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continued from page 12

that will be good. This goes for any
new rabbi who comes into town. He is
no different,” says the other rabbi.

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The announcement that Lopatin
accepted a new position in Detroit has
been met with equal parts excitement
and vilification. Detroit’s “black hat”
Orthodox community (so-called for
the black hats worn by men) has held
at least one forum to decry his posi-
tions — it equated “Open Orthodoxy”
to “neo-Conservatism” — and his
arrival has sparked a spate of vitriolic
(and mostly anonymous) letters to
the editor at the Jewish News, one of
them calling for him to resign from
the Orthodox rabbinate. Other critics
have come forward publicly, most to
question his Orthodox bona fides.
Rabbi Simcha Klein of Ahavas
Olam Weingarden Torah Center in
Southfield wrote in an email for this
story that “Asher Lopatin’s positions
are not those of an Orthodox rabbi
and he is misleading the public.”
There was “strong interest” among
the local Orthodox rabbinate to
release a “united public statement”
rejecting Lopatin’s positions as
not being Orthodox, Klein wrote.
Ultimately, they dismissed the idea
to avoid “unwanted controversy and
public strife.”
“More importantly, many of the
rabbis felt that since some of Asher
Lopatin’s positions are so beyond the

pale of Orthodoxy,
and this matter has
already been vet-
ted and settled on
a national level, he
does not even war-
rant a public reac-
tion from the local
Rabbi Elimelech
organized Orthodox
Silberberg
rabbinate,” Klein
wrote.
Rabbi Elimelech Silberberg of the
Sara and Morris Tugman Bais Chabad
Torah Center of West Bloomfield
said his concern is that Lopatin “will
generate much murkiness in the
Jewish community with regard to the
Orthodox Jewish positions in many
areas of life.”
In the Orthodox world, which has
drifted rightward both religiously and
politically for the past two decades,
Lopatin is seen as an outsider, even a
dangerous one. Along with Weiss, who
started Yeshivat Maharat in New York
to train and ordain women to become
Orthodox clergy, he embraces a more
inclusive view of Jewish law.
Lopatin and other rabbis look-
ing for a more inclusive rabbinic
association when it seemed clear
the RCA would not accept YCT
members in their ranks joined
the International Rabbinical
Fellowship, which accepts women
clergy.
While Lopatin declined to discuss
the positions that have come under

continued on page 16

14

June 21 • 2018

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