Esther Jungreis, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who settled in Lawrence, L.I., and served as a pioneer in the outreach movement to unaffiliated Jews, died on Aug. 23 after a brief illness. Known as “the Rebbetzin” (rabbi’s wife), she was the founder of the Hineni organization, which sponsored a wide variety of educational and social events.
Mrs. Jungreis, who boasted a decade ago that she had made the marriage matches of more than 1,000 Jewish couples, was a native of Szeged, where her father, Avrohom HaLevi Jungreis, was chief rabbi. She and her family were interned in several concentration camps during World War II. After the war, she went to Switzerland, and came to the United States in 1947.
She was married to Rabbi Meshulem HaLevi Jungreis, a distant cousin; he died in 1996.
Mrs. Jungreis was wrote a weekly column for the Jewish Press for 45 years, and was the author of several books on Judaism and marriage. She is survived by four children, Chaya Sora Gertzulin, Rabbi Yisroel Jungreis, Slovi Wolff and Rabbi Osher Jungreis, and by many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
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