France will count from Sunday a fourth female rabbi, Danièla Touati, who will practice in Lyon in September and intends to "develop liberal Judaism" and gender equality in this religion.
Danièla Touati will receive rabbinical ordination at the West London Synagogue after completing her five years of study at liberal liberal college Leo Baeck in London. Aged 53, this former controller, who was then marketing manager and finally consultant in the field of recruitment and skills assessment, will start her new job at the end of August at the Keren Or liberal synagogue in Lyon, which has some 170 employees. member families. She will become the fourth female rabbi in France, after Pauline Bebe, Delphine Horvilleur and Floriane Chinsky.
The liberal movement, largely dominant in the Anglo-Saxon world, but minority in France, is in favor of an open vision of Judaism. Unlike the traditionalists and Orthodox who consider that entrusting the rabbinate to a woman is not in accordance with Jewish law, the halakha, the liberal Jews believe that women have as many rights as men in all areas.
"Contribute to the development of liberal Judaism in France"
For ten years, "I held several positions (secretary, treasurer, and president) in the Keren Or synagogue, and realized that I really wanted to go to the other side and become a rabbi," she says. It is "better to accompany the families of this synagogue", she said, also wishing "to contribute to the development of liberal Judaism in France", which is "very late compared to the Anglo-Saxon world", added Danièle Touati. What seduced her in this movement? "Above all, equality between men and women," she answers.
Born in Romania, daughter of two survivors of the Holocaust, Danièla Touati lived in Israel part of her childhood, before arriving in France at the age of 11 years. She is married to a man of Sephardic origin and has two children.
In June, an international meeting of women, rabbis and teachers from the United States, Israel, France, took place in Troyes, a first in France. The question of a greater place for these women in Judaism was at the heart of the discussions. There are in all about a thousand rabbi women in the world. Some 800 practicing in the United States, fifty in Europe, the rest in Israel.