jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

The question is how could they throw a huge party celebrating the fact that Rabbis were once again being
trained and ordained in Germany, which was a huge deal. As much capital was made from this as possible.
These are the things that had never been initiated by the official side. These are things that have gotten so big
that they can no longer be ignored. First things are blocked. And some things have been destroyed. It doesn’t
matter if you’ve got a good plan, some things you can’t really begin. The point is you need to be persistent
and continue and make new plans a side from established institutions.
● What is your impression of the Jewish media in Germany in general and how is it developing?
Jewish media in Germany and how it develops is mostly in the Internet. That’s where new things are
happening. Otherwise, there are plans to do something in other forms of media; radio, TV. These are more or
less, well, less successful. Then there were attempts to establish a print newspaper and that seems also not to
have been so successful. Then there’s the official central organ [Jewish weekly “Jüdische Allgemeine”,
published by the Central Council of Jews in Germany]. I don’t really know exactly what you mean by Jewish
media.
● I just mean the different Jewish media, as it exists in Germany nowadays.
It’s growing, taken objectively, it’s growing however you look at it. But where is it growing? Toward a brand
name like Jüdisches Leben in Central Europe? Then every little thing is a miracle. If you have two papers,
then that’s a fantastic accomplishment, after only having the central organ for 60 years. That they couldn’t
last long, well, there are probably several reasons for that. I think the fact that there is a central paper also has
something to do with it, the fact that they had difficulties. That’s what I mean with the problem of only
support for the established, which hampers vitality even more. Thus, it would be nice to reach a point where
there can be some, independent competition.
● The demand for communication inside and outside the JCs is growing, isn’t it?
In the Community the main thing is getting the bulletin together, making sure the people who attend
synagogue have a version in the language they need, that there are some yarmulkes around. In larger
Communities they might need an old people’s home or a kindergarten. Each Community does this for itself.
Anti-Semitism or Jewish education, which I feel to be closely connected, the more knowledge about Judaism
that can be spread, the more immune people will be to anti-Semitic clichés and propaganda. You can’t spread
the same pack of lies to everyone, for example, about kosher butchering, when people actually know what
you’re talking about. That’s why knowledge is what can protect people against all of this demagoguery and
inflammatory propaganda. There’s a close connection. The main thing, of course, is Jewish education, which
is a value in and of itself. It’s useful to those who have it because they are enriched. However, mostly in the
area of discourse, Judaism lives from debates. The Talmud is nothing but a protocol of an enormously long
debate. The big conflict was about the writing it all down, the oral Torah, because it was forbidden to copy it
because things become set after having been written down. The written word carried more weight than the
spoken word. On principle, this debate has to continue, also using the medium of the Internet, which easily
lends itself to open debate.
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