Females rarely serve as high-profile spiritual leaders in Orthodox synagogues, but one such shul, Ohev Sholom-The National Synagogue, is breaking the mold.

The District congregation is scheduled to host a Shabbaton next week featuring Torah-learning sessions conducted almost exclusively by girls in grades two through high school. It is the third such program at Ohev Sholom in the past year or so aimed at promoting high-visibility Judaic scholarship among girls and women.

"But it's not just for girls," emphasized Ohev Sholom congregant Aliza Sperling, director of the program, known as Makom: Finding a Place for our Growing Girls. "The idea is that it will be spiritually enhancing for the entire congregation."

The point: "We're trying to impart the message to both boys and girls that girls can be spiritual leaders within an Orthodox setting and therefore an important part of the spiritual development of the whole community," said Ohev Sholom's Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld. "Some women might think that there's no role for them in an Orthodox setting, but we're trying to challenge that culture."

Aiding in that effort is the Tikkun Olam Women's Foundation of Greater Washington, a three-year-old organization based in Rockville, which is underwriting the Ohev Sholom initiative with a $8,500 grant -- money that also helped defray expenses for a similar Ohev Sholom program in December. That effort followed an earlier girls-learning-oriented project at Ohev Sholom that was subsidized by the Legacy Heritage Fund, a New York-based organization that focuses on Jewish learning.

This year's Makom program will take place at Ohev Sholom on the Shabbat of May 16-17, and it is open to the entire Washington-area Jewish community. Roughly a dozen girls are expected to take part, representing Ohev Sholom congregants, noncongregants, day school students, secular private school students and public school students alike, according to Sperling. The girls will teach Torah throughout Shabbat to mixed-sex groups, including those assembled in the sanctuary for davening.

In some Orthodox synagogues, women are permitted to present a d'var Torah (a Judaic lesson) to the entire congregation, but generally not during services. In addition, only men typically are allowed to lead prayers or read from the Torah before members of the opposite sex in an Orthodox synagogue. These strictures are based on several traditional precepts, including one that prohibits a married man from hearing a woman other than his wife sing. Some Orthodox congregations, however, have women-only prayer groups that meet periodically, including Ohev Sholom.

Given the sex-based restrictions at Orthodox synagogues, "not everybody would fund a program like this," said Guila Franklin Siegel, director of the Tikkun Olam Women's Foundation. "This rocks the boat a little and pushes the envelope," she explained. "It's inherently risk-taking."

However, she added, the foundation does not propose to puncture the traditionalist envelope. "Our goal is to connect with women and girls in whatever context they exist, within their own halachic [Jewish legalistic] framework," Siegel said.

Including the Makom program, the foundation has awarded grants totaling $28,000 for the 2007-2008 funding year to support local programs aimed at preteen and teenage girls. The other two initiatives in this category are a self-esteem-building program called Rosh Hodesh: It's a Girl Thing and the Teen Dating Violence Prevention Project.

In preparation for the upcoming Shabbaton at Ohev Sholom, participating girls are engaged in a wide range of activities, including public speaking workshops, mother-daughter learning sessions, art projects and challah-baking, according to Sperling. "There are all kinds of ways to get girls involved," she added. "There's a fun component as well as a learning component." The program has proven to be so popular, according to Sperling, that Ohev Sholom plans to conduct it at least twice a year.

This year's Makom participants include Francesca Furchtgott, 17, a resident of Chevy Chase, who has already taught Torah at Ohev Sholom (in addition to tutoring two girls who were preparing for their bat mitzvah ceremonies there).

A student at The French International School in Chevy Chase, Furchtgott joined Ohev Sholom about four years ago. Prior to that, she had been a member of Conservative Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, where she has repeatedly read from the Torah. She and her family are now members of both congregations, "and we're very fond of each," said her mother, Diana Furchtgott-Roth.

Her daughter, who feels the same way about the two shuls, said, "Ohev Sholom is very welcoming and the rabbi is very inclusive." She added: "What they're doing for girls there is a wonderful thing, so that they don't think studying Torah is only for boys. I'm glad to help set an example."

Furchtgott said she encountered relatively little culture shock when she transitioned from Ohr Kodesh to Ohev Sholom. "The mechitza [a physical barrier between male and female congregants in an Orthodox synagogue] was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome," she explained, "but now I have no problem with that."

In addition, her public Torah-reading options are limited at Ohev Sholom compared with Ohr Kodesh, "but that doesn't really bother me," Furchtgott added.

Likewise, her mother said adjusting to an Orthodox synagogue has not been particularly difficult. She termed the Makom program "excellent," maintaining that it helps dispel the "stereotype of an Orthodox synagogue where girls are marginalized and treated as second-class citizens. That's definitely not true."