Haviva Ner-David
Posted on | October 27, 2008 | No Comments
Rabbi and activist for equal religious rights for women
When my kids are fighting, I sometimes get impatient and exclaim, “Why can’t you just get along?” In the same way, I feel the Arabs and Jews to be siblings, and I am like a mother figure looking on and saying, “This is ridiculous. Everyone take a deep breath and get along.” It makes me happy to see my children get along, and it would make me very happy to see Arabs and Jews get along.
My dream is for Arabs and Jews to treat each other as human beings. We are created in the image of God. Instead of seeing each other as groups, if we saw each other as individuals and human beings, it would change the situation. We must stop this cycle of hatred, this back-and-forth hurting of each other. We must work for a better world together instead of being angry at the past.
A woman rabbi is an unusual thing in the Orthodox world. How did you become a rabbi?
I was born in New York in an Orthodox Jewish home. When I doing my Masters in Creative Writing in Washington, DC, I got very involved in the Jewish community there. I played some of a rabbi’s roles and found it fulfilling. I did a lot of volunteer teaching, adult education, organizing services, and giving sermons. When I finished my Masters, I realized that I wanted to become a rabbi.
I had to decide what that would mean, because women are not ordained in an institutional way. People told me it wasn’t possible, but I did it. I started to study towards a rabbinical degree in New York and continued my studies in Israel. I found an Orthodox rabbi who gave me ordination.
Is peace possible?
I think it’s possible. If I didn’t, I don’t think I could stay here. I can see what it would look like in my dream, but I can’t see what it would look like in the near future. We’ve really dug ourselves in deep.
I want for Israel to be a true light unto the nations, which I don’t see at the moment—not only regarding peace but on human rights issues. I would like my granddaughters to be able to read Torah at the Western Wall, and women rabbis in all walks of Jewish life to get the respect they deserve.
What does your last name, Ner-David, mean?
It is a combination of my last name and my husband’s. His last name was
Davidson and mine was Krasner. Taking ‘David’ from Davidson and ‘Ner’ from Krasner gave us Ner-David, which means the candle of David. It was important to keep pieces of both of our names and not have one take the other’s name. It was also important to us to Hebracize our family name, as we were moving to Israel.
What is courage?
Courage is to live your ideology and not let people tell you that something you want to do is stupid or doesn’t make sense or is impossible. Also, courage is to admit when you are wrong and to see life for the complex thing it is, to see there are a lot of gray areas.
Women must not be afraid to raise their voices. The men who have run the world haven’t done a very good job. It’s important that women’s voices bring the missing balance to the world. It’s not about women ruling the world, it’s about balance, which means cooperation and tolerance, and men being changed by women and women being changed by men to bring a much larger transformation to the world.
How are you helping to create balance in the world?
After getting ordained, I decided to start the Center for Modern Jewish Marriage, where I organize and run seminars for couples before they married. I see this as part of my role as a spiritual counselor.
Now, I work to increase women’s participation in Jewish ritual, including with Women of the Wall, women who pray once a month or more at the Western Wall. Just praying out loud at the Wall, as women, is a controversial subject, as some people believe the Wall should be an ultra-Orthodox synagogue and in the ultra-Orthodox world, women are supposed to be silent.
I’m also on the board of Rabbis for Human Rights. That is part of my activism in religious feminism because it became increasingly difficult for me to live in this country without trying to bring peace.
Once defining herself as an Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Ner-David now describes herself as “more of a post-denominational Jew.” She is the Founding Director of Reut- Center for modern Jewish marriage, which focuses on controversial issues such as inequality of divorce laws. Ner-David is on the boards of Rabbis for Human Rights and of Women on the Wall, a political action group promoting equal rights for women in prayer.
