Rahel Straus

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Rahel Goitein as a medical student around 1905

Rahel Straus (born March 21, 1880 in Karlsruhe , † May 15, 1963 in Jerusalem ), who was born Rahel Goitein, came from the extensive family of rabbis and scholars Goitein . From May 1900 she was the first woman to study at the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University . She became a doctor and was involved as a social worker, women's rights activist and Zionist .

Life

As the fourth child of the orthodox rabbi Gabor Goitein and the elementary school teacher Ida geb. Löwenfeld grew up Rahel Goitein in Karlsruhe. Her father died in 1883. Rahel attended the higher girls 'school until 1893, then the first German girls' grammar school in Karlsruhe (from which today's Lessing grammar school and today's Fichte grammar school emerged), where she graduated from high school in 1899 together with Johanna Kappe . There she gave the first graduation speech of a young woman in Germany, in which she discussed among other things the educational opportunities for women. Rahel's uncle Raphael Löwenfeld supported her financially in her education. Despite the negative attitude of some professors, she was the first female medical student to enroll at Heidelberg University, having previously attended lectures in Old French and English as a listener. This made her one of the first four students to properly enroll at Heidelberg University in the summer semester. From the winter semester of 1901/1902 on, she was active, for a time as chairwoman, of the Association of Student Women in Heidelberg, in contrast to the striking Jewish student union in Badenia, for example .

In 1902 she passed the Physikum except in botany, where she graduated with “good”, consistently with “very good”, and in 1905 the state examination with success. In 1907 the doctorate to Dr. med. with a dissertation on chorionic carcinoma .

In 1905 she married Elias Straus , also from Karlsruhe, who had a doctorate in law , called "Eli", son of a banker. A joint trip in 1907 took them to Palestine . Despite her marriage, Rahel Straus, which was very unusual at the time, did not break off her professional path, but completed her medical assistantship. In 1908 she opened a gynecological practice in Munich . This made her the first resident doctor who had been trained at a German university.

Her five children were born in Munich: Isabella (* 1909, married Emrich, later economist ), Hannah (* 1912, married Strauss, later teacher and psychologist, died in Canada), Samuel Friedrich, called Peter (1914 –1958, later farmer in Israel , US civil servant), Gabriele (* 1915, married Rosenthal, later child psychologist) and Ernst Gabor Straus (1922–1983, later mathematics professor in Los Angeles ).

It was not only since the death of her only brother Ernst Goitein in World War I that Rahel Straus questioned the imperial loyalty and loyalty of Jewish circles to German war politics, which she perceived as blind, and expressed herself accordingly, especially in lectures, which led to her unwavering affection for Germany and German culture was not in contradiction.

As a doctor, Rahel Straus fought for the abolition of § 218 from a feminist perspective , was involved in social and educational issues and was chairman of the Association of Jewish Women for Work in Palestine and a member of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO). In 1918 she took part in some committees of the Munich Soviet Republic .

In 1932, at Bertha Pappenheim's request, she took on a leading role in the Jewish Women's Association , an actually anti-Zionist organization, which may be considered an indication of her political and diplomatic skill and high social reputation. Among other things, the women's association helped mothers with illegitimate children and victims of trafficking in women .

Her husband Eli Straus died of cancer in 1933, and in the same year Rahel Straus emigrated to Palestine with two school-age children, where they went through a period of hardship. Rahel Straus continued to work as a doctor and social worker and in 1952 founded the Israeli group of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom , of which she remained honorary president until her death in 1963.

Rahel Straus is buried in the Sanhedria cemetery in Jerusalem. Her estate is kept in the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York . One of their social projects, the AKIM Jerusalem disability promotion , still exists today and runs a training center there called Beth Rahel Straus .

The city of Karlsruhe named a Rahel-Straus-Straße and Munich a Rahel-Straus-Weg after their former citizen. Oldenburg changed a street name that still reminded of a suspected National Socialist to Rahel-Straus-Straße in 2008 . In October 2019, the Rahel Straus Prize for sustainable projects of remembrance culture in Baden-Württemberg was awarded for the first time by the state working group of the Verein Gegen Vergessen - For Democracy .

Works

  • Rahel Straus: We lived in Germany. Memories of a German Jewess 1880–1933 . DVA, Stuttgart 1961 (2nd and 3rd edition 1962). Excerpts in: Andreas Lixl-Purcell (Ed.): Memories of German-Jewish Women 1900–1990 Reclam, Leipzig 1992, etc. ISBN 3-379-01423-0 , pp. 49-60 under the title: As a doctor in Munich 1905-1910 .
  • Rahel Straus-Goitein: A Case of Chorionic Epithelioma . Diss. Med. Munich, Heller, Munich 1907 (33 pages).

See also

literature

  • Meike Baader: Never safe from strangeness. Rahel Straus - first medical student in Heidelberg. In: Norbert Giovannini: Jewish life in Heidelberg. Studies on an Interrupted Story. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1992.
  • Wolfgang U. Eckart: "At first only on a trial basis" - 100 years ago: The first female medical students move into the University of Heidelberg . In: Heidelberg. Yearbook on the history of the city , 4th year 1999, pp. 77–98. ( Online version ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))
  • Marita Krauss: “A fully fulfilled woman's life.” The doctor, mother and Zionist RS In: Hiltrud Häntzschel ; Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.): Menacingly clever. A century of women and science in Bavaria. Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 978-3-406-41857-0 , pp. 236-242.
  • Christiane Schmelzkopf: Rahel Straus . In: Heinz Schmitt (Ed.): Jews in Karlsruhe. Contributions to their history up to the Nazi seizure of power. Badenia, Karlsruhe 1988, ISBN 3-7617-0268-X (Publications of the Karlsruhe City Archives, Vol. 8), pp. 471-480.
  • Ilona Scheidle, “As if the world should begin anew with us” , the first medical student Rahel Straus (1880–1963), In: Ilona Scheidle (ed.), Heidelbergerinnen who wrote history. Portraits of women from five centuries , Kreuzlingen / Munich 2006, Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, ISBN 3-7205-2850-2 , pp. 142–150.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schmelzkopf 1988, p. 474.
  2. ↑ For example, the gynecologist Prof. Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer: “Why little child, do you actually want to study medicine? You don't even know what huge demands it makes on body and soul, on head and heart. [...] You won't be able to stand it physically. ”Quoted from Rahel Straus: We lived in Germany , Stuttgart 1961, p. 88.
  3. ↑ Schmelzkopf 1988, p. 474 calls her “first medical student in Heidelberg and Germany”; however, the latter is doubtful.
  4. ↑ a b University of Heidelberg (ed.): " We wanted to learn how to become independent and free through knowledge." The medical doctor Rahel Straus was a pioneer of women's studies in Germany , interview with Wolfgang U. Eckart , in: HAIlife, Heidelberg Alumni International , Magazin 2015, p. 36/37.
  5. ↑ Ilona Scheidle, "As if the world should begin anew with us", the first medical student Rahel Straus (1880-1963), in: Ilona Scheidle (ed.), Heidelbergerinnen who wrote history. Portraits of women from five centuries , Kreuzlingen / Munich 2006, Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, ISBN 3-7205-2850-2 , p. 143.
  6. ↑ Cf. Rahel Straus: We lived in Germany , Stuttgart 1961, p. 93.
  7. ↑ Schmelzkopf 1988, p. 475.
  8. ↑ See archived copy ( memento of the original from September 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / web.fu-berlin.de
  9. ↑ Schmelzkopf 1988, p. 479.
  10. ↑ City renames Dr.-Eden-Straße to Rahel-Straus-Straße
  11. ↑ Award ceremony: "Awarding the Rahel Straus Prize". Against forgetting - for democracy e. V., Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Baden-Württemberg, accessed on October 23, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Julia Schenkenhofer: A prize for remembering - and dunning . In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten . No. 244 , October 21, 2019, p. 18 .
personal data
SURNAME Straus, Rachel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goitein, Rahel (maiden name); Straus-Goitein, Rachel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pioneer of women's studies, doctor and Zionist
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1963
Place of death Jerusalem