Woman rabbi trained in Germany to be ordained

November 4, 2010

ewly ordained rabbi Alina Treiger holds her document during a ceremony in a synagogue in Berlin Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010. Thirty-one-year-old Alina Treiger is the first female rabbi to be trained in Germany since the Holocaust. She was born in Ukraine and came to Germany in 2002 after studying music in Moscow. After her ordination she will oversee Jewish communities in Lower Saxony in eastern Germany.

BERLIN (AP) — The first female rabbi to be trained in Germany since the Holocaust is set to be ordained.

Thirty-one-year-old Alina Treiger was born in Ukraine and came to Germany in 2002 after studying music in Moscow. Once ordained, she will oversee Jewish communities in Lower Saxony in eastern Germany.

Treiger told Germany’s ZDF television before her ordination Thursday that she recognizes the Holocaust is part of German Jews’ past, but hopes Jews can identify with the positive experiences they have today.

The German-Jewish community ordained its first female rabbi, Regina Jonas, in 1935. She was killed in Auschwitz in 1944.

Today around 200,000 Jews live in Germany, more than half of whom came after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.