Regina Jonas’s Critique of the Wissenschaft des Judentums from a Female Perspective

Regina Jonas, a largely forgotten female scholar during one of German Jewry’s darkest periods – the eve of the Second World War – studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and later served as a rabbi in Berlin. She was the only female scholar of her time to offer a constructive critique of both her male colleagues – scholars and rabbis alike – and the methods of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. This article argues that Jonas’s critique resonates with the philosophical approach of the Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen, integrating ethical and rational principles to reinterpret Jewish Orthodoxy and affirm the halakic legitimacy of a female rabbinate.