s4 e4 — REGINA JONAS and BRENDA ANN SPENCER: The first female is not always a good thing!
This week, Miriam recounts the exemplary life of the first female rabbi, Regina Jonas; and Lavetta recounts the tragic life of America’s first female school shooter, Brenda Ann Spencer.
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In this episode, Miriam introduces rabbi Regina Jonas (German, 1902–1944). Born in Berlin, Jonas intended to make a career as a teacher, but while in university, she had a new goal of becoming a rabbi. Her ordination took many years due to gender inequality in religious leadership, but she finally became the first female rabbi in 1935. Nazi persecution forced many rabbis to leave Germany, but Jonas, possibly out of the necessity to protect her elderly mother, stayed in Nazi Germany. In 1942, the Gestapo deported Jonas to Theresienstadt concentration camp. While there, she continued her work as a rabbi. In 1944, she was sent to Auschwitz where she was murdered. Lavetta continues with convicted and incarcerated murderer Brenda Ann Spencer (American, born 1962), who committed a mass shooting at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. Spencer was only 16 when she committed the shooting and was living across the street. After her parents separated, she was recommended for admission to a mental hospital for depression but her father instead gave her a rifle with rounds of ammunition. The police found that she and her father slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles. Spencer's tragic story highlights the devastating consequences of neglect and abuse on mental health.
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