Jerusalem – The Chief Rabbinical Council has ruled that religious law does not prevent women from delivering eulogies at funerals, though the council fell short of endorsing the practice.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The council, which resolves questions about halakha, or Jewish religious law, and which is responsible for kashrut certificates and other religious issues, said it is up to the rabbi of each city to decide whether a woman can eulogize her loved one on a case-by-case basis.
“There is no halakhic deterrent to a woman giving a eulogy, and in exceptional cases in which the family’s feelings could be hurt, the matter will be decided by the rabbi of the city,” the council decided last week.
The Satmar Rebbetzin ah eulogized her husband zya (although that is not the practice of the hamon am in Satmar)
They may not, according to halacha, but then again, when do feminism and halacha ever agree anyways? They are as far as apart from each other as they can get.
Why is the matter of a hesped by nashim even a shailah?? There are stories from the alte heim of the wives of many gadolim delivering lengthy hespeds at the laviyah of the their husbands that moved the attendees to tears with their emunah and bitachon and were a source of strength for all the talmidim of the Rav. This is a real bushah to yiddeshe women.
This won’t be enough. Some rabbis will not give permission. This settles nothing.
Hesped? I would be more than grateful if women were allowed at their parents or husbands burial at Har HaZeisim!
The haredi are begging for the reformed rabbis to do hespeds. It shoudn’t even be a shailoh for women to speak.
There is another angle to this. It is that men have to behave themselves and actually listen to what a woman has to say. Not long ago I went to the levayah of a friend’s father, and the daugther of the niftar got up to speak. As she did so, a number of prominent rabbanim in the community left the room. I spoke to her later, and she wasn’t really hurt by that, just saddened to see that that hot shot rabbis would behave this way.