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

Knobloch presides over a community in which nine out of 10 people originate in former Soviet states. She was born to a conservative family, but many former Soviet Jews are Orthodox.

“But for a religion, such differences in origin are unimportant,” she told AFP.

“What's important isn't where they come from (the rabbis), but where they studied, and whether they were trained as conservatives, liberals or Orthodox,” she added.

In an environment in which many worshippers are immigrants, having two new rabbis from the same background is helpful, said Hermann Simon, who heads the foundation in charge of Berlin's main synagogue.

“It's really a good thing that a rabbi can talk (to his flock) in their mother tongue, because sometimes he had to deal with difficult problems,” he said.

One of the new rabbis, Moshe Baumel opened the ordination ceremony in German, the language he grew up with, having arrived in Germany at the age of three, saying “this isn't just an ordination festival, but an integration festival”.

Some Germans are still responsible for acts of violence against foreigners or Jews, said Stanislaw Tillich, who heads the regional government of Saxony where neo-Nazis are active.

But, “The duty of democrats is to defend ... Judaism in Germany,” he said.

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