Rabbi on the Margin
Rabbi Daniela Thau
Emotionally, it was no easy for me
to sit and write down the reasons why I chose to become a rabbi in the first
place and particularly why I no longer work as one at present. In 1976 I met
for one Sybil Sheridan who then was just starting her rabbinical studies at
Leo Baeck College. She, Pnina Navè Levinson z’l and her husband Rabbi Nathan
Peter Levinson as well as Rabbi Albert Friedlander helped me on my "road to
Damascus" if I may borrow yet again an image from another religion.
With the encouragement of these women
and men this whole idea of studying for the rabbinate became clear to me. I
had always dreamed of a situation like that especially in the wake of the
knowledge of Regina Jonas through other sources and through Pnina Navè
Levinson z’l, but never thought it possible to put this dream into reality
because my Jewish socialisation was German minded and in Germany for a woman
to do something like that was not only impossible but totally outrageous
even to think about.
I didn’t feel that I had any problems
at the college as a woman. I didn’t feel the male students got better or
worse jobs in their student placements than I did. No, there I really didn't
feel any discrimination.
The problem arose from a different
area – it was my socialisation. The fact that I wasn’t born and bred
English. The language wasn’t a problem I spoke English well enough,
grammatically more correct sometimes than the English. No, the problem was I
didn’t know the English ways and there was also nobody to teach me. I was
just again the odd one out. I was on the margin yet again. It wasn’t so much
in the non-Jewish English society that I was Jewish, it was more that in the
Jewish society I was not an English Jewess. But a post war German Jewess...?
Was nicht sein kann, nicht sein darf!!! (What can’t be must not be!!!)
In July 1983 I got S’micha and in
October 1983 I married. My husband and I settled in Bedford a county town 80
kilometres north of London. In a town like Bedford, where there are
officially only half a dozen Jewish families, that is, families who actually
are members of a synagogue somewhere in Britain, I have met in the last 16
years at least another dozen Jewish families who for all intents and
purposes have lost contact with all things Jewish. In the little street
alone with 18 houses where my husband and I live, I have already found two
families who were totally disconnected from Judaism although fully Jewish.
These are all Jews who live on the margins of Judaism and for one reason or
another feel or felt threatened by organised religion. I as a marginalised
professional Jew could very much relate to that. It made me realise that I
am also really at loggerheads with organised religion and that I am a free,
lateral thinker who never tows the line and has always lived right on the
brink of Judaism. I can very much sympathise with these marginal Jews and
wherever possible do what I can to help them to re-enter Judaism one way or
another.
What is somehow in the back of my
mind and I can’t really express is that I feel that not by design or choice
but through force of circumstance I became the rabbi for the Jews on the
margin. I am not a paid outreach rabbi but I share with those people who I
find on my journey through life my personal private Judaism. I invite them
to my own home observances, like Shabbatot, Sedarim, sitting in the Sukkah,
Chanukkah candles, etc.
I have to admit that it does upset me
that week after week I get letters from Jewish educational institutions
telling me that there aren’t enough Jewish professionals around and asking
me to contribute financially to the training of more rabbis and teachers
while I who am trained get ignored and am denied any opportunity to use my
skills in the non-orthodox Jewish world. I am not the only one in this
situation. But the last thing I want to do is to blame others for my plight
or make them responsible for it or criticise them in any way. Although if
anyone were to ask me, am I hurt or do I feel that my talents are wasted I
would have to say, yes. I got hurt but never did it shake my belief in G’d
or Judaism. I love G’d and Judaism with very fibre of my being. I know that
I was born a Jewess for a reason and I know that I have a message to pass
on. But who should I do this? Quietly and gently in the privacy of my home,
with a few stragglers here and there? Or loud and clear from a Bimah, like
the blast of a Shofar?
Since force of circumstance has
resulted in me being a rabbi on the margin, I find myself asking this
question: should I compromise my integrity and identity just to serve the
larger more established community? It’s a question to which I am still
seeking the answer.
Daniela Thau was born as a child of
Jewish emigrants in Johannesburg, Southafrica, in 1952. Her family moved
back in the late 50ies. She was the first woman of Germany after Regina
Jonas who became a rabbi. She started her rabbinic studies in 1978 and was
ordained at Leo Baeck College in 1983. She lived in Britain, Switzerland and
India.
After Bet Debora Daniela Thau was
invited to Vienna by the Progressive Community "Or Chadash" and to Berlin by
the Synagogue Oranienburger Strasse. She officiated as a rabbi in Berlin
together with the cantors Mimi Sheffer and Avitall Gerstetter. It was the
first time after the Shoah that women led the services of the High Holidays.
[INHALTSVERZEICHNIS
BET-DEBORA JOURNAL]
[photo-exhibition]
- [program] - [reactions]
[history of women in the rabbinate]
- [women on the bima]
[start in german] - [start
in english]
every comment or
feedback is appreciated
iris@hagalil.com
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