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ABSTRACT
This article proposes a close reading of Jonas’s halakhic treatise with two central goals. The first is to locate Jonas’s text within the broader debates on the changing role of women in Judaism and contemporary European society and the changing role of rabbis in Central Europe (and beyond). We will see how her thesis reflected broader social and cultural trends that shaped modern European Jewish communities. The second goal of this article is to examine the ways in which Jonas constructed her argument and in so doing to remind the reader of the more nuanced and complicated landscape of German Judaism that existed prior to the Holocaust, of which she was but one voice. By examining her arguments and the sources she employed, we can see where she aimed to uphold halakhah and to use it to make her highly innovative argument, just as we can also see where she pushed boundaries, arguing for the possibility of change within it. We can also identify the issues she chose to elide and consider the implications of her argumentation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Klapheck, Fräulein Rabbiner Jonas; Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress”; Kellenbach, “Denial and Defiance”; and Herweg, “Regina Jonas (1902–1944).”
2 Seidel, Women Pioneers, 110.
3 Baskin, Midrashic Women; Biale, Women and Jewish Law; and Israeli, “Jewish Women.”
4 Asenat Barzani was a seventeenth-century Kurdish rabbinic scholar who ran and taught at the rabbinic academy that had previously been run by her father and was nominally led by her husband.
5 Granddaughter of the founder of the Volozhin Yeshiva, R. Hayim ben Isaac Volozhiner, Berlin is said to have been quite learned, but also deeply frustrated by the limits placed upon her as a woman.
6 Nadell, Women; Seidman, Sarah Schenirer.
7 Katharina von Kellenbach notes Jonas’s “revisionist feminist” perspective and techniques, which simultaneously used and challenged tradition and halakhic rulings: see Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 215–6.
8 Kellenbach suggests that precisely this overlapping of progressive and conservative goals particularly upset conservatives and liberals alike: Kellenbach, “Denial and Defiance,” 247.
9 Annette, “Die Rabbinerin” (Frauen-Zeitung Berna: Organ des Bernischen Frauenbundes, February 10, 1939), 163–4 (Centrum Judaicum Archiv [hereafter CJA] 1D Jo1 nr. 1 #013347 Bl. 53 r+v); Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 18.
10 Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 16–22. Her brother would also become a religious teacher: see ibid., 18.
11 Richard Fuchs notes that only in the late 1930s did the two institutions begin to collaborate, and only then under dire circumstances and with several conditions: see Fuchs, “Hochschule,” 20–2.
12 Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 23–4; Fuchs, “Hochschule,” 5 and 7.
13 Ellenson, “German Orthodox Rabbinical Writings.”
14 Seidel, “Women Students,” 57.
15 Seidel, Women Pioneers, 60.
16 Fuchs, “Hochshule,” 4–7; Lehman, “Lehrer und Schüler.” Among the many students at the Hochschule was the young Nechama Leibowitz, who would later be known as one of the most important biblical scholars in Israel. The fact that she was a woman, however, precluded study at the orthodox Rabbinerseminar, though she herself was observant.
17 Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 34; Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 214; CJA 1D Jo1 nr. 1 #013356 Bl. 11r+v (Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums zu Berlin, “Zeugnis über die akademische Religionslehrerprüfung,” dated December 12, 1930).
18 Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 35; Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 214.
19 Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 220.
20 Meyer, “How Awesome”; Meyer, Response to Modernity, 34–6, 100–3; and Schorsch, “Emancipation and the Crisis.” In a more recent article, Meyer notes that pastoral care became an even more central part of rabbinic work during the National Socialist era: see Meyer, “The Refugee Rabbis,” 89.
21 Sorkin, Transformation of German Jewry.
22 Schorsch, “Emancipation and the Crisis,” especially 208–13; Meir, “Dimui we-dimoi,” especially 44, 49, 52; Baader, Gender, 12; and Meyer, “Women,” 140. The growing importance of emotional connections was not just a feature of liberal or reform Judaism. The pre-eminent neo-Orthodox rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch aimed not only to instruct his audience about the law of Torah, but also to inspire an emotional connection to Judaism. For but one example, in his essay, “Religion Allied to Progress,” Hirsch appealed to the emotional pain that individuals experienced in the absence of religion: see Hirsch, “Religion Allied to Progress.” On the decline of mikveh use, see Kaplan, Jewish Middle Class, 79–80.
23 Baader, Gender, 74–80; Lässig, Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum, 326–61.
24 In this context, we see women attempting to gain a greater voice in Jewish communities; in August 1928, Lily Montagu gave a sermon in the Reformgemeinde in Berlin—the first time a woman would take to the pulpit in Germany. See “Konferenz-Beratungen des Sonntags” (Jüdisch-Liberale Zeitung, August 24, 1928).
25 Legath, Sanctified Sisters; Zeiß-Horbach, Evangelische Kirche und Frauenordination; and Barnett, Soul of the People.
26 Jonas’s halakhic thesis can be found in CJA 1D Jo1 nr. 1 #013345 and also in the carefully edited and commentated version published by Elisa Klapheck, who maintains the original pagination: see Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 1–2.
27 This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather a general picture of the major sources she cited.
28 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 23.
29 Similarly, she cites Löw, Gesammelte Schriften; Kayserling, Die jüdischen Frauen; and Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie.
30 Fine, “Abraham Geiger,” 168. See also Koltun-Fromm, Abraham Geiger’s Liberal Judaism, 6.
31 I would like to thank an anonymous external reviewer for making explicit this facet of Jonas’s approach, which again demonstrates its pathbreaking nature.
32 Grossman and Haut, “Preface,” especially xxv.
33 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 4–5.
34 Ibid., 15. This appears to be context-dependent. The issur on Kol isha remains highly contested in Orthodox circles, but some recent commentary notes that in Jonas’s time, there was a tradition among German-speaking Jews for Jewish women and girls to participate in singing Zemirot on shabbat, something far less common or even deemed unacceptable among other Jewish communities: see Sperber, “Congregational Dignity,” 96n80.
35 Jewish marriage rates were also comparatively lower than those among Christians: see Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 192.
36 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 49.
37 Ibid., 22.
38 Ibid., 21: “Wo die Frau an und für sich im öffentlichen Leben steht und in sachlichem Zusammenarbeiten mit dem Manne Gemeinsames leistet, ist das Verhalten inzwischen ein ungezwungenes geworden.”
39 Ibid., 22: “Wie sollte es dann in heutiger Zeit, wenn auch das rabbinische Amt der Frau allmählich eine Notwendigkeit wird, unmöglich sein!”
40 Ibid., 39–41. Interest in women’s religious education emerged as an important topic in the nineteenth century across the religious spectrum, discussed by thinkers as diverse as Abraham Geiger, Sampson Raphael Hirsch, Samuel Holdheim, and others. The era also witnessed a veritable explosion of reading material written for and about women, including Kayserling, Die jüdischen Frauen, which Jonas cites. On the practical work done to encourage religious education among observant women that Jonas does not write about, consider the Beys Yaakov schools (see Seidman, Sarah Schenirer) or the participation of Orthodox German rabbis in fostering female religious education. See Deutschlander, Erziehungswerk der gesetzstreuen Judenheit; Deutschlander, Bajs Jakob.
41 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 54.
42 Ibid.: “Trotz des ausdrücklichen Verbotes, dass sie kein öffentliches Amt bekleiden darf, muss sie aus der Not der Zeit heraus doch öffentliche Ämter bekleiden. Man kann beinahe sagen, dass es ein Minhag geworden ist, dass Frauen im öffentlichen Leben tätig sind.” Jonas cites texts by Maimonides and from the Tur regarding the idea that women cannot be witnesses or serve as judges, including Maimonides, Mishneh Torah 9:2; b. Shavuot 30a; Tur, Hoshen Hamishpat 7, paragraph 5 (Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 71).
43 Common prooftexts used in this debate include b. Sota 20a and 21b and b. Kidd. 29b. While the talmudic debate speaks both for and against a man teaching his daughter, the rabbinic statement attributed to Rabbi Eliezer in b. Sotah 20a according to which a man who teaches his daughter Torah teaches her tifilut (frivolity) was frequently cited as a reason to refrain from teaching women Torah in general. See Jonas’s discussion of these texts and the question of female Torah study: Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 25, 43, and 45.
44 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 30–1.
45 Ibid., 58–9.
46 Ibid., 59–60.
47 Ibid., 7; on the overlap between learning and teaching, see ibid., 25–6. The rabbinic debates on the case of Deborah reveal the difficulties that rabbis had with the idea that Deborah judged over Israel. Rabbi Daniel Sperber notes that the Tosafot on b. Niddah stressed that Deborah did not judge, but taught, though he takes this to actually mean that there is space for women to give judgement on matters when that judgement is essentially a learned explanation. See Sperber, “Some Comments,” 150; Sperber, “Women in Rabbinic Leadership,” 3.
48 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 55–6.
49 Ibid., 56 and 61.
50 Ibid., 65–6.
51 Ibid., 67–9.
52 Ibid., 13–14, 26–7, 30–1. Here, Jonas notes where women are permitted to carry out certain mitzvot, but disregards the inequality of the reward given to those who carry them out. For a discussion of this imbalance, see Biale, Women and Jewish Law, 42–3.
53 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 79–80.
54 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 18a; Biale, Women and Jewish Law, 42–3.
55 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 84.
56 The first female ordinations in the Reform and Reconstructionist movements occurred in 1972 (with the ordination of Sally Priesand) and 1974 (with the ordination of Sandy Eisenberg Sasso) respectively.
57 Ross, “Modern Orthodoxy,” 5, 14.
58 This is not to suggest that Sperber is familiar with Jonas’s text. Many of the debates on these subjects concern the same well-known texts and passages. On changing historical circumstances, see Sperber, “Some Comments,” 142. On women as possible witnesses and judges, see Sperber, “Women in Rabbinic Leadership,” 3–4. In this same article, Sperber also makes historical arguments offering precedents and reasons for change based on historical circumstances (ibid., 7–11). Similarly, we can note that other contemporary Orthodox commentators writing on the subject of female education and possible ordination cite prooftexts raised by Jonas, including responsa to b. Sotah 20b. See Broyde and Brody, “Orthodox Women Rabbis,” 47.
59 Sperber, “Women in Rabbinic Leadership,” 8.
60 Sperber, “Women in Rabbinic Leadership,” 2n2. Sperber notes that other women had previously received semikhah, such as Haviva Ner David, who received “Orthodox ordination by Rabbi Arie Strikowsky”; Evelyn Goodman Tau; and Mimi Feigelson, who was granted semikhah by Reb Shlomo Carlebach and two other anonymous Orthodox rabbis.
61 Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 223.
62 Klapheck, “Der Mythos,” 57.
63 Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress,” 224; Kellenbach, “Denial and Defiance,” 257n35.
64 Klingberg, Das Leben, 168–70. A list of her sermons is preserved in the Beit Theresienstadt archives, File 239.000.002.
65 Jonas, “Kann die Frau,” 87: “Wer für Menschen lebt, insbesondere noch durch seinen Beruf für sie leben will, darf sie nicht nur durch Worte trösten, sondern auch durch Taten.”
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Sarah Wobick-Segev
Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Universität Hamburg. She is the author of Homes Away from Home: Jewish Belonging in Twentieth-Century Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg (Stanford, 2018) and numerous articles. She co-edited The Economy in Jewish History with Dr. Gideon Reuveni and Spiritual Homelands: The Cultural Experience of Exile, Place and Displacement among Jews and Others with Professors Richard I. Cohen and Asher Biemann.