Rabbi Seth Farber, Founder and Chairman of ITIM, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News, on the situation of the religious establishment in Israel today and the positive changes and improvements he envisions.
Rabbi Farber said that the matter of women taking the halachic exams of the Chief Rabbinate has become one of the most striking and contentious debates in recent years. “The latest development,” he explained, “came just last week, when the Chief Rabbinate Council announced for the first time that it would appoint a committee to determine how women could sit for the exams. He described this as ‘an enormous victory’.”
Rabbi Farber added that “the story truly began in 2016, when the government ruled that passing the Chief Rabbinate’s halachic exams is equivalent to holding an academic BA, opening the door to a range of economic benefits and professional opportunities. Since then women’s intensive study of halacha has surged, with four or five major programs in Israel alone. Yet despite their years of full-time study, these women were barred from accessing the very benefits the exams provide.”
Rabbi Farber said that “in 2019 a group of women sought to apply for the exams, after attempts to negotiate with the Rabbinate failed. He noted that the issue had nothing to do with rabbinic ordination, emphasizing that the Rabbinate itself maintains separate departments for ordination and for examinations. We simply asked that women be offered the exams, so they could receive the economic benefits and achieve basic parity with men.”
Rabbi Farber continued to say, that “after prolonged refusals from the Rabbinate, the case reached the Supreme Court. In July, Justice Solberg ruled that barring women from the exams violated fundamental principles of equality. The Rabbinate appealed, but two weeks ago the Chief Justice determined that no retrial was needed and affirmed that the exams must be provided to women.”
He said that “ITIM never seeks litigation as a first step. Court proceedings are costly, polarizing, and far less desirable than dialogue and compromise. We prefer agreements, but when the Rabbinate refused all negotiations, we had no choice. Now even the Rabbinate understands a solution is required. These women involved are fully Orthodox and deeply committed to halachic life. Many have dedicated years to mastering Shabbat, Taharat HaMishpacha, Kashrut, and other core areas of Jewish law. I do not claim to speak for them,” he said. “I speak for the principle of equality.”
“Inequality becomes even more striking in the realm of mikvah supervision,” underscores Rabbi Farber. “There are 132 religious councils in Israel, with approximately 35 employing a municipal mikvah supervisor. In nearly all of them, the prerequisite for the position is passing the Rabbinate’s exam on the laws of Niddah, a standard that automatically excludes women, even though roughly 600,000 women use mikvahs annually.”
He added that such a situation defies common sense. “It is almost unthinkable,” he said, “that a man should oversee a system used exclusively by women. Women should lead, manage, and ensure the proper functioning of the mikvahs. But to do that, they must be allowed to take the threshold exam.”
Rabbi Farber added that he understands the concerns of those who fear a slippery slope, imagining a shift into roles traditionally reserved for men or toward non-Orthodox models. “Yet,” he stressed, “opponents often overlook the significant cost of maintaining the current exclusion, alienating women from halachic life and silencing their voices in the halachic conversation.”
He added that “the situation borders on absurdity. If women can be physicians, pharmacists, professors, and physicists, why can they not be experts in halacha, the very foundation of Orthodox Jewish life? What the community needs are women rigorously certified to the same standards as men.
“This matter is only one example of the challenges ITIM addresses while remaining fully committed to halachic integrity. ITIM’s mission,” he explained, “is to create systemic change in Israel’s religious institutions so they will act respectfully and responsively toward the Jewish public.”
He added that “Rav Kook envisioned a Rabbinate that would draw Jews closer, not push them away. Yet today, more than 78% of Jewish Israelis feel alienated from the religious establishment. ITIM seeks to reverse this trend, both through assisting individual families and by tackling structural flaws in areas such as burial, marriage, registration, and conversion, which is among Israel’s most urgent challenges. About 6% of the Jewish population is not halachically Jewish, many arriving under the Law of Return from the former Soviet Union. These are the people fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, they pay taxes. They tie their fate to ours. Not all want to convert, but those who do deserve a welcoming, halachically sound pathway.”
Studies indicate more than 60% of eligible individuals would convert if the system were more embracing. “For that reason, ITIM established its own conversion court, led by some of Israel’s most respected poskim, including Rav Re’em HaKohen from Otniel, Rabbi Zalman Melamed from Har Bracha, Rabbi Yaakov Medan from Har Etzion, Rabbi David Stav from Shoham, and Rabbi Shmuel Shapira from Kochav Yair.”
Rabbi Farber said that “despite concerns about the word ‘change,’ the greater danger lies in maintaining the current status quo. The Rabbinate’s monopoly over marriage has contributed to a dramatic drop of more than 28% in couples marrying through the Rabbinate. Nearly one-fifth of those opting out cite fear of the rabbinical courts in the event of divorce.”
Rabbi Farber concluded that in a normal reality, “more than 55,000 couples in Israel would marry each year through the Rabbinate. Today, the number hovers around 33,000.” “That is staggering,” he said. “The situation itself demands change. Those afraid of change must be even more afraid of what is happening right now.”