This Week Songs For Sopranos Women rabbis celebrate 16 years of Conservative ordination. JULIE WIENER Jewish Telegraphic Agency Click on our new website. Now you can • Check Availability • Book Your Date • And Sneak A Preview TONE-e Creative Video's New Location i Convienently. Located at Star TraxdEvent Productions 24463 Ten Mile Rd Southfield 48034 (248) 223-9300 , if* icitlitak". Since 1986 STEVEN TARNOW, C.R. (248) 626-5603 PREFERRED BUILDING CO. Fax Building Quality Into Every Project With Unmatched Personal Service. Featuring Andersen Windows Licensed fic Insured INF REMOOF LNG INDUSIRT IS NOW A PARTNER NORTHWEST AIRLINES . Mi lesAbove- Now you can get a great deal on top-of-the-line Carrier 90 Plus Heating Equipment and save on your utility bills all year! MVP .A74 -':- (248) 335-4555 • arrier CUSTOM NAME INDOOR WaTilel - www.sunheating.com Earn Northwest Airlines WorldPerks® MilesAbove' .Bonus Miles. 2/2 2001 18 S 248-932-0950 Residential & Commercial Remodeling NARK New York treaming down the hallway from the Jewish Theological Seminary cafeteria Sunday night came an unusual sound: 100 female voices, undisturbed by tenor or bass, joyously singing the blessing after meals. Not only did all the voices belong to women, but almost all belonged to rabbis or rabbinical students. It was a significant moment in a Conservative movement where women comprise less than 10 percent of the rabbinical pool, and where the deci- sion to ordain women 16 years ago came only after long and divisive debate. Gathered from around the United States and Israel, the rabbis were cele- brating their growing numbers — now more than 120 -- and the influence they believe they are having on the movement. "You have to know that your pres- ence has transformed the Jewish world," Francine Klagsbrun said in a keynote address. Klagsbrun, a writer, was one of the members of the 1985 commission that recommended female ordination. H.A. SUN HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING CO Northwest Airlines WorldPerks• Bonus Miles will be awarded in the form of MilesAbove° mileage. You must be a member of the Northwest Airlines WorldPerks program to redeem miles earned through MilesAbove. Additional restrictions apply. Witness Question The two-day conference, which was for women only and was mostly closed to the press, combined study of Jewish texts, workshops on "nurturing our- selves" as individuals and spiritual lead- ers, and lively dancing to the music of Mikveh, a female klezmer band. In the hallways, participants talked of their victories and ongoing chal- • lenges and swapped news about their children. One of the highest remaining barri- ers they face is the Conservative move- ment's refusal to recognize women as witnesses in marriage, conversion or divorce. That issue, which was not on the conference agenda but was discussed in the halls, is currently under discussion by the movement's law committee. It appears to be widely flouted by women rabbis. Several women at the conference said they already serve as witnesses, which does not pose a problem for their communities. Others said they hope the law committee will rule in their favor. The witness question was one of several raised informally in signs post- ed on a pillar in the lobby, with answers scrawled in crayon. Most respondents wrote that they serve as witnesses, but make sure to inform their congregants of the "implications" — the fact that some people may not recognize a ceremony with female witnesses as valid. Among other questions on the pil- lar: "Does your spouse play a rebbetzin" — using the word for a rabbi's wife -- "role in your profes- i onal life?" (Answers ranged from "Heck no," to "They sent me home so he could build the sukkah"); "What stereotypes have you encountered?" ("Young, cute, sexy;" "The best part of having you for a rabbi is I get to kiss you"); "Why/why not do you wear a yarmulke and tefillin?" Many congregations remain appre- hensive about hiring women rabbis, and balancing a perpetually on-call career with family life is difficult. Rabbi Avis Miller, of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., said women rabbis may ultimately per- suade synagogues to treat them like doctors who have practices. Instead of expecting each rabbi to be available around the clock, she said, synagogues with more than one rabbi may simply ensure that one rabbi is on call at all times, freeing others to spend time with their families. Times Change Those rabbis around long enough to remember the last conference corn- memorating Conservative women rab- bis — in 1995 — said the mood has changed markedly in just six years. At that 10th anniversary of female ordination, said Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin of Am Yisrael Conservative Congregation in subur- ban Chicago, the debate over whether or not to ordain women was revisited SOPRANOS on page 24