Regina Jonas

When the story of Regina Jonas (1902–1944), the world’s first female rabbi, was brought to light in the 1990s, it caused quite the sensation. Until then, it had widely been assumed that the first ordinations of women as rabbis had taken place in the 1970s in the US.

Regina Jonas grew up in Berlin in modest circumstances. Nevertheless, she managed to gain a place to study at the College for the Study of Judaism in Berlin. After initial rejections, she was ordained as a rabbi in 1935, but was only able to counsel the Jewish congregation in the city for a short time, as persecution and the threat of deportation mounted. In 1942, she was transported to Theresienstadt together with her mother, where she continued to serve as a rabbi. In 1944, she was murdered in Auschwitz.

Regina Jonas laid the foundations for gender equality in Judaism, and today there are more than 1,000 female rabbis worldwide.