jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

We started with 17 kids, and I think it will grow year by year. The kindergarten is already attended by about
30 girls and boys now.
The kids in the kindergarten and school come at least from three different backgrounds. There’s the group of
children who stem from our core families; a second group is from Jewish families from the neighborhood,
who probably would never have sent their kids to a Jewish kindergarten, if there wouldn’t have been an
option close to their own neighborhood. And the third group are Jewish families and parents from around
Berlin who are not part of our group or from our neighborhood, who don’t identify with orthodox Judaism at
all, but who want the educational experience we provide.
● What about children who just have a Jewish father? Can they also go to the Lauder primary school?
Since we are a publicly recognized school with the status, of course there’s the possibility for such children to
join our school. On the other side, I think it’s natural that we also have a kind of priority system, and this is
threefold. Priority number one is for children who are affiliated with the sponsoring Community, i.e. the core
community. Priority number two are children who are affiliated with the umbrella organization, i.e. children
of parents who are members of the local Jewish Community of Berlin. Priority number three are children of
parents who are eligible for membership in the Jewish Community, but for whatever reasons are not members
of the community.
In priority group four there are children from parents who do not fit the first three groups, but theoretically
it’s possible that such kids attend our school as well. And indeed, we have children in our kindergarten and
school now, whose parents are not Jewish according to the Halacha.
● The Jewish population of Berlin is very heterogeneous now, not only by denomination but also by
geographical background, duration of stay here and so on. If you take all the institutions that Lauder
Yeshurun is running now in Berlin; the kindergarten, school, yeshiva, midrasha and family services, would
you say that there is a certain subgroup which dominates? Let’s say the Russian speakers, or the Israelis, or
American Jews?
No, not at all. It’s a very diverse grouping, that’s right. You can meet here four different groups; Israelis,
somehow German-speakers, Russian-speakers and English-speakers. It’s a mix of it all, and that has a kind of
neutralizing effect. However, you have to be careful with all the subgroups. For example, we have sensed that
if you succeed in identifying yourselves sufficiently as a non-Russian speaking environment, you can lose the
Russians completely. The major issue is how to keep a neutral balance while still being sufficiently attractive
for all groups, including the Russians. That’s a challenge.
● So you don’t have all these cultural quarrels and fights which prevents a creative cooperation in many
local Jewish Communities?
When I first came here I really spent a lot of time mediating socio-cultural conflicts. As a person from the
West I understood and identified with the local Community members, but as a Russian speaker I was also
able to relate to the immigrants. Here we don’t really have these problems. There are three reasons for this.
First, we are so heterogeneous that there is little subgroup definition. Second, our Community is very young,
and so a lot of cultural differences are softer and less pronounced. Third, and this is the most important, in
this Community we have a defining authority. The defining authority is the Torah and Halacha. If the
framework of Jewish experience is a traditional-religious one, and the questions that are raised are traditional
and religious ones, then, in general, cultural differences can be handled more easily. Sometimes it’s amusing
to see that some cultural games are played, but it’s not really threatening. And we have cross-cultural
marriages of all thinkable constellations, thus Russian with German, American with German, Russian with
Israeli. Creating an identity of shared values also makes it easier to develop a system of voluntary, shared
activity which is, in general, less developed in the Jewish Communities.
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