Gender Norms and the Clergy

SR Fellow Joshua Stanton, a third-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York, was inspired by a recent SRF program with Rabbi Joanna Samuels, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community to write an article that appeared in the Tikkun Daily and the Huffington Post about gender norms and the Jewish community.

"Archetypes for men and women – and especially clergy – press us to conform to the norms dictated by our genders. People want religious leaders to look, sound, and seem familiar," Stanton writes. "But if rabbinic leadership requires authenticity, then I, like so many others, must be allowed to lead from within the gray space I live in, between the overgeneralized norms that seldom apply to anyone."

Read the full article here.