Schechter seminary dean not opting for additional term

Ramon made headlines during her term with her opposition to the ordination of homosexual rabbis at Schechter.

By MATTHEW WAGNER
Rabbi Einat Ramon 88 298 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Rabbi Einat Ramon 88 298
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Rabbi Einat Ramon will not seek another term as dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary (SRS) in Jerusalem, according to an official letter released Sunday to Schechter's board, faculty and students. Ramon will return to full-time teaching and research at the Schechter Institute. In a letter signed by board chairman Rabbi Ismar Schorsch and acting chair of the executive committee Shimon Lipsky, Ramon was praised for "strengthening the Israeli rabbinical program." "Among other things, she tightened up the academic standards of the SRS, recruited an excellent cadre of new students, including students of Sephardic origins and students form the periphery, hired Conservative women rabbis as Talmud and Halacha teachers, founded and developed the only accredited Clinical Pastoral Education program in Israel…, opened the Legacy Heritage Rabbinical Fellows Program which trains rabbinical students to work out in the field, appeared extensively in the media and visited and taught on a regular basis at Masorti synagogues throughout Israel and Europe." The SRS executive committee will appoint a search committee to find a replacement. According to the Schechter Institute Web site, Ramon was the first Israeli-born woman to be ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1989. Ramon made headlines during her term with her opposition to the ordination of homosexual rabbis at Schechter. Her policy came at a time when both the JTS and the American Jewish University in Los Angeles began accepting homosexuals as rabbinical students. In what was seen as a rift between North America and Israel over the homosexual issue, AJULA ended its long-standing residency program with Schechter.