Rebbetzin esther jungreis biography graphic organizer

Esther Jungreis (born in Szeged, Hungary in 1936) is the founder of the international Hineni movement in America. A Holocaust survivor, she has made it her life's mission to bring back Jews to Orthodox Judaism.

Biography

Jungreis spent her early childhood in Szeged, Hungary, where her father was chief rabbi of the Orthodox Jewish community. Her maiden name was Jungreis (she married a distant cousin Theodore Jungreis; the name Jungreis was common in Hungary at the time with over 85 Orthodox rabbis having the surname). Rabbi Jungreis, the Rav of Szeged, was deported with other Jews from Szeged in a cattle car bound for Auschwitz. However a relative that worked for Rudolph Kastner’s office arranged that when the train from Szeged passed through Budapest the cattle car was opened and the entire Jungreis family went onto the so-called Kastner train to Switzerland.

In 1947 they moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she reconnected with distant cousin