A group of Orthodox and chareidi Jews, long frustrated by the
control of reformers and assimilationists of all aspects of
Jewish life in today's Germany, have announced the formation
of an alternate Jewish community.
At a gathering held on Rosh Chodesh Kislev (November 19) for
this purpose, two complementary groups were formed: the Union
of Observant Congregations and the Association of Observant
Rabbis.
Overall head of the umbrella group will be Mr. Peter
Zochrovski, a Jewish representative to the European
Parliament with long experience in working for chizuk
hadas in Vienna, his birthplace. Rav Yaakov Abert of
Hanover, representing the rabbinical body, will serve as vice-
president. It was Rav Abert together with Rav Adler of Halle
who deserve the credit for ensuring that Torah true Jews have
a voice in Germany. Rav Abert get semichah from the
rabbonei Yerushalayim and Rav Adler from the
rabbonei Bnei Brak.
HaRav Yitzchok Halbershtat, rav of the Ahavas Chesed Shul in
Bnei Brak who has been actively involved with the project,
explained to Yated Ne'eman that ever since the period
of HaRav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, observant Jews in Germany
had their own community, since the general Jewish community
was dominated by reform and assimilationist elements. Only
towards the end, in the 1940's after the outbreak of World
War II and under Nazi insistence, was the Orthodox community
forced to merge with the Central Committee of Jews in Germany
which functioned, at the time, as a Judenrat.
After the war, when the Americans organized the Jewish
refugees in the DP camps, the reconstituted the Central
Committee to serve as a liaison and a central address for
Jewish affairs. In those early days there were still many
chareidi Jews in Germany in the DP camps, notably the
Klausenberger Rebbe, zt'l, but these left that cursed
country as soon as they were able.
The current official Jewish community of Germany is composed
mainly of Holocaust refugees who stayed in Germany for
business reasons, various refugees who wound up there for one
reason or another and mainly, in recent years, thousands of
Russian immigrants. The latter all have very minimal Jewish
ties, and there are serious doubts about whether many of them
are truly Jewish. The current head of the community is Ignatz
Bubis, who is not at all a shomer mitzvos, and the
head of the local community of Berlin is the adopted son of
the Reform cantor.
The current heads of the community are totally insensitive to
religious needs. They are not willing to spend any money to
build such basic religious needs as mikvaos. They are
not even willing to buy siddurim! In one case the
local community even sold its cemetery for purely financial
motives.
After consulting with HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, HaRav
Halbershtat went to Germany to try to change the situation.
After conferring with German attorneys, HaRav Halbershtat
found that the existing Central Committee is not really
legally constituted as the sole representative of German
Jewry. This is due to the fact that current German law says
that any law made by the Nazis is void today.
Therefore, the observant Jews have a full legal right to
organize a separate community, as the heir to the old
separate Jewish community that existed in the Second
Reich.
The new organizations are now pressing for official
recognition by the German government authorities, and a full
share of the budget for community maintenance including
religious services.
