Jewish Ostracism in Germany

“In Russia, I was discriminated for being a Jew. In Germany, the Jewish community does not let me become a member because my mother was not Jewish,” Diana K., a Ukrainian immigrant to Berlin told European Jewish Press [1].

_

Over the last 15 years more than 200,000 Jews have immigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union (CIS).

_
Recent statistics compiled on behalf of the German government show that 205,905 Jews came from the CIS to Germany between 1991 and 2005. The largest influx of arrived between 1995 and 2004, when an estimated 10,000 Jews per year entered Germany as permanent residents.

_
Many of the Jews were driven out of the CIS after an upsurge in anti-Semitism. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Soviet Jews feared an increase in anti-Semitic violence. And indeed, anti-Semitic violence and hate propaganda surged when newly-founded right-wing parties and nationalist groups took advantage of the political freedoms that resulted with the demise of communist party hegemony. In the early 90s, most Jews left with the pretext that the newly founded Russian Federation was becoming increasingly dangerous for Jews and other minorities.

_

Until January 2005, Jews from the former Soviet Union could enter Germany as contingency refugees. This status allowed Jews to be able to get around Germany’s ever-increasing immigration restrictions. The contingency-refugee law, passed on January 9 1991, did not limit the number of Jews that could enter Germany. It was also an open-ended law – meaning that there were no time restrictions forcing Jews to make the decision of whether or not to emigrate or when.

_

The German government has recognised that a great many immigrants from the former Soviet Union have been seeking to establish residency in Germany for the sole purpose of bettering their economic standing or in order not to lose their chance at being allowed to receive automatic residency.

_

Nonetheless, the government has exercised restraint over the past 15 years. Knowing that it had a historical debt to pay to the Jews of Europe, it sought to right a historical wrong by supporting the re-population of former Jewish centres throughout Germany through its Jewish immigration policy. However, the government has come under increasing pressure to revamp its failed integration policies.

_

But even the cash strapped Jewish communities want to see more involvement in their congregations by the new immigrants, should they seek to live in Germany – and have thus found a consensus with immigration policy makers. “If the immigrants do not want actively participate in Jewish life here, then what on earth are they coming here for… they might as well stay home” one disgruntled Berlin community member told EJP.

_

The member lamented that at least half of all CIS Jews have not registered with a local congregation. In fact, of the 220,000 Jews living in Germany today, only 120,000 are officially registered with any congregation associated with the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

_

“Many of the Russians are not members because many of them are not Jewish in the first place,” one Dresden Jewish community leader told EJP [2,3].

_

She was referring to Jewish law which prescribes that a Jew is a person born of a Jewish mother. German immigration policy, however, has also let the offspring of Jewish fathers into Germany as contingency-refugees.

_

“Anyone descended from a Jew, whether from a Jewish mother or, only, a Jewish father was considered ethnically Jewish in the former Soviet Union. Anyone there that was branded ‘Jewish’ was open game to all forms of discrimination. Therefore, the German government did not distinguish between a people whose mother or only whose father was Jewish,” an interior ministry source said.

_

This policy has, however, also created a social problem among the contingency-refugees within Germany’s established Jewish community structures.

_

Many of these so-called not-Jewish-Jews are not considered Jewish by their local congregations, even though they have shown an interest in becoming a member of a congregation.

_

“In Russia, I was discriminated for being a Jew. In Germany, the Jewish community does not let me become a member because my mother was not Jewish,” Diana K., a Ukrainian immigrant to Berlin told EJP.

_

“If being Jewish is a heritage, then it must also come from the father,” Diana said.

_

_

Nuremberg Race Laws [4]

_
The Jewish communities have offered to convert these immigrants. However, many contingency-refugees, such as Diana, told EJP that they do not think it is right for them to have to convert to something that they feel that they already are.
_

Like in Israel, many Russians who have immigrated here are neither Jewish from either their mother or father’s side. Some are the spouses of Jews. However, many have used falsified documents claiming to be Jews for the sole purpose of obtaining easy visa for a western country.

_

Since last year, the Jewish roots of new immigrants are being more severely scrutinised at German consulates throughout the CIS.

_

As a result of the tightening up of the contingency-refugee laws, which also makes it mandatory for new arrivals to become active members of a Jewish synagogue congregations, fewer Jewish immigrants have been coming into Germany.

_

Last year, less than 6,000 Jews entered Germany from CIS countries. So far this year, fewer than 400 Jews have immigrated to Germany. Non-Jewish spouses and children will still be let into Germany, as long as the Jewish partner fulfils the new requirements.

_

Perhaps due to Germany’s historical responsibility towards Jews, government analysts have avoided scrutinising the integration processes of the contingency-refugees. Thus, official statistics about the integration of Jews is not available.

_

One source told EJP that most offspring of CIS-Jewish immigrants have learned German and, unlike immigrants from most other non-EU countries, an above average number of them have gone on to further their education. However, many of their parents cannot speak German properly and have been collecting some form of state aid. Also, many have been unwilling to identify with Germany at all. In fact, many have shown open disdain for their host country as a result of its Nazi past.

_

At a leadership conference of Germany’s Jewish Student Union, last year, the question of whether the Union should better integrate itself with other student organisations was rejected. Most of the student leaders underlined the fact that Jews were still not being accepted by other groups as full-fledged citizens and thus they did not feel that any alliance with other student or civic organisations would further their cause.

_

Because of their claim that Germany is severely riddled in latent anti-Semitism, about half of the student leaders even claimed that they were still in Germany only because of their parents and that Germany was nothing more than a way-station for them on their final road to Israel or countries with a less tainted past.

_
"Such an attitude is not indicative of whether a person is integrated or not,” the interior ministry source said. “If the immigrants learn the language, have a job and have a clean police record, then they are considered integrated,” he said. “Since about half of these young people’s parents have no solid working knowledge of German and because a large number of these hold no long-term job, then we can assume that the integration process has failed here too.”

__

In order to combat language and social deficits among its migrant population, the government has intensified its offer of German and integration courses – free of charge. Such courses are now mandatory for recipients of welfare benefits. For many Jews from the CIS, these courses have been made available at Jewish community centres throughout Germany.

_
However, as one critic put it, “how do you expect these Russian speaking Jews to properly learn German or to integrate with other cultures in Germany if their courses are held among themselves… this is indicative of why integration has been failing”.

Who is a Jew in Germany ? The Wankum Question

What if the head of Hamburg’s Jewish community wasn’t actually Jewish?, Tablet [1]

On March 6th 1997, 2.574.000 Jews live in Europe, they were 10.048.400 in 1930; 62.000 Jews live in Germany, they were 564.400 in 1930; 2.900 Jews live in Hamburg, they were 20.800 in 1930 (from Jews In Hamburg - Permanent Exhibition at the Museum of Hamburg History [2])

For years, Andreas Christoph Wankum was the Hamburg, Germany, Jewish community’s favorite son. A self-made millionaire who made his fortune in real estate, he signed fat checks to Keren Hayesod, the influential pro-Israel charity. When Communism collapsed in Hungary, he was instrumental in helping many of that country’s Jews make aliya. He funded scores of Jewish philanthropies in Israel and Germany alike, including a Birthright-type initiative that sent local Jewish students on their first visit to the Jewish state.

There was only one problem: he may not have been Jewish, and the rabbi who appointed him to the presidency of the Hamburg branch of Keren Hayesod, the global equivalent of the United Jewish Communities, may not even been a real rabbi. As if being a Jew in Germany wasn’t complicated enough, this case of identity wars is threatening to tear apart Hamburg’s Jewish community, which is one of Germany’s most resurgent and influential. And, like so many things in Germany, this affair is all about adhering to the rules.

Born in 1955, Wankum first discovered his Jewish roots when he was 13. Observing that his neighbors, the Wolfs, shut down their dry-cleaning business every Saturday, he asked his mother about this odd business practice. The Wolfs, she said, were Jewish, and so were the Wankums, even though they’d concealed it during the war for obvious reasons.

Enamored with his new identity, Wankum reached out to Hamburg’s Jewish community, and even received documents from its leaders that helped him avoid military service. But his Jewish provenance remained questionable, and he never joined the community as a full-fledged member.

In 1999 when Wankum was offered the presidency of the local branch of Keren Hayesod, he found himself facing an unexpected hurdle. To accept the position, he was told, he needed to be an official member of the community. And to do that, he needed to prove, beyond any doubt, that he was indeed Jewish. He was helped in his quest by Rabbi Dov Levi Barzilai, Hamburg’s chief orthodox rabbi. In December of 1999, Barzilai heard four witnesses, including Wankum’s brother and his wife’s uncle, and then signed a paper declaring, officially, that Wankum was a Jew. Soon thereafter, Wankum accepted his new position.

Under Wankum’s leadership, Keren Hayesod experienced unparalleled success. But in late December 1999, following terrible liquidity problems with his company, Wankum declared bankruptcy, which, in Germany’s unremitting political and economic landscape, is a death sentence: Bankruptcy and debt are unacceptable, and forgiveness is never offered. To anyone, that is, but Wankum. Remembering his charitable past, his fellow community members kept him in their warm embrace, and, in 2003, bestowed on him the highest honor imaginable, the chairmanship of Hamburg’s Jewish community.

It was at that time that Wankum aroused the interest of Stefan Knauer, a veteran journalist for the venerated German weekly Der Spiegel. Nearing retirement, Knauer decided to abandon the hard-edged topics he’d been covering throughout his career and examine instead the state of religion in his local community. The Jewish community in particular struck him as insular, further igniting his curiosity. He was especially fascinated by its boisterous chairman, Wankum. Then, one day, he had an epiphany. “[Wankum] was just looking for rehabilitation,” Knauer said in a recent interview, “a place where no one can criticize him after his bankruptcy, and the Jewish community is the best shelter because any criticism about its chairman is immediately tagged as anti-Semitism and Nazism.”

Guided by his suspicions, Knauer started to ask around about Wankum and his religious affiliations. Wankum, on his end, kept referring the reporter to Rabbi Barzilai, and claimed that 2,000 years of Jewish history gave him the right not to talk to the media.

“We started to look in archives in villages around Hamburg where his family used to live,” Knauer said. “There were registration forms with religion identity and we found that Wankum’s mother was named Ruth Morgenstern and she was registered as Lutheran. But you can’t really know because many Jews hid their identity under the Third Reich. On the other hand, how do you explain that his middle name is Christoph?”

Knauer’s quest might have ended up nowhere if it weren’t for Ruben Herzberg. A local educator and a former beneficiary of Wankum’s funds, he was appointed the community’s chairman after Wankum’s term ended in 2007. Soon thereafter, he said, strange things began to happen. “When I was elected as chairman,” he said, “I found out that we basically don’t have any money to maintain ourselves and that we must find ways to cut our expenses. I might be naïve, but I was expecting our rabbi to care about the situation and take a pay cut.”

Rabbi Barzilai, however, would do no such thing, and an exasperated Herzberg began looking into the rabbi’s conduct. During one such investigation, he learned that several community members, Wankum among them, had no documents certifying his Jewishness. Alarmed, he asked the rabbi to provide proof that Wankum was indeed a Jew.

“After a while we understood that Rabbi Barzilai has no documents,” Herzberg said, “just four witnesses and that only one of them was Jewish himself.” In his defense, Rabbi Barzilai claimed he was not permitted to divulge the names of Wankum’s witnesses, but Herzberg asked around and learned that no such rabbinic edict existed. Suspicious, Herzberg decided to call the central rabbinate in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya, where Barzilai claimed to have gotten his rabbinic certification. They were shocked to learn it wasn’t kosher: the chief rabbi of Netanya wrote Herzberg back, saying that the people who appointed Barzilai had no authority to do so. (Barzilai’s credentials are currently being examined by a German rabbinical court. He refused to comment for this piece.)

At this point, Hamburg’s wars of the Jews escalated. “During our checkup,” Herzberg said, “we found that 20 people were missing documents in their files; 16 responded and brought us the papers, but four, including Wankum and his brother, never answered and were ousted from the community.”

Herzberg fired Rabbi Barzilai, an act he he’s claimed in previous interviews with the press was motivated by financial issues, with the community refusing to pay his pension. Some of his colleagues in the community were so livid about what they perceived to be Wankum’s deception that they suggested digging Wankum’s deceased mother from her grave in the Jewish cemetery and interring her elsewhere. Within months, former collaborators became the worst of enemies.

“I will tell you what Herzberg is according to the Jewish halacha,” Wankum fumed recently. “He is a total schmuck, a pathological liar of the worst kind. He just wants to clean the community from anyone who was there before and he uses methods that Nazis used in order to do it.”

Any attempt to question his sincerity, Wankum added, was malicious. “After all I did,” he said, “the claim that I used Judaism as shelter is a disgusting lie. I have a daughter who volunteered in a kibbutz and lives a traditional life in Israel. So what kind of other proof do I need?” Wankum also said that it was sheer jealousy that motivated his enemies and fueled the fallacious claims against him. “Our fight” he said, “is a fight for Jewish identity.”

Stefan Kramer, the General Secretary of the Central Council for Jews in Germany, agrees. “What Herzberg and his friends are doing is Chillul Hashem,” he said, using the Hebrew term for desecration of the holy. “For me there are more important things in Judaism than whether you mother is Jewish or not. If you support Jewish issues and if you educated a daughter and live in Israel it is much more Jewish to me than people who want to drag you mother out of her grave. Herzberg is Jewish by birth, but him running to the media, letting goyim in, shows me that he lacks Jewish brains. Jews can’t sit in a house of glass and throw rocks outside, definitely not in Germany.”

Designer of new WTC to build new synagogue in Munich, Germany

Designer of new World Trade Centre to build synagogue in Munich

By Michael Levitin, Telegraph [1]

New York-based architect Daniel Libeskind, the master designer of the new World Trade Centre, has announced plans to build a new synagogue in the not-always-welcoming Bavarian capital.

Notorious for its lingering sentiments about the Nazi years, Munich has been mixed up before in controversies involving Jewish remembrance, such as Mayor Christian Ude's refusal in 2004 to allow the brass-plated Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Stones, to be installed in streets as individual memorials to Jews killed in the Holocaust.

This time, members of Munich's liberal Jewish community, Beth Shalom, which expects to raise between 5-10m euros for the building are confident they will see the project through.

Munich has become "a home city for the Jewish people, and we hope it will also be in the future," said Matthias Strauss who heads Friends of Beth Shalom. Far-right neo-Nazi activity persists in Munich perhaps more than anywhere in the former West Germany.

But Mr Libeskind, of Polish-Jewish descent, cited unwavering support for "a project with such exciting aspirations and profound belief".

"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work on the development of a Reform Synagogue in Munich," he said.

Known widely for his three European Jewish museums in Berlin, Osnabrück and Copenhagen, and for the Contemporary Jewish Museum which opened in San Francisco in June, Mr Libeskind will present plans for the Munich synagogue in spring with hopes of completing the project by 2018.

Though its location is still unconfirmed, Mr Strauss said he wanted the building to go up on Westenrieder Strasse, the site of Munich's first synagogue in 1850, which was burned in the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938. Two years ago, a large new synagogue, community centre and museum opened in central Munich, 68 years to the day after Kristallnacht.

Ausweis bitte !

“Can you prove that you are Jewish?” is the surprising question that I received at security control of the new synagogue in Munich [1]. The guard was politely asking me to prove that I am Jewish by showing him my identity documents.

Vigilant control in German synagogues appears necessary [2] and questioning visitors is a common measure of security [3].

Requesting identity documents to establish if someone is Jewish could be regarded as a pragmatic and indirect technique of ethnic profiling. Many Jews have easily recognizable Jewish names or surnames, and until recently Israeli identity cards even included an obligatory reference to the bearer's ethnic group [4]. Ethnic affiliation of emigrants from the former Soviet Union might also be established with a passport or a birth certificate because the Soviet governments have always regarded the Jews as a nationality [5] (ironically enough, citizens born from a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother also hold Jewish nationality).

Requesting someone to prove that he is Jewish by showing his identity documents is very different though and might appear as a quite disturbing practice for a German synagogue.

Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Germany decreed that all Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, whereas Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J" [6, 7]. It could be noted here that the new synagogue in Munich opened on the anniversary date of the Kristallnacht [8], making therefore a clear reference to Nazi Persecution of Jews in Germany. Jews in today’s Germany do not need a mention of their religion or ethnicity on their identity documents anymore.

As far as I am concerned, the answer to the initial question is very simple: no, I cannot prove that I am Jewish with my identity documents. It simply never crossed my mind that anyone would ask me to [9, 10].