Rabbi Regina Jonas
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Regina Jonas was the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the history of Judaism. Though many survivors kew of Rabbi Regina Jonas she remained a largely forgotten enigma because her life and work was utterly annihilated in the massive destruction of European Jewry, known as the Holocaust. Few of her male colleagues remembered her and papers were presumed lost. Miraculously, however, they reappeared in an archive in former East Germany after the collapse of the GDR. |
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Regina Jonas graduated from the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin in December of 1930 and was ordained privately by Rabbi Max Dienemann in 1935. She worked as a religion teacher in public and private Jewish schools, as hospital chaplain, in senior citizen homes and institutes for the blind, as guest preacher and lecturer until she was deported to Theresienstadt in the fall of 1942. She was widely known during her time: she published several newspaper articles on Jewish faith and observances, as well as on her experience as the first female rabbi; she lectured widely in synagogues, schools and various Jewish organizations in Berlin and various other German cities. Her topics ranged from "Women in Bible and Talmud," "Religious Customs of Jewish Life," or on the "Significance of the Revelation on Mount Sinai- Thoughts for Shavuot." She held services in synagogues, Jewish senior citizen homes, the Jewish hospital, as well as in congregations outside of Berlin. After her deportation to the ghetto-camp of Theresienstadt on November 5, 1942, she continued working as a "Seelsorger," (caregiver of the soul) as a member of the staff of Victor Frankl, the well-known psychiatrist. She was assigned to greet newcomers and boost their spirits and adjust to the cruel realities of overcrowding and starvation. She also continued "preaching" and was a member of the "Freizeitgestaltung" which organized lectures, concerts and performances to distract people from the daily misery.A list of 23 lecture topics survived, including topics such as women in Talmud, Bible and Jewish history, Halakhah, prayer, Sabbath observances and Jewish obligations in the camps. She maintained her contact with Leo Baeck who supported her throughout her rabbinic activities in Berlin, although he did not publicly endorse her struggle for recognition as a full rabbi. (His correspondence shows, however, that he helped her behind the scenes). For more information about her life, please refer to the following of my articles: [2000]: �Denial and Defiance in the Work of Rabbi Regina Jonas.� In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the 20th Century, Edited by Phyllis Mack and Omar Bartov. Berghahn Publishers. �Reproduction and Resistance During the Holocaust,� Women and the Holocaust. Edited by Esther Fuchs. (Lanham: University of America Press, 1999) p. 19-33. "`God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being:' The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jonas." Leo Baeck Institute: Yearbook XXXIX, (1994) p.213-225. "Fr�ulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas (1902-1945): Lehrerin, Seelsorgerin, Predigerin." In Yearbook of the European Society of Women in Theological Research (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994) p.97-102. ". . . die Majorit�t ist gegen Sie: Der Leidenweg der Regina Jonas, Rabbinerin in NaziDeutschland." Aufbau Vol LIX Nr.6, New York (12.3.1993), p.4. "Fr�ulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Eine religi�se Feministin vor ihrer Zeit." Schlangenbrut (August 1992), p:38:35-39. "Regina Jonas." J�dische Frauen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Lexikon zu Leben und Werk. Edited by Hanna Delf, Jutta Dick, Marina Sassenberg. (Rowohlt Verlag, 1993) For additional information, you can go to ha galil's website in Berlin. Katharina
von Kellenbach |
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