BERLIN (EJP)---A few days before the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Nazi anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany known as “Kristallnacht”, a rabbi in Berlin and 8 rabbinical students were attacked on Saturday night by two hoodlums
Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal, who serves since 11 years as rabbi of Chabad Lubavitch, one of the three Jewish communities of the German capital, was returning in his vehicle with the students after attending a Jewish event in the city when the two aggressors began to chase the rabbi's car.
The two men, driving a Mercedes Benz, braked in front of the rabbi's van and then reversed back towards it while shouting anti-Semitic insults.
"The rabbi then saw the driver light up an unknown object and throw it towards his van," the police said, adding that the rabbi could not explain what the object was.
The students managed to jot down the license plate of the attacking vehicle, which they reported to the police together with the complaint about the offense.
Shmuel Segal, Rabbi Teichtal’s assistant, expressed the hope that police “would do all within their power to find the criminals.”
"This event encourages us to continue our Jewish oriented activities in the city. In every case we encounter instances of darkness. We are motivated to increase our efforts to spread out more light," he told EJP.
He said the Chabad community is due to open a new Mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, in a few days.
Last year, a smoke bomb was thrown through a window of the community’s kindergarten and anti-Semitic slogans were spray painted on its walls.
The Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), which provides assistance to rabbis across Europe, expressed shock at Saturday's aggression.
“We are totally shocked to find time and again, that particularly the country that should have been dispersing messages of tolerance to all European countries, has been once again the arena of a severe anti-Semitic incident,” it said.
"We maintain that Berlin must put an end to nationalistic and neo-Nazi organizations within its boundaries, otherwise, we have no guarantee that history will not repeat itself,” the Brussels-based centre said.
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Afghan German jailed for knife attack on Frankfurt rabbi
Frankfurt - A Frankfurt court jailed a German man of Afghan origin for three-and-a-half years Tuesday after finding him guilty of a knife attack on an Orthodox rabbi in the city last year. The court found that Sahed A, 23, had caused grievous bodily harm to his victim, a 43-year-old rabbi of the Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism, on September 7.
The court found that the assailant had drawn back from an initial intention to kill his victim, Zalman Gurevich.
The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence.
During the trial, Sahed A acknowledged stabbing Gurevich but said he had been acting in self-defence.
But he strenuously denied shouting racist insults as he stabbed the rabbi in the abdomen.
The court found that the assailant had drawn back from an initial intention to kill his victim, Zalman Gurevich.
The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence.
During the trial, Sahed A acknowledged stabbing Gurevich but said he had been acting in self-defence.
But he strenuously denied shouting racist insults as he stabbed the rabbi in the abdomen.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Rebuilding Jewish Life In Germany
Overcoming financial difficulties and personal fears, twenty-five Jewish college students took part in a historic trip to Berlin during spring break. According to organizers, the city’s Jewish community is better off for it.
"This trip demonstrated that, yes, there is a future for Jewish life in Germany," proclaimed Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel, the delegation’s coordinator and co-director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The university-based rabbi derived the idea for the trip after returning from last year’s dedication ceremony of the new Rohr Chabad Center, which serves as the headquarters for Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin – co-directed by Tiechtel’s brother and sister-in-law, Rabbi Yehuda and Leah Tiechtel.
During their weeklong trip the students cleaned up a Jewish cemetery, visited with residents of a Jewish home for the elderly, celebrated the dedication of a Torah scroll in Frankfurt, helped with Purim preparations, and toured the remains of the Saschenhausen concentration camp. They also met with local political leaders, including Berlin’s Senator of Interior Erhart Koerting and Monika Thiemen, mayor of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
Harrison Leibow, a student, said that spending Shabbat in a capital that once was the seat of Nazi power was a forceful experience. The Americans’ German counterparts turned out for the occasion, and the two student delegations stayed at the Rohr Chabad Center’s central synagogue for hours after the conclusion of Friday night services.
"Going into the trip, no one really could anticipate the impact that we were going to make on the Jewish community in Germany," said Leibow. "But every day we were in Germany, we saw another man smile in pride.
"The weird thing is, none of us realized how big of an impact the trip would make on us either," he continued. "It was a great trip, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other."
Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel stressed that the students not only gave up travel opportunities to such spring break resorts as Acapulco, but that they themselves fund-raised for the Germany mission.
"The financial undertaking was daunting," he explained, "and the parents of the students, as well as many of the students themselves, were apprehensive about a trip to the birthplace of Nazism.
Ryan Scott does some Purim face painting.
"Nevertheless, beginning in September," added the rabbi, "the students took up the project, planned fundraisers and helped set the itinerary."
Funding for part of the trip was made possible by philanthropist George Rohr and his family. Additional support came from Michael and Janet LeRoy and their family. The Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation also awarded a grant to the project.
Following Shabbat in Berlin the students went to Frankfurt Oder, a city on the German-Poland border, where they participated in the dedication of a Torah scroll donated by Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin in honor of the Americans’ visit. The city was once home to one of Germany’s largest Jewish communities before the Holocaust. After many years of neglect, it is currently experiencing a Jewish revival.
"This was the first Torah dedicated to this community since the Holocaust," said Goldie Tiechtel, the rabbi’s wife and fellow co-director of the Chabad Jewish Student Center. "Even more powerful, three of the students who had never had a bar mitzvah decided to use the opportunity to celebrate that milestone in their lives."
The next day, they went to a Jewish section of the oldest cemetery in Europe to clear overgrown weeds and return headstones – some from the 19th century – to their places. Later, they arranged a Purim event for a Jewish day school in Berlin.
At Berlin’s Jewish home for the elderly they sang songs with the residents, many of whom are Holocaust survivors.
"I went to Germany not knowing what I was going to get out of it," said university student Sabrina Snowsky. "When the trip came to an end, I realized how much I learned about Judaism, Germany, Berlin and the Holocaust. But most important, I learned about myself. I took so much back from every activity, and I think this trip changed me for the best."
Boruch Wolf contributed to this article.
"This trip demonstrated that, yes, there is a future for Jewish life in Germany," proclaimed Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel, the delegation’s coordinator and co-director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The university-based rabbi derived the idea for the trip after returning from last year’s dedication ceremony of the new Rohr Chabad Center, which serves as the headquarters for Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin – co-directed by Tiechtel’s brother and sister-in-law, Rabbi Yehuda and Leah Tiechtel.
During their weeklong trip the students cleaned up a Jewish cemetery, visited with residents of a Jewish home for the elderly, celebrated the dedication of a Torah scroll in Frankfurt, helped with Purim preparations, and toured the remains of the Saschenhausen concentration camp. They also met with local political leaders, including Berlin’s Senator of Interior Erhart Koerting and Monika Thiemen, mayor of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
Harrison Leibow, a student, said that spending Shabbat in a capital that once was the seat of Nazi power was a forceful experience. The Americans’ German counterparts turned out for the occasion, and the two student delegations stayed at the Rohr Chabad Center’s central synagogue for hours after the conclusion of Friday night services.
"Going into the trip, no one really could anticipate the impact that we were going to make on the Jewish community in Germany," said Leibow. "But every day we were in Germany, we saw another man smile in pride.
"The weird thing is, none of us realized how big of an impact the trip would make on us either," he continued. "It was a great trip, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other."
Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel stressed that the students not only gave up travel opportunities to such spring break resorts as Acapulco, but that they themselves fund-raised for the Germany mission.
"The financial undertaking was daunting," he explained, "and the parents of the students, as well as many of the students themselves, were apprehensive about a trip to the birthplace of Nazism.
Ryan Scott does some Purim face painting.
"Nevertheless, beginning in September," added the rabbi, "the students took up the project, planned fundraisers and helped set the itinerary."
Funding for part of the trip was made possible by philanthropist George Rohr and his family. Additional support came from Michael and Janet LeRoy and their family. The Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation also awarded a grant to the project.
Following Shabbat in Berlin the students went to Frankfurt Oder, a city on the German-Poland border, where they participated in the dedication of a Torah scroll donated by Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin in honor of the Americans’ visit. The city was once home to one of Germany’s largest Jewish communities before the Holocaust. After many years of neglect, it is currently experiencing a Jewish revival.
"This was the first Torah dedicated to this community since the Holocaust," said Goldie Tiechtel, the rabbi’s wife and fellow co-director of the Chabad Jewish Student Center. "Even more powerful, three of the students who had never had a bar mitzvah decided to use the opportunity to celebrate that milestone in their lives."
The next day, they went to a Jewish section of the oldest cemetery in Europe to clear overgrown weeds and return headstones – some from the 19th century – to their places. Later, they arranged a Purim event for a Jewish day school in Berlin.
At Berlin’s Jewish home for the elderly they sang songs with the residents, many of whom are Holocaust survivors.
"I went to Germany not knowing what I was going to get out of it," said university student Sabrina Snowsky. "When the trip came to an end, I realized how much I learned about Judaism, Germany, Berlin and the Holocaust. But most important, I learned about myself. I took so much back from every activity, and I think this trip changed me for the best."
Boruch Wolf contributed to this article.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
First private Jewish school opens in Germany
BERLIN
The first privately funded Jewish educational centre in Germany since World War II opened in Berlin yesterday in another new sign of a Jewish renaissance in the country.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined the Ambassadors of the United States, Britain and Russia and some 30 rabbis from around the world at the launch of the five-million-euro ($6.8m) Rohr Chabad Centre.
The complex on a quiet side street in west Berlin includes a rabbinical school or yeshiva, a synagogue, a library, a youth recreation centre, a kosher restaurant, a tourist information centre and a lecture hall.
"If we want to remember the six million Jews, it is not enough to hold memorial ceremonies," said the director of the centre, Yehuda Teichtal, referring to the victims of the Holocaust.
"We have to keep building together-Jewish education, raising children in the Jewish tradition, Jewish consciousness and Jewish identity. We are here, we are proud and we say here today, Jewish life will grow in Germany."
Steinmeier said Germany was grateful for the trust Jews were now vesting in the country six decades after the Holocaust. "The memory of the victims of this catastrophe is burned in the memory of our country," he said.
"Soon the laughter of children and teenagers will be heard here. "I hope that generations of Jewish families will find a spiritual and communal home here."
But Steinmeier said he was troubled by a rise in far-right crimes against immigrants and Jewish institutions, citing a mob attack on Indians in the eastern town of Muegeln two weeks ago that made national headlines. "Racism and anti-Semitism are unacceptable, particularly in Germany," he said to applause.
A street fair and an open-air concert featuring renowned Hassidic singer Avraham Fried followed the ceremony. The inauguration came two days after Germany's biggest synagogue, a century-old institution in east Berlin, reopened in the presence of dozens of Holocaust survivors after a major renovation. The community centre, which like nearly all Jewish institutions in Germany will have round-the-clock police protection, is run by the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement-a branch of Hassidism.Germany's Largest Synagogue Reopens in Berlin
With a capacity of 1200, the Ryke Street synagogue is the largest in Germany
Berlin's Ryke Street synagogue, Germany's largest, completed its remarkable return to its former glory Friday when it was reopened after extensive reconstruction.
Nearly 70 years after it was badly damaged in the 1938 Nazi pogrom known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), Germany's largest synagogue reopened in Berlin Friday after being restored to its original glory over the past year at a cost of 5 million euros ($7 million).Built in 1904 in the neo-Romanesque style, the Ryke Street synagogue was attacked during the infamous night of violence during which Adolf Hitler’s followers torched Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship. While the synagogue was desecrated, it was not burned down, apparently because the Nazis feared causing damage to the surrounding buildings
Now, after a colorful history which also saw it fall under communist rule, the synagogue has been reborn as symbol of the rebirth of the Jewish community in the German capital. Ninety-four year-old rabbi Leo Trepp, who had preached at the synagogue in the 1930s and was one of the rabbis who was seized and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp along with many of congregation members, called the reopening a "miracle".Synagogue's rebirth "a miracle"
Trepp was among the guests at the inauguration ceremony in the restored building with political leaders and Holocaust survivors from around the world. "It is a miracle that there are Jews in Germany again," Trepp told reporters. "And the synagogue on Rykestrasse, which survived two different regimes, is the symbol of that miracle," he said.The synagogue's architects Ruth Golan and Kay Zareh used three surviving black-and-white photographs of the original building to recreate its remarkable elegance. "It is now the most beautiful synagogue in Germany," the cultural affairs director of the Berlin's Jewish community, Peter Sauerbaum, said.Bildunterschrift: The synagogue survived some of Germany's most testing times
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, also took part in the opening ceremony in central Berlin.The opening coincides with the start of the capital's annual Jewish Cultural Days, which includes a series of concerts at the newly restored synagogue.Israeli pop star David Broza and violinist Daniel Hope will be among the performers taking part in the 10-day festival, which runs to September 9.On Sunday, a new cultural center is being formally opened in the western part of Berlin for the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of orthodox Jews. A feature of the center, which cost 5 million euros, is a 30-metre replica of part of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, built with stone from around the city.
The reopening of the synagogue marks a remarkable return to grandeur since its last prayer service at the Berlin synagogue took place in April 1940.After World War II, it was first used to house Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe before reopening in 1953 and becoming home to the East Berlin's Jewish community after the capital was divided The synagogue out-lived the Nazis and communism. Over the years after 1967, the synagogue was gradually renovated, and the most recent works have seen the restoration of the colored-glass interior. With German unification in 1990, the synagogue served an influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia which continues to make Germany's 120,000-strong Jewish community one of the fastest-growing in the world. The synagogue can accommodate some 1,200 worshippers.
Berlin's Ryke Street synagogue, Germany's largest, completed its remarkable return to its former glory Friday when it was reopened after extensive reconstruction.
Nearly 70 years after it was badly damaged in the 1938 Nazi pogrom known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), Germany's largest synagogue reopened in Berlin Friday after being restored to its original glory over the past year at a cost of 5 million euros ($7 million).Built in 1904 in the neo-Romanesque style, the Ryke Street synagogue was attacked during the infamous night of violence during which Adolf Hitler’s followers torched Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship. While the synagogue was desecrated, it was not burned down, apparently because the Nazis feared causing damage to the surrounding buildings
Now, after a colorful history which also saw it fall under communist rule, the synagogue has been reborn as symbol of the rebirth of the Jewish community in the German capital. Ninety-four year-old rabbi Leo Trepp, who had preached at the synagogue in the 1930s and was one of the rabbis who was seized and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp along with many of congregation members, called the reopening a "miracle".Synagogue's rebirth "a miracle"
Trepp was among the guests at the inauguration ceremony in the restored building with political leaders and Holocaust survivors from around the world. "It is a miracle that there are Jews in Germany again," Trepp told reporters. "And the synagogue on Rykestrasse, which survived two different regimes, is the symbol of that miracle," he said.The synagogue's architects Ruth Golan and Kay Zareh used three surviving black-and-white photographs of the original building to recreate its remarkable elegance. "It is now the most beautiful synagogue in Germany," the cultural affairs director of the Berlin's Jewish community, Peter Sauerbaum, said.Bildunterschrift: The synagogue survived some of Germany's most testing times
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, also took part in the opening ceremony in central Berlin.The opening coincides with the start of the capital's annual Jewish Cultural Days, which includes a series of concerts at the newly restored synagogue.Israeli pop star David Broza and violinist Daniel Hope will be among the performers taking part in the 10-day festival, which runs to September 9.On Sunday, a new cultural center is being formally opened in the western part of Berlin for the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of orthodox Jews. A feature of the center, which cost 5 million euros, is a 30-metre replica of part of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, built with stone from around the city.
The reopening of the synagogue marks a remarkable return to grandeur since its last prayer service at the Berlin synagogue took place in April 1940.After World War II, it was first used to house Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe before reopening in 1953 and becoming home to the East Berlin's Jewish community after the capital was divided The synagogue out-lived the Nazis and communism. Over the years after 1967, the synagogue was gradually renovated, and the most recent works have seen the restoration of the colored-glass interior. With German unification in 1990, the synagogue served an influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia which continues to make Germany's 120,000-strong Jewish community one of the fastest-growing in the world. The synagogue can accommodate some 1,200 worshippers.
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