jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

21. LALA SÜSSKIND
May 6, 2009, Berlin
● Mrs. Süsskind, what are the current problems and challenges facing Germany Jewry, and what are the
perspectives for the next 10-15 years?
I think it’s very audacious to speak, nowadays, about a “German Jewry”. What is Germany Jewry? I‘d say
that we have several groups of Jews here, who just decided to live in Germany. Admittedly, we have some
offspring here from the old generation of the Jeckes, but I do not consider myself one of them. I was born in
Poland, and came with my family to Germany. Most Jews living today in Germany have their roots abroad.
Most of us consider ourselves to be Jews in Germany. And now, the overwhelming majority of registered
Community members stem from the former USSR and the current CIS. Among the FSU immigrants, one
group is very attached to religion, and another one – a big one – understands themselves as being ethnically
Jewish and are not religious. This has caused some irritations in the Communities. Some of the veterans do
not understand why people come to a synagogue if they are secular and non-believers. Community is
important, in any case. I do not see insurmountable contradictions, the way some parts of the media present it.
Sometimes problems are put on the agenda which are simply not real problems. But for me, a real criterion of
good Community work is if you ask people whether they feel good in the Community, let’s say on a scale
between 0 and 10, and you get an overwhelming amount of 10s.
● The Communities grew rapidly from 1991 until 2004. Now the Jewish age structure in Germany indicates
that there will be a lack of younger people. How serious do you think this problem is?
I don’t like these horror visions about how there are less and less of us. We just had panel discussion on how
to solve this problem, and people asked if we should make giyur easier. But I want to make it very clear that
the procedures for giyur shall remain sacrosanct, and we are not a religion that proselytizes. I don’t like the
idea of trying to consolidate the Jewish Community by converting non-Jews. And I do not share the
pessimism of some friends and colleagues. Just look back to history, including the 20 th century! Even the
Holocaust was not able to destroy the Jewish people, thank G’d! Why should the Jewish people die out now,
in times of peace and democracy? And look at the general demographic numbers in Jewry, even in Europe!
We have been more or less constant.
● How would you assess the relations between the German speaking veterans and the Russian speaking
immigrants in the community now?
There’s a different situation in every Community. But in general, I think the older generations do not have
much in common, this is simply due to language barriers. I don’t think this is such a tragedy. Older people
want their familiar networks and cultures on both sides, and there isn’t so much interaction between the
veterans and the newcomers. If the immigrants prefer to be in their clubs of ‘Odessites’ and ‘Moscovites’,
why not? However, I don’t think that this is so important for the middle aged or younger generation, and here
we hope for much more interaction and exchange between the two groups.
● Are there any problems in the relations between observant and secular Jews in Germany?
I don’t see any problems in Berlin. Here we have pluralism. On the one hand you can find different
denominations gathered within the Einheitsgemeinde [the United Jewish Community], on the other side there
are movements and centers which are totally independent. The Lauder Yeshurun Center for example, the
Chabad Center and here next door to us in the neighborhood there is also Adass Jisroel [an Orthodox
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