Rosh Pina in Dupont Circle seeks to include women in services in a way that aligns with Orthodox Judaism.
A mechitza, or physical barrier, runs down the middle of the room to separate men and women during services. At the same time, congregants of either sex can lead services on Shabbat mornings, which are held twice per month. The Vaad — Hebrew for “council” — at Rosh Pina is majority female.
Rosh Pina was based on similar synagogues in New York — Darkhei Noam — and Jerusalem, both of which promote gender inclusion while remaining true to Orthodox Jewish values, according to Rosh Pina’s website. Rosh Pina partners with another Orthodox synagogue, DC Minyan, an egalitarian congregation. Rosh Pina has about 40 to 50 congregants, a number that was larger before the pandemic.
“[Rosh Pina] is kind of a liminal space for people, especially women, who are looking to be more involved but still want to be within the confines of tradition,” said Yehudith Dashevsky, head committee member of Rosh Pina.
“As someone who grew up in a super-Orthodox environment and dipped my toe into kind of a more gender-equal space through Rosh Pina, that’s totally changed my practice and relationship to Judaism. It’s been pretty powerful for me personally.”
-Yehudith Dashevsky
She added that women have equal opportunity in terms of leadership positions, in part due to Rosh Pina being lay-led.
“In terms of services, there’s usually two men who do services and two women, and the way it’s divided is to be within what’s considered allowable in traditional halakha,” Dashevsky said, referring to Jewish law. “But there’s a rotation of women and men who do that.”
Elliot Dine, another head committee member, said Rosh Pina’s small community and lay-led nature give women more opportunities to learn and lead prayer services.
“We’ve had women who have known how to read the Torah portion or come [and] want to learn, be taught by our members, and then be able to come up and read continuously, because we’re so small, so if someone volunteers to want to learn, we’re going to keep using them,” Dine said.
He added that he hopes congregants gain confidence by leading services, which Dashevsky said was previously only available to male congregants.
“We have that opportunity to develop a pipeline of women who can pray; that’s never been an option,” Dashevsky said. “As an Orthodox person who went to completely Orthodox synagogues before, I never saw women doing that. So even just being around that has opened my eyes to new options, new opportunities.”
Rosh Pina is unique in that it doesn’t have a rabbi or cantor to lead in the traditional way. Instead, the leadership is comprised of three community members: Dashevsky, Dine and Miriam Franklin-Grinkorn. There are separate coordinators for prayer services, events and food.
Dashevsky said having gender-inclusive lay leaders completely changed her perspective.
“Even having lay leadership be equal, I think, was new to me,” she said. “In my life, I’ve never been head of an organization, or specifically, a Jewish service organization.”
Dine is glad to share his passion for Torah reading with women.
“I feel my relationship with God most when I’m leading prayer services and reading [a] Torah portion, so it’s being able to give that feeling and opportunity to women, because that’s what Rosh Pina allows, but also because Rosh Pina is small so that we can get people who are interested [and] have never [led prayer services] before, teach them, keep doing it to build a relationship to the tradition, to their religion, to God.”
Dine said his family members always advocated for gender equality, so he was happy to connect with others who had similar priorities, especially since he moved to D.C. during the pandemic.
“Knowing I had a home community of like-minded people was really nice,” Dine said.
Rosh Pina provides a space for everyone to learn and grow in their Judaism.
“As someone who grew up in a super-Orthodox environment and dipped my toe into kind of a more gender-equal space through Rosh Pina, that’s totally changed my practice and relationship to Judaism,” Dashevsky said. “It’s been pretty powerful for
me personally.”
