BET DEBORA
A Meeting of women rabbis, cantors, scholars and interested Jewish men and women
Invitation
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 we invite women rabbis, cantors, scholars and interested Jewish men and women from all over Europe to come to Berlin and join us in discussing what it means to be Jewish.
BET DEBORA initiated by Elisa Klapheck, Lara Dämmig, Dr. R. Monika Herweg