Back from the ex-USSR, Judaism is enjoying a German renaissance

The ordination as Orthodox rabbis of the men originally from Uzbekistan and Lithuania was Germany's second since 1945, underscoring the growth of the eastern city's Jewish community that 20 years ago numbered only 30.

More than 300 German and foreign Jewish leaders attended the ceremony in a brightly colored 19th century synagogue that somehow managed to survive the 1938 “Kristallnacht” Nazi pogrom.

“Judaism is alive and well in Germany,” said World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder, whose foundation supports Jewish communities, rabbinic schools and the Berlin Orthodox seminary from which the two new rabbis graduated.

Germany counted more than 530,000 Jews in 1933, when Hitler came to power.

In 1939, at the start of World War II, only 200,000 remained as many had emigrated to escape Nazi violence. Just a few thousand of these survived the war.

Today numbers are back to more than 100,000 after Berlin in the 1990s made it easier for Jews from the former Soviet Union to move to Germany and to obtain citizenship.

The two new Orthodox rabbis are among the arrivals: Shlomo Afanasev was born 29 years ago in Tashkent and Moshe Baumel, 22, is orginally from Vilnius.

Addressing the young rabbis in the Eastern-style synagogue, Lauder spoke of their tangled journeys to Germany, pointing out that their wives had also come from far and wide: Afanasev's wife is from Ukraine and Baumel's from Siberia.

“My message to you is — you never know where you'll end up,” Lauder said.

In the aftermath of World War II and the ravages of the Nazi regime, few would have believed there would be a Jewish renaissance, said Charlotte Knobloch, who heads the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Leipzig had 12,000 worshippers in the 1920s, she said. After the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, there were only 30 left. Now there are nearly 1,300, most immigrants from the former USSR, she said.

“In all the Jewish communities I have visited over the past few years I've been made aware ... of the hope there is of being able to continue to live in a country which has caused so much suffering to our families ... and trust in this country, its democracy, and its inhabitants,” she said.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email