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new york | When the Conservative rabbinical arm decided to censure the associate rabbi of a gay and lesbian synagogue this week, it quietly resolved a public dispute that had caused anger, pain and confusion in the movement.

The Rabbinical Assembly rebuked Rabbi Ayelet Cohen for violating one of its strictly enforced placement rules, not for her views on homosexuality. The assembly did not move to expel her, which had been one of the options.

The movement has expelled others for similar placement violations, but Cohen’s story made headlines in both Jewish and mainstream newspapers because she openly supported gay rights in Judaism and performed several same-sex marriages.

“It was very natural” that the issue of the movement’s struggle with gay and lesbian positions would be raised, “because Rabbi Cohen was working at Beth Simchat Torah,” Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said, referring to the Manhattan synagogue where she works.

Assembly members are required to obtain a waiver from the organization before accepting postings at synagogues not affiliated with the United Synagogue, the Conservative movement’s synagogue branch. Assembly officials said Cohen took her job at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah before receiving such a waiver. Though she was granted one retroactively, she allowed it to expire.

Movement insiders say the sort of rule Cohen broke is the most frequent cause for expulsion from the assembly and its violation rarely garners the kind of media attention Cohen’s case did.

“Nobody contacted the Rabbinical Assembly in the fall when we also had to expel a member,” said Rabbi Moshe Edelman, of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Repeated attempts to reach Cohen this week proved unsuccessful.

During a meeting this week with the assembly’s executive council, Cohen, 30, apologized for violating the waiver procedure, Meyers said.

Council members decided against expelling her from the organization and granted her permission to stay on at Bet Simchat Torah for an indefinite period.

Meyers said it was a “most natural assumption for people to make” that there was a connection with the gay and lesbian issue, which the Conservative movement is now struggling with.

“It would be difficult for people to understand that it was an issue about” disregarding a technical rule, he said.

In the lead-up to the decision, Cohen and Meyers exchanged charges and countercharges in the media.

Cohen, who is heterosexual, said she was being targeted because of her controversial views on same-sex marriage. Meyers said this was untrue.

Indeed, the assembly said it is aware of at least 20 Conservative rabbis who have performed such ceremonies without consequence from the assembly.

“It’s because I have performed same-sex wedding ceremonies,” Cohen said Jan. 14 in The New York Times.

In 1992, the Rabbinical Assembly voted against ordaining gay rabbis and officiating at same-sex weddings.

The assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is planning to re-examine the movement’s approach to homosexuality in April. Members will be submitting papers on the issues in advance of those discussions.

The prevailing practice in the Conservative movement as far as already-ordained rabbis go has been described as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Declared gays and lesbians are officially barred from the Conservative movement’s two main rabbinical seminaries, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

The assembly has no mechanism for expelling rabbis who are discovered to be gay, although the group has in the past informed congregations considering hiring a gay rabbi of that person’s sexual orientation, and in one case did not allow a gay rabbi to use its rabbinic placement services, said movement leaders.

The placement rules prevent synagogues from plucking talented rabbis from other shuls and those familiar with the assembly say those rules are assiduously enforced.