The Women's Torah Project (WTP) was an initiative to have the first Torah scroll scribed entirely by women. The project began in 2003 and was completed in Seattle in 2010. Wendy Graff was the leader of WTP. The WTP was commissioned by the Seattle-based Kadima Reconstructionist community.
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History
The Kadima Reconstructionist community of Seattle decided to purchase a Torah scroll written by women for their congregation in the early 2000s. Previously, they had been borrowing scrolls. They started looking for women scribes, but had trouble finding any at first. The reason there were no women scribes was because of the prohibition in Jewish law against women writing a Torah scroll for ritual use. Kadima eventually found a "halachically acceptable" way to create the Torah and began to look at multiple scribes for the project.
The scroll was commissioned in 2003. Kadima supported the training of two women scribes and the other four trained on their own. The scribes included Rachel Reichhardt, who was also the only officially certified scribe, Linda Coppleson, Irma Penn, Rabbi Hanna Klebansky, Julie Seltzer, and Aviel Barclay. The lead scribe (or soferet) on the project was Shoshana Gugenheim. Gugenheim said that "it was important to me that there would be other women scribes". The work of the scribes was checked by Jen Taylor Friedman, who created a Scroll of Esther and was the first woman to scribe any part of the Torah in modern times. When the pages were finished, the parchment panels were further checked and corrected (with minor tikkunim) by experts in New York and Jerusalem. The individual sections were sewn together by a group of women.
Special parchment to write the Torah, made at a factory in Israel, could be purchased only by men. In order to purchase the parchment, Rabbi Hanna Klebansky had to pretend to be purchasing the parchment for her husband. The mantle for the Torah was created by Sooze Bloom deLeon Grossman, and was created out of more than 70 pieces of fabric. Many of the pieces of fabric were formerly pieces of clothing belonging to Jewish women that were sent to Grossman for the mantle. The portions of women's belongings makes up the shape of a pomegranate on the mantle. The Torah crown was created by Aimee Golant.
The total cost of the project was nearly $100,000. The Women's Torah was dedicated on October 15, 2010. On October 16, women read from the Women's Torah for the first time during the Shabbat service.
Jewish law and the Women's Torah
According to the Talmud (Gittin 45b), a Torah scroll written by a woman for ritual use is invalid. The Arba'ah Turim, however, does not prohibit women from becoming scribes. Several modern-day rabbis have presented arguments supporting the view that a woman can write a scroll for ritual use. A Conservative Israeli Rabbi, Simcha Roth, wrote that since women may learn the Torah, "they should certainly be eligible to write a scroll". Linda Coppleson, who is a Conservative Jew, expresses that while the Talmud forbids women from writing Torah scrolls, it also states that "whoever is qualified should write a Torah;" and when women have "the same opportunities as men, it is fitting to remove them from forbidden categories". Wendy Graff, the project's leader, said that "if my daughter could read and study the Torah and yet not be allowed to create the scroll that is the basis of our faith, then we still have a long way to go".
Members of the Women's Torah Project recognize that some Jewish communities do not see the Women's Torah as valid. Taylor Friedman says that it is important to keep women's Torah scrolls out of Orthodox Jewish communities. Torah scrolls written by women are not considered kosher by all Jewish communities.