Esther Jungreis

Esther Jungreis (April 27, 1936 – August 23, 2016) was a Hungarian-born American religious leader. She was the founder of the international Hineni movement in the United States. A Holocaust survivor, she worked to bring Jews to Orthodox Judaism.

Jungreis was born and raised in Szeged, Hungary on April 27, 1936, to Avraham and Miriam Jungreis. Her two brothers, Jacob and Binyamin, both became rabbis. Her father, Abraham, was an Orthodox rabbi and operated a little shtiebel in the city, known for being at the time home to the country's largest Reform community. Abraham Jungreis was deported with other Jews from Szeged in a cattle car bound for Auschwitz. However a relative who 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 was transferred onto the so-called Kastner train, which after a journey of several weeks and a diversion to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, delivered its 1,670 passengers in Switzerland.

In 1947 the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Jungreis reconnected with distant cousin Theodore (Meshulem HaLevi) Jungreis, a rabbi, and they married. The couple settled in North Woodmere, New York, and founded the North Woodmere Jewish Center/Orthodox Congregation Ohr Torah. Together they raised four children.

Due to her experiences as a Holocaust survivor, she became "determined to devote her life to combating the spiritual holocaust that was occurring here in the United States." This led to the birth of the Hineni movement on November 18, 1973, in Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum. The movement aimed to promote authentic, traditional Yiddishkeit in the United States. As the leader of this movement, she drew criticism for her outspoken stance against interfaith marriages. She was also critical of secularization, which she viewed as a form of assimilation.

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