In the Fall 2008 issue of the popular RJJ Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society there was an exchange that I want to share with you. In the previous issue, Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz, Rabbi of the Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere and Rebbi in DRS, wrote an article about co-education. Rabbi Yaakov Blau, Talmud Department Chair at the Frisch School sent a letter offering a (limited) defense of co-education. The exchange is interesting, and I recommend reading it in its entirety.
My point concerns their exchange about the Rav’s (Rav Yosef Dov Soloveichik) position. Rabbi Blau argued that since he strongly advocated teaching women Gemara in a serious way, “[t]he only separate school that I know of in America that does give women the same Gemara opportunities as afforded to women in coed schools is Maayanot in Teaneck, a model that has, sadly, yet to be copied. Given that reality the Rav’s argument for allowing coeducation to prevent an inferior education still holds true.”
Rabbi Lebowitz offers a point-by-point rebuttal to Rabbi Blau’s many points. In his response to his point about the Rav, he states that “Rabbi Blau argues that Rav Soloveitchik held the need for women to be educated at the highest possible levels to be paramount. Rabbi Blau correctly identifies one of the very few single gender schools which actually live up to Rav Soloveichick’s high demands for women’s education.”
In a fascinating dialogue in which the two disagree on almost everything, they agree that Ma’ayanot is the only (or one of the only, I’d be curious to know what other schools Rabbi Lebowitz had in mind) school successfully putting the Rav’s vision in to action. I think we have a lot to be proud of.
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