Why would you go to Germany?

Being Jewish in Berlin

One of the goals of my travel to Germany was to familiarize myself with the Jewish community. Being successful in this endeavor required some tenacity, as it would in almost any country other than the USA. There's a saying in Yiddish that being Jewish is difficult. Of course, the implication of the saying is that there are so many requirements that Jews must meet.

The most obvious difficulty in Europe is that the security around the synagogue is so heavy that the first few times you show up, you have to plan for a time-consuming grilling before you are admitted. By the time I left Berlin, all the guards at the shul knew me. I began to think of them more as greeters than as guards.

The irony is that, as far as I know, there have been no dangerous incidents at German synagogues since the War, at least no more so than in the US. The potential problem in Germany is not the Germans, but that there is a large, suspect, unassimilated Muslim community. There have been some acts of vandalism in cemeteries and Jewish institutions, but I don't know of any attacks.

Germany, officially even more than culturally and socially, is very welcoming and supportive of Jews and of the Jewish community (Jüdische Gemeinde). Germany has the fastest growing Jewish community outside of Israel. Germany is perhaps Israel's strongest supporter other than the US. Germany may be the only country that requires all school children to participate in a holocaust studies course. Every day, hundreds of German school children are visiting one or another of the historic concentration camps.

When you socialize with the Jews in the synagogue, you learn that almost everyone is an immigrant from eastern Europe. Many of the remainder are from Israel. Some are eastern Europeans who first went to Israel, and then came to Germany afterwards. Every once in a while you'll meet a survivor, or a returnee, or the child of a survivor or returnee. Hebrew and Russian are the predominant languages of conversation among the Jews over 40 years old. The bare fact is that Germany is the best hope for Jews trying to get out of eastern Europe – at least aside from the US.

Younger Jews speak German well. They converse among themselves in German, occasionally resorting to Russian or Hebrew. The rabbi communicates with the congregation in German. He gives his divrei Torah in German (with a thick Israeli accent). Talk about a challenge understanding the nuances of Pirkei Avot, when you have to determine if he's speaking Hebrew, German, or Yiddish.

There's no such thing as a conservative shul, as we know it, in Germany. There are Masorti congregations, but they are, for the most part, very liberal. The typical synagogue in Germany, the home and birthplace of Reform Judaism, has an abbreviated service – when they have services at all, and many of the trappings of Reform. Some have an organ; some have a choir, usually not Jewish; some inconsistently have separate seating; most are egalitarian. The only alternative to Liberal is what we would call Orthodox. (Actually, another option is Chabad.) There is one Orthodox synagogue in Berlin; other than Chabad, it's the only one that has daily services and Shabbat afternoon services.

The service at the orthodox shul is very similar to ours at Congregation SI. The sanctuary is cavernous, and without a microphone, it is sometimes difficult to understand, given the reverberations and the noise level of those conversing instead of davening. They use some distinct melodies, but some are the same. The entire service is led by a chazan, who also reads Torah. Of course, men and women sit separately. There is no common siddur, but since one edition outnumbers others, the rabbi occasionally mentions a page in that siddur, if we do something off path, like the omer. There was a paperback siddur with German translations, but the only other translated siddur was the Artscroll Russian edition. I saw no translated Chumash.

People that come to services at the orthodox shul are not uniformly religious. This is especially true on the regular Friday evenings when college students attend. In fact, orthodox Judaism appears to be attractive to non-Jews as well.

At the shul, out of the regular 40 or 50 Shabbat attendees, I met about 5 or 6 who are converts. In addition, I met another handful who are at various stages of conversion, somewhere between thinking about it and having done considerable learning. The converts are usually German young people from Protestant (in German: Evangelische) families. One young man told me that he had been active in the church as a lay minister.

I asked why a German would ever want to become an orthodox Jew. All said that it has to do with the belief system. I also asked if it were realistic to expect to find a Jewish woman to date or to marry. They all said that, while it isn't easy, they had every expectation of success.

I had trouble socializing with the Jews of my age, as most of them spoke almost no English, and spoke German with accents that made if difficult for me to understand. I was able to socialize with a small number (one couple my age, and several younger individuals), and we had nice conversations about Jewish life in Berlin, and about more general topics as well. I was interested to learn that there is no German kosher symbol. Only certain imported foods, mostly from Scandinavia or France, have any symbol indicating kashrut. Among German products, the orthodox rabbis have compiled a list of prepared foods that are acceptable. One goes shopping with the list in hand. In Berlin there is one kosher meat distributor, who sells meat brought in frozen from Holland or France.

While walking – with kippah on my head -- along the sidewalk on one of Berlin's main streets, one of my companions mentioned to me that the police recommend not wearing a kippah in public. One is advised to wear some other kind of hat to minimize the likelihood of being a target. I don't know if I view that as paranoia, but I do view it as irony. The four of us discussing that subject were walking along the boulevard: I wore my kippah; two of the others were dressed normally, but had tzitzit hanging down; the fourth, with long curled sideburns, was wearing the sort of “standard” orthodox Shabbat garb of black suit and felt hat, also with tzitzit (we were going to have a beer, motzei Shabbat, immediately after havdalah).