Source: Chicago Sun-Times
On October 21, 1998, The Chicago Sun-Times issued an article concerning the new "Rabbi's Manual", which is published for 750 Conservative synagogues in North America and 200 other synagogues worldwide. The new Manual, an updating of the 1965 edition, establishes a "grieving ritual" for couples after abortions and includes gender-neutral language. Rabbi Reuven Frankel of B'nai Tikvah Synagogue in Deerfield, Illinois, approves of the changes: "It's a very necessary updating....Necessity is sometimes determined by new perceived needs. Certain things that are painful were not being addressed." Rabbi Michael Siegel of Congregation Anshe Ernet Synagogue in the Lake View neighborhood of Chicago also approves: "The voice of women, which was silent across the ages, is now being heard in a much more meaningful way." The Conservative branch of Judaism, which began to allow women rabbis in the early 1980s, is in the "center" of American Judaism, between Orthodoxy and the Reform Movement.