Talk:Women rabbis and Torah scholars/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Nominator: I.am.a.qwerty (talk · contribs) 13:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: ProfGray (talk · contribs) 17:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Initial comments, revised

These comments were floated on the Talk page and then revised:

Criterion #1. Overall, the article looks great. I would have to read more closely for the MOS. Prose is approx 4,800 words which is manageable, though it'd be wise to plan for some separate articles. Organization, formatting, wikilinks -- looks strong. Wording can be tightened (e.g., some as ambiguous in places). Writing in spots needs to shift out of the present tense. Would benefit from copyediting and arguably reduce excessive detail. Need to use a consistent citation method, per the MOS:FNNR.

However, there's a layout or structure problem. Isn't most of the "historical background" section about non-Orthodox (or Progressive) movements? Accordingly, shouldn't the Modern history and Development sections be merged? While this would require reorganizing, it would avoid significant redundancies and confusion. (For instance, why put Neumark under 1920 rather than the Reform developments section?)

Another initial concern is the lead. The first sentence does not mention "Torah scholars," a term used in the 4th sentence but not defined in the lead (or elsewhere?). While written with NPOV prose, the first para has a disproportionate emphasis on Orthodoxy.

The lead section also does not mention the Biblical / Talmudic and medieval sections. While those sections are problems (see #3), if kept then their gist should be in the lead.

Criterion #2 Factual. Glancing thru 200+ footnotes, amazing array of RS. I would need to spot check to verify. Caught my eye -- I do wonder if the "around 87*" for Orthodoxy is properly encyclopedic or might be seen as original research (an NPOV issue).

Criterion #3 Broad coverage, certainly impressive. The article need not be comprehensive. Sample gap -- Hebrew College and AJR rabbis.

However, one serious concern is that the title probably should not include "Torah scholars."

This term will not help clarify the scope of the article because there are so many women who are Judaism or Torah scholars, yet outside the scope here. For example, "Torah scholars" could include professors and other scholars of Bible and Judaism, as well as numerous Orthodox teachers/scholars who deliberately do not use rabbinic-style titles.

Plus, the term is not used regularly (or consistently) by reliable sources, either for men or women, so it will undermine the article. There is a relevant paragraph in the Orthodoxy section, but limited to Orthodoxy afaik.

Still, I understand that the article was renamed to include Torah scholars because of Orthodox women with similar roles yet not "rabbis" per se. One option: Rename the article as Women rabbis and Jewish clergy. Another option: Restore title of Women rabbis and keep the Alternative Orthodox approaches section about Orthodox women with various clergy titles (and similar content in the North America subsection).

I'd suggest that the Biblical paragraphs be deleted (or merged into another article), since Biblical characters are not part of rabbinical Judaism, from a neutral perspective. Also, if "Torah scholars" is removed from the scope, then paragraphs on Talmudic and medieval women can be (mostly) deleted, or moved into a future article on Women Torah scholars).

Criterion #4 NPOV. Overall, NPOV is strong at the sentence/paragraph level. Still, there are points where the article comes across as implying that it's good for there to be women rabbis. (E.g., "the complex problem of women in the rabbinate may be dealt with...")

However, there's a serious imbalance without enough explanation of opposition to the ordination of women. It's covered only(?) in the N. America subsection of Orthodoxy. Seems like the detailed history is all about ordaining and nearly always silent about the opposition from all movements, e.g., before 1960s.

Criterion #5 Stable -- yes, which is amazing.

Criterion #6 Amazing images. I'd have to spot check.

Overall, there's an incredible amount work put into this article. I realize I am pointing to a few serious concerns, above. Nonetheless, I would love to see this article get to GA.

Discussion of initial comments

Hello @ProfGray, Thank you for providing an extremely thorough review. I will try to do justice to the hard work you put in here, so I will respond to these issues as they are resolved and/or after I've given the matter a bit of thought.

1. Page Name: The religious leadership categories of women rabbis and women Torah scholars are overlapping concepts. This approach follows the evidence in the scholarly literature that examines the history of women in the rabbinate and includes the women who "almost" became rabbis, as well as historical antecedents (Deborah, etc.). Following your comments, I have adjusted the lead to reflect this a bit more. The main concern I want to avoid is splitting the article in two and risking a WP:Fork as all the early history (challenges, early examples) as well as the main modern developments pertain to both categories of religious leader. Furthermore, the notion that you can delete the biblical examples from a page on rabbinic Judaism falls short as these examples are part of a continous tradition and they are used to justify women in the rabbinate. To be clear, if there was a women Torah scholar page, it would need to duplicate the material on the early women who went to rabbinical school (Martha Neumark, Regina Jonas, etc). And the women rabbi page would still need to include the history of early women Torah scholars who are cited as evidence to allow women to be ordained. I think the analogy would be if one proposed to split the Women in medicine page into two along the lines of title or accreditation.
2. Balance of Orthodox and other denominations: The article as it stands represents a major shift from much of its earlier edit history which placed much, much more attention to Orthodox opposition and contained hardly any material on many of the early 1900s women whose efforts mark the shift in the non-Orthodox denominations. Additionally, the Orthodox situation requires more room to explain the 3 main positions: Yes to ordination, yes to alternate titles, or no to both (but yes to private scholarship), and that the last two positions are no longer found in non-Orthodox denominations. In terms of the balance of the historical background section, its also important to note that any historical antecedent of women as Torah scholars prior to the creation of Reform Judaism represents an example for traditional/Orthodox Judaism. The trouble is that modern examples have more details and sources, thereby the modern section is larger. I estimate roughly 2x the size of the pre-modern section. And put this way, the balance is 1/3 pre-modern (and thereby traditionalist/Orthodox), and 2/3 modern (mostly Reform and Conservative), which is not a bad balance. I also want to note that Regina Jonas was raised Orthodox and her approach expressed in her thesis retains a strong link to Jewish traditionalism. In other words, the denominational lines can get blurry. The emphasis on Orthodox does not overwhlem the page (as it once did) and its prominent inclusion is justified.
3. Structure (Denominational Section): I admit I have struggled with this one. I had considered merging all material along historical lines, but that would mean confusing the reader who would be jumping back and forth between denominations and would lose track of the internal denominational development. On the other hand, I wanted to place an emphasis on making this page appear as a women's history and not an institutional one (its about Jewish women and their various attempts to enter the rabbinate). For that reason, Martha Nuemark needs to be in the general history and not solely in a Reform section. Altough, at one point I thought that the 3 big movements might warrant their own pages (not something I want to pursue), or to merge some of the content into the relevant denominational page (not sure that's worth the trouble). But I found material on the developments in different countries that represent their own mini-timelines (and now there's a tension between organising based on history, denomination, and geography) and I wanted this information reflected in the main women rabbis and torah scholars page. On the other hand, the denominational lines are not quite as hard as similar divides in other religions, and in some Jewish communities, the non-Orthodox are blurred into one bloc. I'm still undecided if the current setup is really much worse that these other approaches, but I will see if its not too much trouble to restructure some aspects.
4. Lead section now includes insterted references to biblical, talmudic, and medieval examples.

In the meantime, I will have a look through some more items you have raised and I will try to address these one at a time. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 10:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed reply. Here are some of my thoughts:

Page name. The terms are "overlapping," as you say, but in a particular way: Women rabbis are a subset of all women Torah scholars. ^{(Unless some women rabbis have no knowledge of Torah.)} So there need not be a risk of a POV fork. There could be an article on women Torah scholars, which can include an abbreviated synopsis of women rabbis and a link to the women rabbis article. Typical parent > child article relationship.

You wrote that biblical women are [1] "part of a continous tradition and [2] they are used to justify women in the rabbinate." Exactly: I see these as 2 religious claims, not as encyclopedic statements. The current article itself refers to characterizations of biblical women by rabbinic (i.e., religious) sources. Accordingly, these religious claims would properly belong in a section such as Debate over women rabbis. This section could include justifications, such as the notion that it's a continuous tradition, as well as the variety of evolving Orthodox and non-Orthodox opposition arguments. These justifications should cite modern authors who refer to Talmudic characterizations, rather than in Wikipedia's voice (which would come across as WP:OR original research). I'd be tempted to put the debate before all the historical-denominational details, or at least list some key oppositional points in the 2nd lead paragraph, so that readers don't make uninformed assumptions about why there's a history of denying ordination.

Structure. Hi. You wrote, "a women's history and not an institutional one (its about Jewish women and their various attempts to enter the rabbinate)." I don't see the contradiction here. Why can't a history of women be organized within each denomination of the rabbinate they seek to join? There are only a few women who are not associated with any denomination, so they could be in preceding section. (Neumark -- there should just be an editorial choice to place her in one section.) Within denominations, your structure by country is workable. Fwiw, there's a WP effort for a globall perspective and not assuming US POV, so for each denomination there could be an intro sentence, then US (or N America) and Israel, etc.

If you don't want to write a separate article on Reform women rabbis, that's fine, but there's clearly enough content for such an article. (parent > child) So you might as well structure it with that possibility in mind.

Btw, I'd have the Orthodoxy or Orthodox Judaisms as the section heading, given its internal diversity. Anyway, hope these comments are responsive to yours. Best wishes, keep up the good work! ProfGray (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2024 (UTC)