right. If another community chooses to recognise highly trained women as religious leaders within an Orthodox framework, that too is happening within the broad and messy marketplace of Jewish ideas.
People can come, or they can choose not to. What they cannot do is insist that only one side is authentically Orthodox when the historical and halachic record does not support that certainty.
Rabbanit Kaltmann is an Australian lawyer and journalist who graduated from Yeshivat Maharat in 2023
Image: Rabbanit Nomi Kaltmann (with microphone) speaking at a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (Jofa) conference in New York
