jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

The social circumstances have improved in many areas of the former Soviet Union but have gotten worse
in other areas. In Turkmenistan for example, and I could list many other examples. On the other hand, if
you are well-situated in Moscow or St. Petersburg you will not immigrate to Germany. If you are
somewhere in Glubinka, in the farthest area where there is no Community, there’s no synagogue, they
would really love to come to Germany.
● Many Jews in Germany stay away from Jewish Community bodies. What are the main reasons for that?
If you leave out youth work, that’s the second very important question because we have integrated about
85,000 people in the Communities and there are about 85,000 others. Some of these are Halachic Jews who
left the Community, some are Halachic who never joined as they had problems with the Community and so
on.
● So what should be done for the non-Halachic Jews?
I don’t have a pat answer, but I’m young and maybe maximalist. I think that they should convert if they
want to belong. Otherwise there’s the danger of things turning out like in America, where they eased
conversion very much for years hoping that in this way there’d be more Jews. I’m putting things very
simply right now; you mustn’t misunderstand this, or take a quote out of context. But that’s probably the
most difficult question in Jewish life in Germany today. I’m asked this question about once a month on
average. I still don’t have a pat answer. That is closely connected to what I said earlier. What is Judaism? If
it’s a religion, and we have certain articles of faith, then we must believe that Judaism is passed down over
the mother. I could get into the philosophical discussion in which way, with a second soul, but let’s leave
that for now. I’m also not an expert. But if we believe in it, then we believe in it. Everyone is Jewish or not
Jewish accordingly. What to do with those who came to Germany as Jews, but can’t live as Jews because
they’re not accepted by the United Communities? That’s why there are these Liberal Communities who
can accept anyone.
● Just a moment! In the Liberal Communities in Germany it’s not like in America.
But there’s an eased procedure. And the American example should warn us. They have a real problem now.
They said we’ll have more Jews, but they have fewer Jews. What sense does it make to make assimilation
easier? Pragmatically, let’s leave faith and philosophical questions out of it, you can argue about those. I’ve
had many discussions about these with true intellectuals who’ve published many books about these things.
You can debate this for a long time. We can talk about this later. But the actual question is why should we
do this, if it only favors assimilation? What’s the point? They will become assimilated anyway. They will
encourage then others to assimilate, too - like in America. Many organizations [in the U.S.] have now
recognized that it was a mistake and are now trying to backpedal and to introduce more stringent
regulations.
● What do you think about the model of associated membership for non-Halachic Jews?
I have heard this from people who developed the concept. The simplified answer to this concept is what
does it do for me, if it just encourages people to assimilate? Just what I said before. People have come, who
aren’t Jewish. The Rabbis, the Orthodox Rabbis have given their answer to this question. When Jews and
non-Jews come together, then the children aren’t Jewish and you assimilate further. That’s the problem.
112 | P a g e