Maharat’s mission is to educate, ordain, and invest in passionate and committed Orthodox women who model a dynamic Judaism to inspire and support individuals and communities.
Brooke Pollak has co-chaired her synagogue’s Women’s Tefillah group and has been a frequent Gaba’it for their services. She has also worked with families to plan for, practice, and facilitate meaningful s’machot for numerous B’not Mitzvah. Brooke has also been active in her community’s partnership minyan. Brooke earned her bachelor’s degree in Judaic Studies from Yale and her law degree from NYU School of Law. During and after her undergraduate years, Brooke studied at Drisha and Pardes.
Our students and graduates teach, give divrei Torah, officiate at life-cycle events, counsel couples, and visit patients and families. More than 50 communities, including shuls, schools, Hillels, and communal organizations, have benefited from our leadership.
Maharat grants women semikha to serve as fully credentialed spiritual and halakhic leaders. Ordination follows a rigorous program of study and proven mastery of Jewish law, Talmud, Torah, Jewish thought, leadership, and pastoral counseling.
Graduates of Maharat are conferred with “toreh toreh”—a decisor of Jewish law, giving psak halakha. We encourage our graduates to use the professional title most appropriate to them, in consultation with the communities they serve.
Maharat was founded as the first yeshiva to ordain women to serve as Orthodox clergy, after the ordination of Rabba Sara Hurwitz by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Daniel Sperber.
Maharat was founded as the first yeshiva to ordain women to serve as Orthodox clergy, after the ordination of Rabba Sara Hurwitz by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Daniel Sperber.
Maharat was founded as the first yeshiva to ordain women to serve as Orthodox clergy, after the ordination of Rabba Sara Hurwitz by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Daniel Sperber.
Maharat was founded as the first yeshiva to ordain women to serve as Orthodox clergy, after the ordination of Rabba Sara Hurwitz by Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Daniel Sperber.
Rabba Amy Newman teaches middle school Jewish Studies at Schechter Boston in Newton, Massachusetts, where she also coaches teachers and coordinates the Jewish Studies curriculum. Previously, Rabba Amy taught at Gann Academy: The New Jewish High School of Greater Boston, and at The Ramaz School. During her 16 years teaching in Jewish day schools, Rabba Amy has taught every grade from kindergarten
July 14, 2026
At the start of Parshat Devarim, Moshe begins his final speech to Bnei Yisrael, listing the many places that they traveled to in their time in the wilderness. The Sifrei highlights that these spaces are not randomly chosen but mark some of the nation’s most difficult moments in which they angered Hashem (Sifrei Devarim 1:1)....
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October 9, 2015
Imagine a world without famine and war, without stress and work. This is the Paradise—the Garden of Eden before Adam and Chava ate from the eitz hada’at, the tree of knowledge. Yet, although the Garden of Eden seems ideal, is it a state to which we strive to return? As glorious as the Garden of...
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October 1, 2016
The other night I went to see “Wicked”. It is a prequel to the story of Wizard of Oz. A play showing the audience how Galinda the good witch and Elfaba the “wicked witch of the west” were really friends, and that perhaps the wicked witch of the west, wasn’t so wicked after all. Throughout...
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July 8, 2026
Tucked into Parshat Masei, after the recounting of the many places to which the Israelites traveled in their forty-year sojourn, in Numbers 33:38, the Torah offers a new detail about Aaron’s death not included in the earlier narrative in Numbers 20. Here, the Torah tells us that Aaron died at God’s word—“al pi Hashem”—a phrase...
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