Germany Will Ordain Its First Rabbis Since The Holocaust Ended
Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter Berlin, Germany (AHN) - The sole rabbinical school in Germany will ordain the country's first rabbis since the Holocaust ended. For decades, Germany has had to depend on rabbis trained in England, Israel and the United States because the country's last Jewish seminary was shut down by Nazis in 1942. Political and religious leaders welcomed the ordination as a sign that Jewish life can flourish in a postwar, reunified Germany. President Horst Koehler says, "After the Holocaust, many people could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany could blossom again... That is why the first ordination of rabbis in Germany is a very special event indeed." The Jewish community has grown to 100,000 since the country reunified in 1990, and the government instituted a program to accept Jews from the former Soviet Union. Germany's only rabbinical school, Abraham Geiger College, was opened in 1999. It is sponsored by the government, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Leo Baeck Foundation. The college's director Walter Homolka says the ordination on Thursday is just the beginning. He says, "We need many more rabbis." Dieter Graumann, vice president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, said Germany's relationship to its Jews is a long way from being "normal." He tells The Associated Press, "That will only be possible when we don't need to su |
