jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

This would only be possible with state support and the state doesn’t need it, because such programs couldn’t
finance themselves because the target group is uninteresting for the advertisers. So, it would only be possible
through large donations, which won’t work, or through official channels and then there would have to be a
political will for that, and that won’t happen, because then the Turks and Kurds and other minority groups
would come and demand the same. The only thing that could work, which is already working to some extent
is a multi-cultural religious program where Jewish themes appear occasionally.
● What are the principal Jewish structures in Germany today? How far does the synagogue hold the major
role and how far are educational structures central institutions?
The synagogues have never played the main role. In the 15 years I’ve been in Germany, I’ve never seen the
synagogue as the main institution of the Community.
● So there are there equivalent places and institutions?
That’s the problem with German Jewry, that the synagogue just plays a supporting role in the Community.
Aside from the fact that not every Community has a synagogue; even those with a synagogue, the synagogue
doesn’t play the main role. Russian-speaking Jews are the majority in many Communities, and for them
Jewishness is not just about religion, but everything that’s connected to it. So on the one hand, the Rabbis in
Germany are not doing enough to make the synagogues the center of Jewish life. That’s a big problem in
Germany in my opinion. They’re making two or three mistakes.First, there are too few Rabbis from here who
understand this milieu, what’s going on here. The role of the Rabbi in Germany is pretty miserable. They’re
completely normal employees who don’t dare say anything that the chair wouldn’t like and when the
Community members come and want to discuss things in the Community the Rabbis don’t like to talk about
it because the next day the chair will know about it and the day after the Rabbi will be fired. Therefore you
can’t demand from these Rabbis that they make the synagogue the central place in the Community. No Rabbi
will get involved in a conflict between a member and the chair. They won’t offer a rabbinical opinion out of
fear. Therefore the institutionalization of Jewish life in Germany is one of the biggest problems.
On the one hand, there’s the Zentralrat, which represents Jewry, which isn’t the case actually, as the
Zentralrat is a strange construct. It’s neither a lobbyist, which all interest groups have, nor a regulatory body.
It’s the people who most of all propagate their self-interests, comment on every event in this world, often
inappropriately, just because the media and politics need the right words and the right time. Therefore the
Jewish Communities either need real structures or they should be completely independent and each
Community should live as it wants to, without the stipulation that you’ll only get money if you’re a member
of the Zentralrat.
● Thus, at the moment you don’t see educational institutions within Judaism in Germany that could be just as
important as the synagogue?
I think only interpersonal contact can be that important. To help develop Jewish education in Germany, you
can use existing Jewish media, primarily Russian-speaking, because there the need for education is the
greatest, also to regularly transport content. For example, to have one or two pages regularly devoted to
educational topics and articles.
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