jews and jewish education in germany today - The Westbury Group

meeting the board member responsible for religious questions called a dozen Rabbis how we can find a
Halachic solution to let this non-Jewish woman be buried in a Jewish cemetery. We found the way.
● How?
You’ve got to make certain boundaries and so on. The best thing would be to have a section for non-Jewish
spouses. It’s still an ongoing process. We want to help people. People need to feel like they’re in their family
and that they will receive support, not the opposite. And the elderly need support for their everyday lives. We
have social workers, and we also have volunteers. We try to do everything we can so that the Community
stands on the side of Jewish law.
● What about the kindergarten, can other children attend, or is it only for Halachic Jews?
No, it’s possible.
● How far will Israel remain as a central element in the activities and in the collective identity of the Jewish
Communities in Germany?
Personally, I think that if nothing stands in our way, it will become even more intensive. It won’t decrease. I
think of our Community in Leipzig is doing a lot in the direction of working together with the Israeli side.
Last year I was in Israel twice with a Leipzig delegation including the mayor. Our goal was establishing a
twin city. It will work out with Herzliyah. In our social center we’re opening an office for the permanent
representative from Herzliyah to Leipzig, a kind of cultural attaché. An office that is within our competence,
it was my initiative. The city of Leipzig strongly supported the idea and now it’s being worked out that we
will have a permanent exchange of people from all age groups, and artists in the center. There will be
projects, concerts, exhibits. But also the city of Leipzig, for 15 years or almost 15 years, has been inviting
people from all over the world who are from Leipzig, including the “Association of Former Leipzig
Residents in Israel”. These people who had to leave this town as sad children, return as happy children,
because they can once again see their hometown. They see it through a child’s eyes. They are the best
ambassadors for Leipzig in Israel. They’re fantastic.
● So the twin city project is on with Herzliyah?
Yes. Every Community member has relatives in Israel, almost every family visits Israel once every two
years. They visit Israel and return here. The purely Zionist idea, that all Jews should live there, is foreign to
me. I also don’t think that all Catholics should live in Vatican City. I’d rather have even more Jews living all
over the world. Of course Israel is an important point in our consciousness, but where a person lives, thank
God, we have the possibility to decide ourselves. Not like in Tsarist times, when we needed to live in the pale
of settlement or even worse, in the ghetto. Of course we, as Jewish people, look in the direction of Israel with
concern and heartache about what is happening there. And of course everyone wants there to be peace.
Unfortunately, the powerful don’t have any vested interest in there being peace. But this is also a personal
problem for me. Of course I’m on Israel’s side, of course I care what happens there, of course I want peace. I
want the world to read about Jews with delight, not that some soldiers have shot some Palestinian child, or
the other way around that some terrorists have killed some Israeli children. However, it is not uncommon that
we are mixed up with Israeli citizens here.
● How do you mean that?
Let’s take an example. If I voted here, in Germany, for the liberals and when the liberals didn’t get into
power, then I know why. They didn’t receive enough votes. Then I’m in the position, completely legal, no
one kills me, no one is screaming at me that I should be ashamed of myself. When I criticize the government,
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