jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

But we have to offer people professional choices so that they get committed to their Communities. Again, I
think the leading argument is responsibility. As long as we’re not prepared to shift responsibility to the
Russians, to the majority of our congregants, we will not succeed. And still I can understand the argument
that you cannot shift the responsibility before you have prepared people to do the right thing. First you need
to prepare these people so that they use their responsibility wisely, they will in turn know what goals they
should define for themselves. The Jewish Community is not a means in itself, it is a means to get more
literate in the Jewish tradition. Therefore, the responsibility shift does not work before you have tackled the
educational tasks.
● As the rector of the Abraham Geiger College has your experience in cooperating with German officials
and politicians been mostly positive, or rather the opposite?
I think there’s a great interest of German politics to help to make the integration work successful, especially
on the federal level. Usually you can overcome this by showing a local politician what kind of a high profile
Jewish issues have on a national level. This has been my experience, and I can also prove this by saying that
almost 80% of the money for the rabbinical seminary comes from the various states of Germany:
For the Federal Republic of Germany, if you have a good plan, you can find a good partner. For example, the
cantorial school was built with seed money from an American foundation and once I could prove that an
American foundation was willing to put some money in, the German government immediately gave more
than double the sum so as to make sure that the project can continue and flourish.
Let me just add that maybe this would be a parallel to the ‘Studienwerk’ [‘Ernst-Ludwig-Ehrlich-
Studienwerk’], the scholarship foundation, where the money that the government provides is, I would say,
98% of the expenses. The expectation that the initial set up is done by the benefiting community itself is not
too much to ask, given the fact that most of the costs are then paid for by the government.
So I would say the German political set up for such a foundation is ideal, because once you have a good plan
and you put in the seed money, you can expect that things then are likely to be subsidized by the federal
government.
Therefore, I think it’s clear that you get the most out of every dollar or euro you spend in terms of
effectiveness, and I also think it’s a most interesting country because we have a very flexible and vibrant
situation. If we use this well, Germany can become an immense stimulus, certainly for the neighboring
Central and Eastern European countries like Poland, or the Czech Republic, but also for France. France has a
pretty stable Jewish Community, but they have no rabbinical training center, and therefore the Rabbis for the
non-Orthodox Jewish communities in France are now trained by the Abraham Geiger College.
● French students come over to get qualified as Rabbis in Berlin and Potsdam [Abraham Geiger College]?
Yes, we work with French students and also cooperate with the Sorbonne. Many Jewish Communities in
France have only recently become aware of the problem that many Rabbis are close to retirement age and so
they have no institutions that could help in a situation such as this. Again, Germany can become an important
factor in affecting Jewish life in Europe because of the high level of government support.
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