My bar mitzvah ceremony was held at Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in 1966. I vaguely remember that there was a question then concerning the seven people to be given the honor of being called to the bimah to chant the blessings during the Torah reading portion of the service.
The problem was whether to call my father, Robert Cohen, or paternal grandfather, Nat Cohen, for the first blessing.
The issue involved the fact that my paternal grandfather, father and I were supposedly Kohanim, descendants of the priests that served in the Temples of ancient Israel.
According to Jewish tradition, a Kohen must be called for the first blessing, called the first aliyah; and a Levite, a descendant of the tribe that assisted the Kohanim, must be called second.
The others are supposed to be Israelites, that is, from the general population of Jews who are neither Kohanim nor Levi’im — with the sole exception of the seventh, who at b’nai mitzvah celebrations is the celebrant and who could be a Kohen or Levite.
So the problem was that if my grandfather were called first, my father could not be called after the Levite, and vice versa. I don’t recall how the issue was resolved.
But one thing is certain; nobody at Beth Israel in 1966 considered whether my feminist paternal aunt, Gene Boyer, as the daughter of a Kohen, even could have been given that first aliyah.
The status and privileges of Kohen or Levite were — and in the Orthodox and traditional Conservative communities still are — considered to pass from father to son.
That is not the case throughout the Conservative movement today. Last month, Beth Israel Center, the Conservative synagogue in Madison, announced in its synagogue bulletin that it is “going to make a change in how we implement the concept of bat Kohen (daugher of a Kohen) and bat Levi (daughter of a Levi).”
“Going forward,” the announcement continued, daughters of Kohanim and Levi’im “will function exactly the same within the synagogue as Kohanim and Levi’im — they will be able to have either the Kohen aliyah or the Levi aliyah on an equal basis.”
Since 1989
Rabbi Joshua Ben-Gideon, spiritual leader of Beth Israel Center, said in a telephone interview that conferring such status on daughters of Kohanim and Levi’im in Conservative synagogues has been theoretically possible since 1989.
In that year, Conservative Rabbi Joel Roth wrote a responsum, “The Status of Daughters of Kohanim and Leviyim for Aliyot,” that the movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards passed by a vote of seven in favor, seven opposed and two abstaining.
This document can be read online at the Rabbinical Assembly’s Web site. In it, Roth argued from a variety of Jewish legal sources that “it seems reasonable and proper … that the daughters of priests and of Levites be accorded the same aliyot that are normally accorded to priests and Levites. This should be the case whether they are single or married.”
According to Ben-Gideon, at Beth Israel Center “there had been the possibility” of congregants who were daughters of Kohanim or Levi’im to be called for those aliyot, but only if no male Kohen or Levi was present.
However, “there had been people asking about it” in the congregation, and Ben-Gideon felt that now was the time to make the full change.
“I felt that this was a more appropriate way for our congregation to observe the idea of Kohen and Levi, given the ethos of the congregation, which is very egalitarian, but also very traditional,” he said.
Ben-Gideon also said that the transition in his synagogue has been “seamless; we haven’t had any negative reaction at all.”
However, there are some in the synagogue who “wanted to go further and eliminate” the Kohen-Levi-Israel distinction altogether, he said.
In fact, he said that Conservative synagogues through the country have made choices along a continuum. Some follow Roth’s view, some don’t observe the distinction at all, and “some do it in the traditional male only way.”
In fact, there seem to be different approaches to this matter in Wisconsin’s other Conservative synagogues.
Temple Menorah is often grouped with Milwaukee’s Conservative synagogues, even though it does not belong to the movement and defines itself as “Traditional.” According to Rabbi Gil-Ezer Lerer, this synagogue upholds tradition in not giving any women aliyot for Torah blessings.
At Congregation Beth Israel today, daughters of Kohanim and Levi’im have been receiving aliyot for “at least a year,” according to CBI spiritual leader Rabbi Jacob Herber.
The issue there arose because the daughter of a Levite “wanted to be called up in that way,” Herber said. So the synagogue adopted the practice with no apparent objections from congregants. “It’s been a non-event,” said Herber.
At Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue in Mequon, “In the daily minyan, we are more flexible than in Shabbat and festival minyanim with regard to having a Bat Kohen and Bat Levi called up for those honors,” said Rabbi Yitzchak Berman, Beth El’s spiritual leader.
But in any event, “There has not been much of a demand” for daughters of Kohanim and Levi’im “to be called in those places,” Berman said.
In La Crosse, Congregation Sons of Abraham has been gender egalitarian since 1992, according to spiritual leader Rabbi Saul (Simcha) Prombaum.
Nevertheless, “for the time being” it has “decided to honor the traditional method of the patriarchal nature of the priestly and levitical office” as long as this small congregation has male Kohanim and Levi’im, Prombaum said in a telephone interview.
If in the future the congregation finds itself without male Kohanim or Levi’im, then it will not make any such distinctions, but open all the aliyot to the whole congregation, male and female, he said.
By press time, Rabbi Shaina Bacharach of Congregation Cnesses Israel in Green Bay had not returned Chronicle calls.
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