German Jews to split over Russian immigrants?

Berlin's Jews face split after dispute over Russian influx


· Traditionalists' disquiet prompts breakaway
· Accusation of Stalinism levelled at newcomers

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian


Berlin's Jewish community was on the verge of splitting last night, after a long-running disagreement between its intellectual wing and newcomers from the former Soviet Union.
Albert Meyer, a former chairman of the community, has announced he is setting up a new group because many members of the community are fed up with what he called "pseudo Bolsheviks who want to turn the community into a Russian club".

Mr Meyer, a lawyer, is backed by the historian Julius Schoeps and other intellectuals who accuse the Russians of employing "Stalinist methods" to influence the development of the community and having no interest in the Jewish faith.

Germany's Jewish community has grown in recent years with most newcomers coming from the former Soviet Union after Berlin relaxed its immigration rules for them in a gesture of reconciliation after the Holocaust. The influx has transformed the community, which has increased about tenfold from 1990 when it had about 23,000 members.

Last year three rabbis were ordained in a Dresden synagogue for the first time in Germany since the second world war.
But while many have welcomed the fact that Germany has the fastest growing Jewish community of any country in the world, including Israel, within the community itself the influx has caused a growing rift.

Tensions have risen in recent years between the established and often socially conservative German Jewish community and the Russian immigrants, many of whom are secular. While the German Jews see themselves as Jewish first and German second, many of the Russian immigrants see themselves as Russian.

They often have little knowledge of the workings of the faith, sometimes not knowing what a rabbi is, and many are poorly informed about the Holocaust.

"We are no longer prepared to accept that the current leadership wants to turn the old, deeply traditional Berlin community into a Russian-speaking cultural club," Mr Meyer told the magazine Stern. "We will no longer accept that a clique made of up egotistical, power-oriented people sometimes employ Stalinist methods to drive away and freeze out all the others who stand for the German-Jewish tradition and the role of the community as a religious community."

Gideon Joffe, the current chairman of the community, declined to comment on the developments.

Mr Schoeps said Russian immigrants were welcome, but they had to fit into the existing, German-speaking community, which included learning the language.

"German should be the accepted language," he said. "It would be unthinkable in the US if Russian was suddenly to become the official language of the Jewish community."

Mr Meyer said he was confident that hundreds of the community's longer-standing members would join his group, having appealed to him to set it up. He said plans for a new synagogue were in the pipeline and he had received promises of financial support.

More liberal members of the community have called for a deeper understanding of their Russian counterparts. In the Soviet Union Jews, who often suffered discrimination, sometimes disguised their Jewish identities and dropped their traditions. Following Germany's invitation to emigrate many fought to have their Jewish identities recognised, while some non-Jews paid large sums to obtain fake papers identifying them as Jewish.




Backstory

Before the second world war, Germany had a population of 600,000 Jews, about half of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. About 12,000 remained in Germany. Immigration from Russia and former states of the Soviet Union since 1990 on the invitation of the German government, has boosted the population to about 200,000, of whom only 105,000 are officially recognised as Jews by the community, because the rest do not practise their faith.

Following criticism from within the community that too many secular Jews were being allowed in, the government recently tightened up its policy, introducing a "point system" to reduce the number of non-religious Jews. Thanks to the revival, Berlin has 10 synagogues, as well as numerous kosher restaurants and shops, Jewish community centres and schools. Of Germany's 120 communities only 20% have their own rabbi, most of whom are over 70. Many congregations fly in rabbis from Jerusalem and elsewhere.