jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

the integration of at least 100,000 Russian Jews, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, by little seminars
or two-three day seminars, two week courses and the like.
Therefore, I put a question mark on the long-term impact of these courses or projects. We have the UJA
[United Jewish Appeal] in New York sponsor a lay leadership seminar that is set out for three weekends. We
also organized these events and they had some kind of impact, sure. But such events can only be the
beginning.
My idea of integration would be to target the money into long-term initiatives so that people who have, for
example, been stimulated by the Limmud conferences and who have said
I have enjoyed dealing with my Jewish identity and in studying and I would like to know more can go on
particular courses that will enable them also to qualify professionally and receive standard qualifications.
That’s especially important in a country like Germany, where everything is standardized and where you need
a paper for everything, a document showing you have official qualifications. I really think one should focus
more on developing professional roles. And it would be great if employment in the Jewish Community were
often based on these qualifications.
Currently the only institution that offers qualifications outside of the rabbinate and the cantorate [as e.g. run
by the Abraham Geiger College, O.G.] is the Heidelberg Hochschule [University of Jewish Studies in
Heidelberg]. The Heidelberg Hochschule only offers one course apart from the academic MA and that is a
course that qualifies students to become teachers in the state school system. The demand for this profile is
rather limited because we have so few Jewish secondary schools. Those teachers are paid for by the
government and may have little to do with the local congregations. Also, there are very few schools that
actually have enough need for a teacher of Jewish religious education. We have very few Jewish schools,
partly because of the government’s insistence that all immigrants are spread all over the country. Therefore,
we have a couple of large congregations where a lot of Jews can be found, but we predominantly have little
communities spread throughout Germany with 100-200 families.
This is why we, in contrast, developed a job profile of cantor-educator for people that are directly employed
in Jewish Communities. Such people can take on a variety of roles within the local Jewish congregation. It
would be great if we could get more and more Russian people into these jobs so that the Communities
become more self-sufficient. So the qualification issue is central.
● Undoubtedly the Communities are working on programs of strengthening Jewish identity of the average
members. In this context do you think that the significance of Israel, as a modern Jewish State and as a
contemporary centre of Judaism will remain the same, or that Israel will even increase its importance in the
collective identities of the Communities here?
Looking at the fact that it is difficult to get the younger generation involved, one way of getting people
interested is, as I mentioned earlier, the camp experience. Another way could be a program like Birthright
Israel, the American program that provides a direct experience of the state of Israel for its participants. There
are a lot of Russians in Israel, and I think one could focus on the fact that this is also an interesting source of
identity. So far, however, I find that the topic of identifying with Israel is being neglected. Our experiences
with Birthright Israel in Germany show that a lot can be achieved, especially when followed up back home.
I think it would be a necessary component of youth work to integrate the experience of two-three weeks in
Israel. If one had a structured approach a camp experience could be provided for the 8-14 year olds, a camp
in Israel for the 15-18 year olds and then youth activities much like those practiced in America. These
activities have to be conducted with a long-term perspective, so that they are not only one-off experiences.
I think projects are also best done independently. They need to have self-governing structures and one should
not have the feeling that they are yet another group of programs with a top-to-bottom approach. We should
establish a bottom up approach, and here Limmud is also an interesting experience. It gives us an experience
that if you organize things yourself you can get a good program together. I think that’s an experience of selfempowerment
and this is just what is currently lacking in Jewish organizations. Many people just consume
whatever is on offer, but they’re not taking any responsibility. I think everything we do needs to be judged by
how much responsibility people will be able to take in the Jewish Community.
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