The conference at the former balcony of the
Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue
Women stand together with men,
on an egalitarian basis, on the Bima
In the decade which is just ending a fascinating
development has taken place in European Jewish life; increasingly, women are
exercising important ritual functions. There are women rabbis in London,
Paris and Oldenburg, as well as in Moscow, Minsk and
Budapest. What does this mean for Jewish tradition and
continuity? What impact do these women have on religious practices? Which
themes have become more important? What are the new challenges?
Berlin is the city in which
Regina Jonas, the world‘s first woman rabbi, served. With her
murder in Auschwitz in 1944 an important development in Judaism was cut off
and set back by decades. The questions Regina Jonas raised about Jewish
tradition then are still relevant today. We remember her courage and her
difficult struggle for recognition as a rabbi. More than half a century
after the Shoah women rabbis, cantors, scholars and interested Jewish men
and women from all over Europe were invited to come to
Berlin and join us in discussing what it means to be Jewish.
More than 200 participants from all over Western and Eastern
Europe and some guests from the United States and Israel joined for
lectures, services, workshops, celebrating ...
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Opening talk:
Women on the Bima
with Elisa Klapheck (one of the initiators)
and Rabbi Daniela Thau (r)
photos: Burkhart Peter |
[photo-exhibition]
- [program] - [reactions]
[history of women in the rabbinate]
- [women on the bima]
[start in german] - [start
in english]
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