Toanot Rabbaniyot,
[Israel-Cohen, Y. (2012). Chapter Three: Methodology. In Between Feminism and Orthodox Judaism (pp. 27-46). Brill.] or
Toanot (, "Women Rabbinical Advocates"),
[The role is sometimes referred to as Toanot Beth Din.] refer to women who serve as legal advocates and representatives within the traditional
Beth Din.
Toanot typically argue cases on behalf of female claimants in the areas of divorce law. The tendency for women to receive unfair divorce settlements in Israeli rabbinical courts prompted the introduction of the Women Rabbinical Advocates.
[Bak, N., & Goldman, Y. (2000). Resting Our Case: Toanot Beit Din.] The innovation of
Toanot has allowed women to practice
Halakha expertise in a role that does not require rabbinical ordination.
[Dunaevsky, M. I. (2012). the Twenty-First Century. The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism, 514.][Greenberg, B. (1998). Orthodox Feminists: What Do Our Numbers Mean?. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 16(4), 71-74.][Israel-Cohen, Y. (2012). Jewish Modern Orthodox women, active resistance and synagogue ritual. Contemporary Jewry, 32(1), 3-25.]
Development
In the early 1990s,
Open Orthodoxy Rabbi
Shlomo Riskin issued a challenge in Israel's High Court to the laws that prevented women from serving as advocates in the rabbinical court. The ruling was made in Riskin's favor and subsequently, Riskin established the first program for the training of women advocates in the religious courts. Graduates of the program are trained in Jewish law (
Halacha) pertaining to women's rights in marriage and divorce proceedings. Their primary role is to defend the rights of women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce (
agunot) in religious court proceedings, helping them to secure a religious divorce (
get).
[Jewish religious law: a progressive perspective. John D. Rayner. p. 176][SEZGIN, Y. (2012). Triangulating Reform in Family Law. SELF-DETERMINATION, 243.]
Supporters of the change argue that the introduction of women advocates have helped rabbinical rulings to be more impartial, and not favor men over women.[Abramowitz, L. (2004). Women Advocates Make Their Mark. Jewish Action Online, 65(2).]
See also
