IN THIS PRE-HOLIDAY ISSUE:

• HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM WORLD UNION PRESIDENT RABBI URI REGEV

• FIRST POST-WAR RABBINIC ORDINATION HELD IN GERMANY

• UPCOMING EVENTS

HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM WORLD UNION PRESIDENT RABBI URI REGEV

We have just seen the end of difficult days of fighting that have left their mark on both the north of Israel and large parts of Lebanon. Despite this and other challenges we faced around the world in the past year, we have also witnessed many wonderful accomplishments of which we can be proud:

• The historic ordination of three new rabbis in Germany, symbolizing the renewal of a community risen from the ashes

• The launch of an ambitious strategic plan to strengthen Reform Jewry in Israel

• Collaborative planning with the Conservative movement in Latin American to strengthen liberal Judaism on this important continent

• A record year for our formative summer camp program in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and the purchase of a center for the St. Petersburg community

• A stronger presence in North America through the work of the North American Council and our collaboration with the Union for Reform Judaism’s new World Jewry Committee.

As we start a new year, 5767, we are sustained by the belief that we have been blessed, and have brought blessings to others, through the fulfillment of these and many other of our aspirations. May these blessings continue, and may we see a year of even more progress and the strengthening of a peaceful, just society.

Shalom v’ Shanah Tovah

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FIRST POST-WAR RABBINIC ORDINATION HELD IN GERMANY

The World Takes Notice

On Thursday, September 14, Daniel Alter, Tomáš Kučera and Malcolm Matitiani became the first rabbis ordained in Germany since the Holocaust.

Graduates of Abraham Geiger College, continental Europe's first active Reform seminary since the war, the three new rabbis found themselves unexpectedly the center of global attention as the ordination was covered live on German television and in reports from virtually every major news outlet around the world (see selected links at the end of this story). Throughout the German media, the event was repeatedly described as nothing short of “a miracle.”

“The historic ordination was truly moving,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, president of the World Union, “and carried with it tremendous importance for our Reform Jewish family, the German Jewish community and Germany as a whole. You could not help feeling the wings of history hovering over you as the first rabbis since the Holocaust were ordained on German soil."

Like the graduation ceremony held the day before, the rabbinic investiture took place in Dresden, in eastern Germany, at the city's Neue Synagoge. It was led by Rabbi Walter Jacob, a German-born pulpit rabbi from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rabbi Jacob had set a personal goal in retirement to assist in the renewal of Jewish life in Germany, and has been instrumental in the development of Geiger College, currently serving as its president. According to Regev, “many eyes were wet” when Jacob spoke of his own family, 15 generations of rabbis who served and led German Jewry until the Nazis arose to annihilate it. “At that moment,” says Regev, “when his spiritual children entered the rabbinic chain of generations, it was clear that a new chapter had opened for the Jewish people and for Germany - a chapter of renewal and hope.”

Rabbi Walter Jacob, president of Abraham Geiger College, ordains (foreground, l-r) Tomáš Kučera, Malcolm Matitiani and Daniel Alter. “All of Germany celebrates with us today, and all of Europe as well,” said Jacob.

The New Rabbis

Daniel Alter, 47, is the only one of the new rabbis to have been born in Germany. Married, with two daughters, he received an M.A. degree in Jewish Studies from the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg and worked as a schoolteacher before enrolling in Geiger College during the winter semester of 2001/2002. He was a student rabbi for the Jewish congregations of Delmenhorst and Oldenburg, where he will continue to divide his time as rabbi.

Czech-born Tomáš Kučera, 35, is a former biochemist who earned his doctorate in Germany. In 2002, following two years at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem, he joined Geiger College’s rabbinic program. During his studies he interned at England's Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue, served as student rabbi for liberal German congregations in Göttingen, Hameln and Hannover, and starting last year held a part-time position with Munich’s Congregation Beth Shalom, where he now will be rabbi. He also will be serving the Progressive community in Prague on a part-time basis.

Malcolm Matitiani, 35, is married and from South Africa, where he received a B.A. in Jewish Studies and Hebrew, a second B.A. (with honors) in Hebrew Bible studies, with emphasis on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and an M.A. in Jewish Studies. He was admitted to Geiger College in the winter of 2001/2002 and completed practical internships in England at the Manchester Reform Synagogue and Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue. He now will return to South Africa to serve on the rabbinic staff at Temple Israel in Cape Town.

The Ordination

Dresden's Neue Synagoge stands on a plaza alongside the Elbe River, on the site of the city's pre-war synagogue. That synagogue - built in 1838, gutted 100 years later during Kristalnacht, and destroyed in the Allied bombings – was constructed "like a fortress, tall stone walls with small windows high up," noted Rabbi Andrew Goldstein of Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue near London. "Not to protect the Jews, as in medieval synagogues," he said, "but to fit in with the monumental architecture of the buildings around it, amongst them the world-famous Zwinger Palace. It was a prominent landmark and a clear declaration of Jewish emancipation and presence in the city."

The Neue Synagoge, says Goldstein, who had come to present Malcolm Matitiani for ordination, "is also built like a fortress. A huge concrete cube with only one external window on its sides. [But] you must enter for the real drama, because inside this mighty concrete cube…is a smaller synagogue, like a theater set in the middle of a large stage. It is ingenious and it works. And I presume the symbolism is that once there was a very large community in Dresden, now there is a remnant, but the remnant is growing and maybe one day the shul will need to expand…and there is room."

Leading the ordination alongside Rabbi Jacob was Rabbi Walter Homolka, Geiger College's director and a member of the World Union's executive board. Also participating were the World Union's Regev; Rabbi Prof. Alfred Gottschalk, chancellor emeritus of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion; Rabbi Prof. Marc Saperstein, principal of Leo Baeck College in London; Prof. Admiel Kosman, rector of Geiger College; Rabbi Prof. Allan Podet, past rector of the college; Rabbi Danny Rich, director of the U.K.'s Liberal Judaism movement; Rabbi Edward van Voolen, vocational director of Geiger College; and Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger.

Rabbi Baroness Neuberger delivered the keynote address at the rabbinic candidates' graduation the day before their ordination. A noted academic and writer, as well as the daughter of a German refugee from the Nazis, she said she often felt "quite German" despite having been born and raised in London. "As someone who feels distinctly that I am, in some sense, a German Jew," she said, "there can be no greater pleasure than to see this rebirth of Jewish life, this reaffirmation of Germany as home to one of the world’s significant Jewish communities."

Representing the World Union at the ceremony, in addition to Regev, were several members of its executive board: Leslie Bergman, Ruth Cohen, Ina Rae Levy, Felix Mosbacher and Gordon Smith. Also present were leaders of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, led by its chairman, Dr. Jan Mühlstein; Yehoram Mazor, secretary of MARAM (Israel's Council of Progressive Rabbis); Rabbi Tovia Ben-Chorin of Judisches Liberale Gemeinde Zurich; Harold Sandak-Lewin, past president of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism; and representatives of the Progressive communities in Prague and Munich.

Many political and religious dignitaries sent special greetings to Geiger College, its newly ordained rabbis and leaders of the Reform movement. Chancellor Angela Merkel termed it “a day of recognition and joy” and expressed the hope that the three new rabbis would be “followed by many more.”

Said German president Horst Köhler, “After the Holocaust many could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany would ever thrive again. That is why the first ordination of rabbis to take place in Germany in 60 years is a very special occasion indeed.”

Other German leaders sending salutations included:

Dr. Norbert Lammert, president of the German Bundestag:

“The widespread public interest in the rabbis’ ordination illustrates once again the diversity and vitality of Jewish culture in Germany – an expression of trust in our country and our democracy, for which I am grateful.”

Peter Harry Carstensen, president of the German Bundesrat:

“Because of the crimes committed against the Jews in the National Socialist era, we Germans have a special responsibility: This includes responsibility for ensuring that Jewish life can develop freely and flourish in Germany and throughout the world.”

Karl Cardinal Lehmann, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference:

“I wish to extend the sincere congratulations and blessings of the German Bishops’ Conference on the occasion of the first ordination of rabbis in Germany since 1942.”

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Loschedler, president of the University of Potsdam:

“We have assumed responsibility for this course of study and curriculum because we are convinced that it is a moral, historical and cultural imperative. And we will do everything in our power to make sure that we live up to this responsibility in the future.”

Ingrid Fischback, MP, German commissioner for churches and religious communities:

“My wish for the Jewish communities and the Abraham Geiger College is this: May many more courageous men and women follow in your footsteps, thus making the living diversity of Judaism a self-evident reality and enriching our society as a whole.”

Reform Judaism in Germany

Germany was the birthplace of Reform Judaism (known today in some places outside North America as Progressive or Liberal Judaism), having nourished since the 18th century such preeminent Jewish thinkers as Moses Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, Leo Baeck and Abraham Geiger. These leaders laid the foundation for a respected and recognized Reform movement. It was Geiger who, in 1836, called for a rabbinic training school for the movement, leading to the establishment of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau in 1854 and the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin in 1870. Both of these schools were closed by the Nazis, never to reopen.

Prior to the Holocaust there were about 600,000 Jews in Germany. This number was reduced to just 12,000 by the end of the war. Today, Germany's Jewish population numbers approximately 100,000, due in large part to a massive influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union starting with the demise of Communism.

As Jewish life returned to Europe following the Shoah and the fall of oppressive regimes, the World Union intensified its efforts to establish and strenghten Jewish communities. Recently, the number of Progressive congregations in Germany reached 20; about half are members, through their state boards of Jewish communities, of the Central Council of Jews of Germany (Zentralrat). There is also a national Progressive youth group called Jung und Judische, which is affiliated with Netzer Olami, the Progressive Zionist youth movement, and a German branch of ARZENU, the worldwide organization of Reform and Progressive religious Zionists. All are united under the auspices of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, a World Union affiliate.

With the post-war growth of Progressive Judaism in Germany, there arose the need for a training institute to replace the seminaries shut down by the Nazis. In 1999, Geiger College became the continent's first Progressive rabbinic seminary since the Shoah, its primary mission being to educate rabbis for communities in central and eastern Europe. It is an institute at the University of Potsdam and an affiliate of the World Union.

Last year, the Leo Baeck Foundation was established to help procure funds for Geiger College. In May of this year, Germany's parliament approved the equivalent of nearly $200,000 in annual funding, matching monies pledged by the Zentralrat - and doubling the amount previously approved by the federal Ministry of Home Affairs.

Rabbi Regev said that Geiger College's founder and director, Rabbi Walter Homolka, "fought against the odds imposed by internal and external obstacles and was able to see the fulfillment of his vision, the training of rabbis for continental Europe. We wish him and everyone at the college continued success, and eagerly anticipate the ordination of many more Reform rabbis in the years to come."

Links to Selected Media Reports

NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/world/europe/15rabbis.html?ref=world

Times of London

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2349256,00.html

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401540.html

Haaretz

http://www.irac.org/newsletter/images/2006img/9/18.9.06/rabbis.pdf

YNet

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3303725,00.html

JTA

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=17040&intcategoryid=2

Beliefnet

http://beliefnet.com/story/199/story_19965.html

Agence France Presse

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060914/wl_afp/germanyreligionhistory_060914161723

BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5344466.stm

CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/14/germany.rabbis.ap/index.html

AP/ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2436562

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UPCOMING EVENTS

• Register now for Connections 2007 – the 33rd International Convention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, March 15-20, 2007, in Jerusalem

• Shared Destiny –  the World Union’s International Humanitarian Awards Celebration honoring Rabbi Roberto D. Graetz, Lorry Lokey and Joanne Harrington in San Mateo, California, October 8, 2006

• Installation of Rabbi Burt Schuman as spiritual leader of Beit Warszawa, Poland’s first post-war Progressive community, by World Union president Rabbi Uri Regev in Warsaw, October 20, 2006

• Special World Union Mission to South America, November 9-20. (Adobe Reader required for this download)

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