There is only one photo of Regina Jonas, a native of Berlin, Germany, who became the first woman rabbi. It illustrates the DVD cover of Regina(Kino Lorber), Diana Groó’s sensitive documentary about this extraordinary woman who harbored an ambition early on to serve the Jewish community as a rabbi. She received a private ordination in 1935, as the Nazi cataclysm was gathering force. At the age of 37, she met Rabbi Josef Norden, an older rabbi who became the love of her life. They were both deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, “From there, FräuleinRabbiner Jonas made her final journey. Sharing the fate of her people, the first woman rabbi was murdered in Auschwitz.”— Mordecai Specktor
