TORONTO — Elana Stein Hain is one of a handful of Orthodox women filling synagogue leadership roles that have traditionally been reserved for men.
Elana Stein Hain
Although her title at New York’s Lincoln Square Synagogue is “community scholar,” she is listed on the synagogue’s website as one of the clergy.
Her role comprises a pastoral element, and includes shivah visits, attending funerals (albeit not officiating, other than to sometimes read psalms), counselling, teaching and delivering sermons on Shabbat mornings after the service ends.
Stein Hain, 29, spoke to The CJN at Ulpanat Orot Girls School on Nov. 19, a Friday. She had just addressed students at the school, beginning a packed weekend as scholar-in-residence at Shaarei Shomayim Congregation and also guest speaker at Torah in Motion.
After Lincoln Square hired Stein Hain three years ago to bring young people into the shul, she started a monthly young professionals minyan, which now averages between 40 and 60 people each week, she said. A rabbinic intern runs the service.
In forging a relatively new path for Orthodox women, Stein Hain has kept in mind advice from her father, Martin Stein, a lawyer: “My dad always said, ‘Do what you think is right… just be yourself.’
“I sort of see myself as just being myself. I enjoy what I do. It’s my skill set, and my community’s so lovely.”
Last year, Stein Hain was named one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36,” young adults who are having an impact on the Jewish community.
Stein Hain, who was born in New York and raised in Teaneck, N.J., also has a Canadian connection. Her mother, Mindy Silverberg Stein, national president of Emunah of America, is from Toronto, and Stein Hain’s grandparents still live here.
As a community leader, she said any change is “much more about what the community needs than some abstract objective standard.
“I think every community needs to set parameters for itself… You might be able to be one step ahead of the community, but you have to respect the process.”
Only a handful of women have full-time leadership positions in Orthodox synagogues, but female scholars-in-residence are “going everywhere,” she said.
Stein Hain, who is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s graduate program in advanced talmudic studies, is pursuing a doctorate in religion at Columbia University. She is writing her dissertation on halachic loopholes.
Growing up, she wanted to be a lawyer, but eventually she decided she “liked Torah stuff more.”
