GENTILE PRESIDENT FOR SISTERHOOD

QUESTION:

Ours is a Reform Jewish congregation. A Gentile woman has been vice-president of our sisterhood. She has reared two children as Jewish and kept a Jewish home and worked with great devotion for the temple. May she become president of our sisterhood? (Asked by Rabbi R.J.B.)

ANSWER:

FIRST OF ALL, it must be stated that the congregation and the sisterhood should be grateful to this lady for her years of devoted work for the temple. This needs to be stated because some might imagine that a non-Jew cannot (and may not) properly serve a Jewish congregation. This is not so. The Bible in Isaiah 56:7 speaks of the offerings of non-Jews, which are received “favorably upon Mine altar.” The thought of this Biblical verse is carried on in the Halacha. Provision was constantly made while the Temple was in existence for sacrificial gifts from Gentiles to be accepted and offered.

However, beyond her services, which are to be received gratefully, the question now comes as to whether she may be placed in a position of such leadership as will enable her to help determine the policies of the congregation. This is especially true in congregations in which the presidents of the sisterhoods are ex officio members of the temple boards. But even if this ex officio membership is not the rule in your congregation, the president of the sisterhood as such has authoritative standing and helps to determine congregational policy. Is such a situation bearable from the point of view of Jewish tradition?

It may seem at first that Jewish tradition can have no bearing on this problem because sisterhoods, as separate organizations with officers, were unknown in the Jewish past. But actually there is a relevant attitude revealed in the Jewish legal tradition. This is because the legal tradition worked by analogy, and there is a definite analogy which is applied in the law to congregational officers. This analogy is derived from the Biblical law in Deuteronomy 17:15 as to the appointment of a king: “One from among thy brethren thou shalt set king over thee. Thou mayest not put a foreigner [i.e., a non-Jew] over thee who is not thy brother.” The Talmud, in Yevamos 45b, applies this to the appointment of any congregational officer, and the law then is stated that a man was properly appointed as officer because at least his mother was Jewish. Then the Talmud states it as a general principle that all communal appointments of authority must be “from amongst our brothers.” The proof verse is the verse which I have cited from Deuteronomy. This is embodied in the law in Maimonides, Hilchos Melachim 1:4.

I do not know why this lady has refused to be converted after all these years of devoted work to a Jewish congregation. She may very well have good reasons for her refusal, but nevertheless her refusal has a practical effect nowadays. We are living through a time in which mixed marriages have increased. We would all prefer it if the Gentile partner would become Jewish so that we can have a family of unified faith. This is what we would like to achieve with all intermarriages. But if the president of the sisterhood herself has consistently refused to become Jewish (whatever her good reasons may be), her very presence as president would be an obstacle to one of the important goals of the congregation.

Thus it is clear that the Jewish legal tradition against appointing a non-Jew to a position of congregational authority and influence has, also, practical importance today.