Alina Treiger today will have all the rights of a male rabbi. Regina Jonas, in contrast, was restricted in her ceremonial duties, confined largely to teaching religion.
The reason for the great gap between 1935 and today’s ordination is the Holocaust.
Liberal Judaism, which recognised the right of women to be rabbis, started in Germany but flourished in America after the near destruction of Jewish life in Germany.
The first woman rabbi was ordained in America in 1972, but it has taken longer in Germany, perhaps because of the different attitudes towards women.
The impetus now comes from the rising demand for rabbis as Jewish communities swell across the country.
Rabbi Walter Hommulka, the rector of Germany’s only seminary for training rabbis, said that the few Jews who remained in Germany after the Holocaust felt out of place.
Only in recent years have communities grown because of immigration.
“After World War II, people were stranded here, and it took a long time before they really embraced the notion that they will stay in Germany. People always thought ‘I’m not here continually. I’m preparing to go to Israel.’ But they didn’t,” said Rabbi Hommulka.
“In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, 200,000 Russian Jews came here because they thought that this was the land of milk and honey.”
And he says that Germany has been good to Jews.
“Successful integration here means that you are taking the best chances of your host country, and Jews here have done that. We have learnt the language. You have to be willing to make it in the society that you are entering.
“The success story of Jewish integration in the 19th Century and now is a ruling in the Jewish code which says that the law of the land takes precedence over religious law.”
But that clause did not do Jews any good when Hitler came along.