Maine Memory Network

In the early 20th century, Orthodox synagogues around the country were facing increased competition for membership with Conservative synagogues. At the fore of this conflict was women's participation.

While women had traditionally sat in the balcony, remaining separate from men in the synagogue, Conservative Judaism developed a mixed seating plan, where women and men could sit together.

By the interwar years many Orthodox synagogues followed suit according to changing American ideals. The leadership of Shaarey Tphiloh in Portland resisted this change because they believed it violated halakhah, Jewish law.

Instead, they increased women's participation in other ways, developing side-by-side seating where women and men sat on the same level, but had a partition between them.

In this picture young girls studying in preparation for their confirmation stand on the bimah, the raised platform in front of the synagogue's sanctuary. The confirmation of girls into Jewish adulthood developed as an alternative to the boys' Bar Mitzvah, or coming of age ceremony, in the 20th century.

While the liberal denominations adopted the full Bat Mitzvah for girls, more traditional congregations continued with the confirmation as the initiation process for girls.

Shaarey Tphiloh, while maintaining what it saw as necessary differences between participation of men and women in Judaism, integrated women from Shaarey Tphiloh's sisterhood group into the synagogue leadership and, beginning in 1959, included women on the Board of Directors.