as small as a world and as large as alone, latkesofaseamonster: Remember Rabbi Regina...

9:40pm April 15, 2015

Remember Rabbi Regina Jonas!! The first known female rabbi but also one who did all she could for fellow jews during the Holocaust. Do not let her be erased by history.
From a young age, she wanted to be a rabbi. It was her dream. She studied for years, achieving not only a teacher’s degree but eventually a completion of a rabbinical study program. Her supervisor passed away soon after her thesis, however, and the new one wasn’t willing to approve her for ordination.
However, she wasn’t deterred! She got a job as a teacher and worked toward her dream. Finally, years later, she was officially ordained as a rabbi.
At the behest of her community, she was sent to the local hospital regularly where she cared for the sick and elderly. Meanwhile, she also started preaching at any synagogues that allowed her to and did more and more as time went by. Please remember that this is during the Shoah. As in, she like many other Jews were risking their lives everyday to live alongside eachother.
What happened to her? Like many other jews, she was eventually sent to Auschwitz, where she most likely died.
No one even knew she existed until the East German Archives became available after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“If I confess what motivated me, a woman, to become a rabbi, two things come to mind. My belief in God’s calling and my love of humans. God planted in our heart skills and a vocation without asking about gender. Therefore, it is the duty of men and women alike to work and create according to the skills given by God.” Regina Jonas, C.-V.-Zeitung, June 23, 1938.
some links for more on Rabbi Regina Jonas: 1, 2