Alyssa Sonnenblick <abatblick@gmail.com> asks a number of very important questions when she asks "Outside the classroom, how do we ensure that the pay scales of men and women are equivalent? Many day schools offer higher salaries to faculty members who have academic credentials. But we know that Rabbinic ordination is much easier to get than is a doctorate in Talmud or Jewish Studies. I recently read that one of the women who just received ordination and is working in a non-denominational Jewish institution wrote that she got a pay raise simply for receiving her klaf (diploma of ordination). How do schools make sure that women or cannot be credentialled still get their fair salary?"
Part of the answer to this revolves around parsonage for women teaching limmudai kodesh subjects. Building on work I and many others have done, the first and most important step in this process is to give women teachers of limmudai kodesh parsonage [
avichai.org] . Many schools already do and those that do not are losing a significant financial benefit for themselves and for their faculty. Parsonage is simply a win win all around and my view is that Orthodox women teaching limmudai koshesh are certainly entitled to such.
MJB
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
1301 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322
