Shabbat Gathering: The first woman rabbi in the world.
Dear Chevra, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:
Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799
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Here we go.
The New York Times has a regular feature called “Overlooked No More.” Recently, it covered Rabbi Regina Jonas, the first woman rabbi, ordained in 1935 Germany. I read the obituary and needed to find out more so I surfed the web and came up with this newsletter.
She persisted.
Rabbi Jonas was born August 3, 1902. As a child, she found her calling and led services for her stuffed animals. She took seminary classes from liberal (read Reform) rabbis with the goal of becoming a rabbi herself. Rabbi Jonas finished her studies by writing a thesis, “Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According Halachic Sources,” and you can guess her conclusion. She graduated in 1930, but the death of her thesis adviser almost stopped her hopes for ordination. She applied to the famous theologian Leo Baeck, but he refused to ordain her.
According to Rabbi Jonas:
…But if I must say what drove me as a woman to become a rabbi, two elements come to mind: My belief in the godly calling and my love of people. God has placed abilities and callings in our hearts, without regard to gender. Thus each of us has the duty, whether man or woman, to realize those gifts God has given…
Ordination at last.
For five years, she taught religious studies before she came to the attention of Rabbi Max Dienemann who decided to test Jonas on behalf of the Liberal Rabbis’ Association. She passed the test and on December 27, 1935 she was ordained, the same year that the German Nuremberg Race Laws took effect. Her diploma of ordination includes this from Rabbi Dienemann:
Since I saw that her heart is with God and Israel, and that she dedicates her soul to her goal, and that she fears God, and that she passed the examination in matters of religious law, I herewith certify that she is qualified to answer questions of religious law and entitled to hold the rabbinic office. And may God protect her and guide her on all her ways.
Jonas could not find a pulpit. She worked as a chaplain and teacher for several institutions.
Jonas was repeatedly encouraged to leave Germany but she refused. She did not want to leave with her mother and said she was needed now more than ever to minister to German Jews.
A pulpit in the worst place in the world.
In 1942, Jonas and her mother were sent to the concentration camp, Theresienstadt. There, she worked as a rabbi to her fellow prisoners. Among those fellow prisoners was Victor Frankl, who would become a famous psychologist. Frankl asked Jonas to help prevent suicides among the prisoners. And while she was in Theresienstadt, she built a secret synagogue.
Jonas was at the camp for two years before she and her mother were transferred to to Auschwitz where they were immediately murdered on December 12, 1944. Jonas was 42-years-old.
Deafening silence.
Both Frankl and Baeck survived the Shoah, had illustrious careers, and never mentioned Rabbi Jonas or her work. Ever. A shonda.
Rabbi Jonas disappeared from history until 1991 when her papers were discovered in an archive that only came to light due to the fall of the Berlin wall. In 1999, a biography, Fraulein Rabbiner Jonas - The Story of the First Woman Rabbi, was written by Elisa Klapheck and is now out of print. And that’s a shonda too. There is a children's book about Rabbi Jonas, Regina Persisted, written by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and illustrated by Margaux Lucas and it is still in print.
But there’s a film about Rabbi Jonas, “In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas,” featuring the first American women rabbis from the Reform, Reconstruction, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox denominations. They traveled to Germany to examine Rabbi Jonas’ archive and hold a service to honor her memory.
Rabbi Jonas’ story is tragic, inspiring, and an indictment of misogyny. I’ve been a member of six synagogues in America and CSS is the first with a woman in the pulpit. It was long overdue. I think it’s important to note that Sally Priesand, the first woman ordained as a rabbi in America (1973), was ordained 38 years after Rabbi Jonas. What on earth can account for that except extreme misogyny not between Jewish women and the world but between Jewish women and their co-religionists? There has been significant progress, but there's still a lot of work left to be done. Save an accident of history, the story of Rabbi Jonas might have been lost to the world altogether. I’m glad it wasn’t.
And may it be for all of us a blessing.
See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!
All my love,
brian.
PS
Brivele is one of my favorite modern Yiddish/Klezmer groups. They have a new album out, What Joy is Yours on Bandcamp. Here's the first song off that album, About the Sunset.