Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Jewish ordination by competent rabbis, when the candidate receives his diploma stating his qualifications to officiate as a rabbi.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The results of a survey to be presented at the convention show a clear consensus among RCA members against granting "semicha," or ordination, to women, according to an official involved in the council's strategic planning process.

    JTA - Recent News Ben Harris 2010

  • The results of a survey to be presented at the convention show a clear consensus among RCA members against granting "semicha," or ordination, to women, according to an official involved in the council's strategic planning process.

    JTA - Recent News Ben Harris 2010

  • Michael Lerner (labeled as Reform) has semicha from Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Renewal), and I think Michael Paley (labeled as Conservative) has Orthodox semicha.

    Newsweek Names Top 50 Rabbis in US | Jewschool 2007

  • This will be a teaching-semicha (along ‘Rav Mehanekh’ lines) designed to create high school rebbes for pluralistic/cross-communal North American high schools and not an ordination designed to create halakhic decisors (poskim).

    Overheard on Shavuot at the Hartman Institute… Ordaining Women? | Jewschool 2007

  • He has a lawsuit against Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi for dismissing him from a position he held for over 30 years from his position of examining people who came for semicha (rabbinic ordination).

    Your Moral Leader 2010

  • In England, different members of the clergy (not all of whom even have semicha) go by distinctly different titles, reflecting different roles: reverend, minister, rabbi, and dayan; maybe that is a fine idea worth importing to America.

    Vos Iz Neias - (Yiddish:What's News?) 2009

  • Moshe is in a program where he's working towards his GED (a high school equivalence degree) and even learning for semicha (rabbinical ordination).

    Israelated - English Israel blogs 2008

  • The website doesn’t mention the semicha aspect at all.

    Overheard on Shavuot at the Hartman Institute… Ordaining Women? | Jewschool 2007

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