jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

17. JEWGENIJ SINGER
June 8, 2009, Frankfurt
● Mr. Singer, please tell me about your personal and professional background.
I’m 26 years old, I’ve been in Germany for 10 years, and I emigrated from Ukraine. I went to a college
prep school here in Germany. I studied political science and now have my own business in business
communications. I’m also going to law school. I’m active in several Jewish organizations. I’m the chair of
the Jewish Student Union in Hesse; I’m a member of the [JC] Community board in Frankfurt, and I’m a
member of the board of the Federal Union of Jewish Students in Germany [BJSD].
● You have said that you belong to Orthodox Judaism. Is your family religious, or is this something you
discovered for yourself?
I come from a non-religious family. Among the FSU immigrants there were so few people who had
anything to do with the traditions, and that’s simply because it was forbidden by the state. You couldn’t
live it, it was illegal. That’s why some people say that nothing like it even existed. That’s not completely
true. I know for a fact that there were such people, but very few. My family didn’t have a lot to do with
religion. My grandmother once told me that this is now a Jewish holiday, Pessach, and so on, but we didn’t
celebrate it. It was forbidden for many years. As soon as it became possible, as soon as there was a Jewish
school in my hometown, or the town I’m from, in Lemberg, my parents sent me there. They did have a
connection to Judaism, but couldn’t express it there.
● Would you say that Orthodox Judaism is still the dominant strain in the Jewish Communities across
Germany? At least, the majority of German Rabbis are Orthodox.
Yes, but my decision had already been made before. That didn’t have anything to do with it.
● You’re active in many different networks. Where do you see the largest difficulties and challenges for
organized Jewish life in Germany?
Basically I think that now a very important, you could even say historic, time has come, where there’s a
change going on in many different organizations. Also due to the aging process, many Jewish immigrants
are taking on leadership positions in the organizations and the problem is that, for example, now the youth
groups all across Germany are having trouble attracting enough qualified people. The problem isn’t that
such people don’t exist; they certainly do. They just need to be motivated in the right way because the
Communities have failed to include people in Jewish life from an early age on or from the moment they
came to Germany. There’s now the problem of actively including people between 20-35 years old in Jewish
life.
Many Communities have given up because they think they won’t be successful anyway. I think that the
problem is with the concepts. They need to change their concepts and change the motivations of people.
● That means that there is a general trend that it’s difficult to attract and keep young people that you can
see in the Communities throughout Germany?
Yes, and everyone is ready to admit this. Many Jewish organizations try out various concepts, but I think
that what’s missing is the closeness to, let’s say, their clients. They can’t offer the right concept, not the
concept that would be attractive to people and interest them.
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