In 1953, a Jewish School Asked a Rabbi a Question. Why Didn’t It Follow His Now-Famous Answer?

By the 1950s, even the most Orthodox of Jews had accepted that girls should receive formal education in religious texts. At the same time, most Orthodox schools, whether modern or haredi, provided girls with instruction in the Hebrew Bible and practical ritual law, but not in Talmud. The latter text and its associated works, known collectively as the “oral Torah” as they were based on what were once word-of-mouth traditions, were exclusively the preserve of men. In 1953, Rabbi Leonard Rosenfeld, on behalf of a school called the Hebrew Institute of Long Island (HILI), asked Joseph B. Soloveitchik, then one of America’s greatest rabbis, for his view on teaching the Talmud to women. Joseph C. Kaplan, who knew Rosenfeld personally, writes: