The situation isn’t much different at other schools. Women who have received ordination at Yeshivat Maharat in New York have titles ranging from Rabbanit (at LA’s Bnai David-Judea) and Rabba (at New York’s Hebrew Institute of Riverdale) to Maharat (at Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley).

Ramie Smith, a Maharat graduate who is teaching a sophomore Talmud class at Shalhevet this year, has arrived with no title at all. She was called Rabba at Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, and Head of School Rabbi Ari Segal said it would be up to students to decide what to call her, as long as it was “appropriate.”

“We are not going to be discussing a title this year,” Rabbi Segal wrote in an email to the Shalhevet community June 16. He said the school had decided to have her teach in spite of the controversy, which he acknowledged.

“While we recognize this legitimate point of contention, at this juncture our priority is focused squarely on the quality of our education,” he wrote. “We have made the joint decision that limud ha’Torah should trump the political difficulties.”

Faculty and clergy titles might not matter so much except that “rabbi” is the universal title of authority in Judaism, and at least in our time, there is no other. Those of either gender who don’t have it may seem somehow diminished or “less than,” especially in a culture where titles convey meaning – and sometimes respect – that can’t be put into words.

“I wish titles didn’t matter,” said Rabbi Segal during a Boiling Point news conference in May. “In schools in particular, I think people are overly invested in titles. Titles are very delicate — I don’t mean to be flippant.”

In secular society, the title “Dr.” is comparable, he said.

“There are a million doctors in the world,” Rabbi Segal said. “The title ‘Dr.’just means someone conferred on you the title doctor. Being a rabbi to me means someone conferred on you the title ‘rabbi.’”

Rabbinic ordination, or s’micha (pronounced SMEE-kha), is partly the same way, Rabbi Segal said.

“If you want to do research historically, the notion of s’micha was literally a very specific topic in the Gemara — how it took place and one person gave s’micha to another person,” Rabbi Segal said. “It was a very specific, prescribed process.”

That, he said, is no longer the case.

“The modern-day world has moved away from that,” he said. “There are many different types of s’micha, across all different denominations,” and there are types of s’micha that apply only to kashrut and education. There are a million types of s’micha right now.”

Judaic Studies teacher Rabbi Ari Schwarzberg said the concept has evolved greatly since the original s’micha, when Moshe appointed Yehoshua to succeed him as leader of Israel.

He said that at first, s’micha meant a physical “leaning”; a rabbi would lay his hands on a new rabbi’s shoulders and confer s’micha onto him. Later it turned into appearing before a court of witnesses, in Israel only.  This early, formal s’micha ultimately ended at an unclear time, probably around the fourth or fifth century C.E., and Rabbi Schwarzberg thinks it probably had something to do the destruction of the Second Temple and the ensuing exile.

Eventually, s’micha became more of a graduate degree that is “very similar to a graduate degree that is used for any other discipline,” Rabbi Schwarzberg said. It takes four years to earn s’micha  from Yeshiva University, where most of Shalhevet’s faculty was trained.

“Ordination became something that is formal, to receive a title,” Rabbi Schwarzberg said, “and it certainly was influenced by the rest of the world, [including] the Christian communities.”

Now, the process is complicated throughout the Jewish world. And titles have become the subject of rabbinic analysis, synagogue board meetings, and plenty of Shabbat conversation.

Rabbi Segal said how a person got the title is not the important thing, at least as far as what he is willing to call them.

“If somebody asked me to call them a rabbi, I’d call them a rabbi,” he said. “If they got a s’micha from a school that doesn’t match my hashkafa, I’m still happy to call them Rabbi. I don’t think that it means that I agree.”

At Shalhevet, titles have been conferred by Rabbi Segal in his e-mail announcement to the community of new hires. Rabbis David Stein, David Block, Yagli Tsaidi and Rabbi Schwarzberg were all called Rabbi in these announcements, though only Rabbi Schwarzberg had completed his education and attended the s’micha  ceremony before starting to teach at the school.

Rabbi Schwarzberg received his rabbinic ordination in 2009 from Yeshiva University, then attended the Harvard Divinity School where he earned a Master’s Degree in theological studies.

Rabbi Block earned an M.A. in Jewish History, M.S. in Education and received his rabbinic ordination, all from YU. He completed his rabbinical studies at RIETS, YU’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, in 2015 and is now a doctoral student there.

RIETS holds its ordination ceremony only once every four years. Rabbi Block was formally ordained there this past March, along with Rabbi Stein; both had finished their studies during the past four years.

Rabbi Stein arrived at Shalhevet in the fall of 2012, after graduating from Yeshiva University in 2009 and receiving his Master’s Degree in engineering from Columbia in 2011.

Rabbi Tsaidi is working on his ordination under the supervision of Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg in Israel. He graduated from the Farber Hebrew Day School, also known as Akiva, in Detroit in 2009 and then attended Yeshivat Hakotel for two years. He then graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology from YU.

He said that he’s “not fully comfortable” with being called Rabbi, seeing as he does not have his s’micha  yet.

“I’d ideally like to have my smicha as soon as possible,” Rabbi Tsaidi.

Rabbi Tsaidi says he studied every night and just this month passed the test for his s’micha, and will soon visit Israel to formally receive his ordination.

 S’micha  he said, confers the authority to answer halachic questions – that is, matters of Jewish law, and he hopes to have his by the end of the year.

“Even David Hamelech [King David] said that when he learned one thing from someone, that person became a rabbi,” Rabbi Tsaidi said in an interview last spring. “Anyone who teaches you should have the respect of a rabbi— s’micha or not. To ask halakhic questions, you should go to someone with s’micha.”

Dr. Weissman agreed.

“Historically people who teach Torah, specifically men who teach Torah, were always called Rabbi regardless of if they had gone through the process of signing and ordination,” Dr. Weissman said.

Rabbi Segal said he decided to call Rabbi Tsaidi rabbi because he was already planning to get s’micha. 

“Rather than switching the title, we felt like he was in this process,” Rabbi Segal said. “He was just starting it but he was in that process, so we called him Rabbi Tsaidi.”

Dr. Weissman, before he finished his doctorate, was always called Reb Weissman or Reb Noam, choosing “Reb” over Rabbi because getting s’micha was never in his plans.

According to Shalhevet Judaic teacher Rabbi Abraham Lieberman, reb a yiddish word short for rebbe and is the equivalent to mister or sir.

After graduating from Beth Tfiloh in 2003, Dr. Weissman attended Yeshiva Mevaseret in Jerusalem for two years, and then studied history at YU, graduating in 2008. He spent some time at Yeshivat Hakotel in Israel, and then he received a Master’s Degree from YU in Jewish Education in 2012.

“I’m in Jewish education,” said Dr. Weissman. “I think in many ways s’micha  is not relevant for a high school educator. It can be relevant, but it’s not always relevant.”

Now that he has his Ed.D. – received in June from USC — Dr. Weissman wants the students to decide what he is called.

“I don’t care what they call me,” he said in an interview.

Compared to other Jewish high schools, Shalhevet is unique in some ways and typical in others. Last spring, the Boiling Point reached out to eight Orthodox schools and one synagogue around the U.S.

Most, including YULA Boys and Girls high schools in Los Angeles and Frisch Academy in New Jersey, did not return messages or emails — perhaps a sign of the difficulty.

There was also one school that returned a phone call and asked not included in this story because its officials planned to revisit the topic of titles in discussions over the summer.

But four schools that did reply said all current faculty who were being called rabbi had completed their rabbinic training and acquired s’micha.

At Beth T’filoh High School in Baltimore, MD – a community school and Reb Weissman’s alma mater – some male teachers were called rabbi in the past even though they were still in rabbinical school.  

Rabbi Mordechai Soskil, the school’s Director of Judaic Studies, said right now all their rabbis have s’micha – that is, formal ordination and a certificate that says so. He wasn’t sure why it was different in the past, but he thought it had to do with convenience.

“They were already in a s’micha program, so it’s easier not have to switch in the minds of the kids,” Rabbi Soskil said. “It was easier this way, that’s my hunch.”

Most of the female teachers at Beth T’filoh go by Ms. or Morah, though the school has just hired a graduate of Yeshivat Maharat who will be called Rabbanit, Rabbi Soskil said.

At Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago, the alma mater of Rabbi Stein, Tanakh department chair Ms. Beth Kirshner said that most female teachers go by Miss or Mrs., but that there is the occasional teacher who goes by Rebbetzin – which traditionally means that she is a rabbi’s wife.

“[Titles] are based on preference and level of education,” said Ms. Kirshner. “If someone will be called a rabbi, he has to have s’micha.  If somebody wants to be called Dr., they have to have a some type Ph.D. or other doctorate degree.”

At Ramaz High School in New York City, all women teachers are called Ms., including women who have completed the Yoetzet Halacha program, according to Ms. Miriam Krupka, Ramaz’s Dean of Faculty.

Ms. Krupka, who was formerly a teacher and Tanakh department chair, said the only exceptions are those who have doctorates, who are called Doctor.

“When I came 11 years ago, I was Ms. Krupka and all of the other female faculty basically were Ms. as well, and that’s kind of the way it went,” said Ms. Krupka.

“I don’t know why that is or how that came about,” she said. “I do know that I liked it when I first got there. There was kind of objective status that I think I appreciated.”

Ms. Krupka said all the rabbis at Ramaz have s’micha, and male Judaic faculty members are either known as Mr., Rabbi, or Dr., depending on their education.

Ms. Wilner – definitely being introduced as Ms. this year — attended high school at SAR (Salanter Akiba of Riverdale, N.Y.) and then did a gap year at the rigorous seminary Michlelet Mevaseret Yerushalayim in the Emek Refaim neighborhood of Jerusalem.

She went on to Stern College of Yeshiva University, earning a bachelor’s degree in Judaic Studies before enrolling in GPATS, where women study Gemara and Halakha from nine in the morning until 5:30 p.m.

She chose GPATs, she said, because it was the only Orthodox advanced women’s learning program that focuses on Talmud while not ordaining its graduates to serve as clergy.

“We have the ability to learn and to know everything that an actual rabbi knows, it just happens to be that the time frame of the program is only two years,” Ms. Wilner said, as opposed to the four years at RIETS. “We are as prepared, we have the knowledge, we have the skill, we have the training; we also have YU backing us.

“It’s really cool, a lot of girls on the program don’t go into Jewish education or even Jewish communal work — people just view it as an amazing opportunity,” Ms. Wilner said.

In an ideal world with politics aside, Ms. Wilner would prefer to be called Rabbanit because of the respect it carries.

She said that in Israel, female members of Beit Hillel — a learning movement that encourages women’s leadership –  go by the title of Rabbanit, but that’s because in Israel Rabbanit is used interchangeably with Rebbitzin, a rabbi’s wife, making it less controversial.

“Am I qualified to be a rabbanit?” she said. “I don’t know what makes someone a rabbanit. It also carries a lot of weight.”

Some people still call her Chachama. Alumnus Alec Fields ’17 said he called her that out of habit, while junior Bailey Mendelson still calls her Chachama because that’s how she remembers Ms. Wilner introducing herself.  Fellow junior Eliana Cohen thought that was what Ms. Wilner wanted to be called.

For now, Ms.Wilner is happy with the title she has.  She will be teaching 9th and 10th Tanach and 12th-grade Talmud this year, as well as co-leading Student Activities with Rabbi Tsaidi.

It was not clear on the day before school started what Ramie Smith would be called, and she had so far declined to discuss her views on the subject.

Rabbi Tsaidi will have his smicha soon, and Dr. Weissman, like Ramie Smith, is waiting to see what the students decide.

So while titles themselves – and the education behind them – may be changing, what is likely to endure is the uncertainty surrounding them — and in Shalhevet’s case, the emphasis on providing good Jewish educators, titles aside.