Regina Jonas | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | Regine[1] Jonas 3 August 1902 |
| Died | 12 October or 12 December 1944 (aged 42) |
| Alma mater | Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin |
| Occupation | Reform rabbi |
| Signature |  |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Judaism |
| Semikhah | December 27, 1935 |
Regina Jonas (German:[ʀeˈɡiːnaˈjoːnas];German:Regine Jonas;[1] 3 August 1902 – 12 October/12 December 1944) was aBerlin-bornReform rabbi. In 1935, she became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi.[2] Jonas was murdered inthe Holocaust.[2]
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Regina Jonas was born into a "strictly religious" household in the BerlinScheunenviertel, the second child of Wolf Jonas and Sara Hess. Wolf, who was probably Regina's first teacher, died when she was 13. Like many women at that time, she intended to make a career as a teacher. After graduating from the localHöhere Mädchenschule, she became disillusioned with the idea of becoming a teacher. Instead, she enrolled at theHochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Higher Institute for Jewish Studies), in the Academy for the Science of Judaism, and took seminary courses for liberal rabbis and educators for 12 semesters. While not the only woman attending the university, Regina sent ripples through the institution with her stated goal of becoming a rabbi.
To this end, Jonas wrote a thesis that would have been an ordination requirement. Her topic was "Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According toHalachic Sources?" Her conclusion, based on Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinical sources, was that she should be ordained. TheTalmud professor responsible for ordinations, Eduard Baneth, accepted Jonas' thesis; however, his sudden death squashed any hope Jonas may have had in receiving an official ordination. Jonas graduated in 1930, her diploma only naming her as an "Academic Teacher of Religion". Jonas then applied to RabbiLeo Baeck, spiritual leader ofGerman Jewry, who had taught her at the seminary. Baeck, while acknowledging Jonas as a "thinking and agile preacher", refused to make her title official, because the ordination of a female rabbi would have caused massive intra-Jewish communal problems with the Orthodox rabbinate in Germany.
For nearly five years, Jonas taught religious studies in a series of both public and Jewish schools, and also performed a series of 'unofficial' sermons. Her lectures on religious and historical topics for various Jewish institutions often included questions about the importance of women in Judaism. This eventually caught the attention of the liberal RabbiMax Dienemann, who was the head of the Liberal Rabbis' Association inOffenbach am Main,[2] who decided to test Jonas on behalf of the association. Despite protest from both inside and outside the Liberal Rabbis' Association, on 27 December 1935, Regina Jonas received hersemicha and was ordained.
Despite her ordination, Berlin's Jewish community was not welcoming. Archived files suggest she applied for employment at Berlin'sNew Synagogue, but was turned away. With Berlin's pulpits closed to her, Jonas sought work elsewhere. She found support in theWomen's International Zionist Organization, which enabled her to work as a chaplain in various Jewish social institutions. In 1938, Jonas wrote a letter toMartin Buber, an Austrian Jewish philosopher, where she expressed some interest in emigrating toPalestine to possibly pursue potential rabbinical opportunities there.
Because ofNazi persecution, many rabbis emigrated and many small communities were without rabbinical support. Jonas, possibly out of consideration for her elderly mother, stayed inNazi Germany. TheReich Association of Jews in Germany allowed Jonas to travel to Prussia to continue her preaching; however, the Jewish situation under the Nazi regime quickly degraded. Even if therehad been a synagogue willing to host her, the duress of Nazi persecution made it impossible for Jonas to hold services in a proper house of worship. Despite this, she continued her rabbinical work, as well as teaching and holding impromptu services.
On 4 November 1942, Regina Jonas had to fill out a declaration form that listed her property, including her books. Two days later, all her property was confiscated "for the benefit of the German Reich." The next day, theGestapo arrested her and she was deported toTheresienstadt. While interned, she continued her work as a rabbi, andViktor Frankl, who later became a psychologist, asked for her help in building a crisis intervention service to prevent suicide attempts in the camp. Her particular job was to meet the trains at the station and screen disoriented newcomers arriving at the increasingly overcrowded ghetto with a questionnaire on the topic of suicide, designed by Frankl.[3][4]
Regina Jonas worked in the Theresienstadt camp for two years. Records of some 23 sermons written by Jonas survive, includingWhat Is Power Nowadays - Jewish Religion, the Power Source for Our Ego Ethics and Religion.[5] During her two-year internment, Jonas was also a member of a group that organized concerts, lectures and other performances to distract others from events around them.[6]
Upon passing the June 1944 inspection, a number of summer months would pass at relative ease, until almost all of the Jewish Council, including Jonas, were then deported amongst the majority of the town, toAuschwitz in mid-October 1944, where she was murdered either less than a day[7][8] or two months[9][10] later. She was 42 years old.[11][12]
From Jonas' death until 1972 there is at least one brief mention in the Jewish press of her status as rabbi. In 1967,The Australian Jewish News reported on a conference of Liberal Judaism and their discussions of equality for women. The paper reported that a Rabbi Sanger of Berlin spoke of Regina Jonas as an ordained rabbi.[13]
Following the ordination of RabbiSally Priesand in 1972,The American Israelite reported in July 1973 that the only other known Jewish woman to receive ordination was Regina Jonas of Berlin. Also mentioned was that Jonas' thesis was titled "Can a Woman Become a Rabbi?"[14]
Pnina Navè Levinson, a student of Jonas, mentions her story in a 1981 paper[15] and subsequently, in a 1986 paper, Levinson notes that Jonas' story was never mentioned by notable individuals who were inTheresienstadt at the same time as Jonas.[16] Regina Jonas is also discussed briefly in a 1984 paper by Robert Gordis who notes Jonas was an early example of the ordination of a woman as rabbi.[17]
Regina Jonas's literary work was rediscovered in 1991 by Dr. Katharina von Kellenbach, a researcher and lecturer in the department of philosophy and theology atSt. Mary's College of Maryland, who had been born in Germany.[18] In 1991 she traveled to Germany to research material for a paper on the attitude of the religious establishment (Protestant and Jewish) to women seeking ordination in 1930s Germany.[18] She found an envelope containing the only two existing photos of Regina Jonas, as well as Jonas' rabbinical diploma, teaching certificate, seminary dissertation and other personal documents, in an archive inEast Berlin. It was newly available because of the fall of theSoviet Union and the opening of eastern Germany and other archives.[18][19] It is largely due to von Kellenbach's discovery that Regina Jonas is now widely known.[19]
In 1999,Elisa Klapheck published a biography about Regina Jonas and a detailed edition of her thesis,Can Women Serve as Rabbis?.[2][20] The biography, translated into English in 2004 under the titleFräulein Rabbiner Jonas – The Story of the First Woman Rabbi, gives voice to witnesses who knew or met Regina Jonas personally as rabbi in Berlin or Theresienstadt. Klapheck also described Jonas' love relationship with Rabbi Josef Norden.
Though there had been some women before Jonas who made significant contributions to Jewish thought, such as theMaiden of Ludmir,Asenath Barzani, andLily Montagu, who acted in similar roles without being ordained, Jonas remains the first woman in Jewish history to have become a rabbi.
A hand-written list of 24 of her lectures entitled "Lectures of the One and Only Woman Rabbi, Regina Jonas", still exists in the archives of Theresienstadt. Five lectures were about the history ofJewish women, five dealt with Talmudic topics, two dealt with biblical themes, three with pastoral issues, and nine offered general introductions to Jewish beliefs, ethics, and the festivals.[citation needed]
A large portrait of Regina Jonas was installed on a kiosk that tells her story; it was placed in Hackescher Market in Berlin, as part of a citywide exhibition titled "Diversity Destroyed: Berlin 1933–1938–1945," to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the National Socialists' rise to power in 1933 and the 75th anniversary of the Novemberpogrom, orKristallnacht, in 1938.[21]
In 1995,Bea Wyler, who had studied at theJewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, became the first female rabbi to serve in postwar Germany, in the city ofOldenburg.[22]
In 2001, during a conference ofBet Debora [de] (European women rabbis, cantors and rabbinic scholars) in Berlin, a memorial plaque was revealed at Jonas' former living place in Krausnickstraße 6 in Berlin-Mitte.[citation needed]
In 2003 and 2004,Gesa Ederberg andElisa Klapheck were ordained in Israel and the US, later leading egalitarian congregations in Berlin and Frankfurt. Klapheck is the author ofFräulein Rabbiner Jonas – The Story of the First Woman Rabbi (2004).[citation needed]
In 2010,Alina Treiger, who studied at theAbraham Geiger College in Potsdam, became the first female rabbi to be ordained in Germany since Regina Jonas.[23]
In 2011,Antje Deusel became the first German-born woman to be ordained as a rabbi in Germany since the Nazi era.[24] She was ordained byAbraham Geiger College.[24]
2013 saw the premiere of the documentaryRegina,[25] a British, Hungarian, and German co-production[26] directed by Diana Groo.[27] The film concerns Jonas's struggle to be ordained and her romance with Hamburg rabbi Josef Norden.[28]
On 5 April 2014, an original chamber opera, also titled "Regina" and written by composer Elisha Denburg and librettist Maya Rabinovitch, premiered[29] in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was commissioned and performed by the independent company Essential Opera and featured soprano Erin Bardua in the role of Regina, and sopranoMaureen Batt as the student who uncovers her forgotten legacy in the archives of East Berlin in 1991. The opera is scored for five voices, clarinet, violin, accordion, and piano.[30]
On 17 October 2014, which wasShabbatBereishit, communities across America commemorated Regina Jonas'syahrzeit (anniversary of death).[31]
In 2014, a memorial plaque to Regina Jonas was unveiled at the former Nazi concentration campTheresienstadt in the Czech Republic, where she had been deported to and worked in for two years.[32][33] There is a short documentary about the trip on which this plaque was unveiled, titledIn the Footsteps of Regina Jonas.[34][35]
In 2015,Abraham Geiger College and the School of Jewish Theology at theUniversity of Potsdam marked the 80th anniversary of Regina Jonas's ordination with an international conference, titled "The Role of Women's Leadership in Faith Communities."[36]
In 2017, Nitzan Stein Kokin, who was German, became the first person to graduate fromZecharias Frankel College in Germany, which also made her the first Conservative rabbi to be ordained in Germany since before World War II.[37][38]
In August 2022,The New York Times featured Jonas in their obituary featureOverlooked.[39]
The full document can be foundhere."In front of the signed registrar appeared today... Wolff Jonas... and... Sara Jonas née Hess... on the 3rd day of August in the year 1902... a girl was born and (that) the child was given the first name Regine..."
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