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ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 564

German Jews

Members of Or Tamid, an advocacy group in Frankfurt for survivors of sexual abuse, from left to right, Haleli Shomer Shalom, Roglit Ishay, Daniela Shemer and Niels Gerhardt. (Courtesy Or Tamid via JTA)
March 29, 2025, 10:27 am
Frankfurt Jewish community launches its own sexual abuse hotline amid crises and pressure
Unprecedented third-party hotline will protect 400 employees of local institutions, after advocacy by activist group; national Jewish group may also set up a wider system
By Toby Axelrod
Supporters of the far-right AfD party sing the national anthem as they attend an election campaign rally of the party for the upcoming state elections in Suhl, Germany, August 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
February 23, 2025, 2:33 pm
Germany’s rising far-right AfD is split over Israel. Jews call party ‘a danger’ either way
With the party deeply divided over support of the Jewish state and poised to take 20% of the national vote Sunday, its past — and ongoing — record of antisemitism looms largest
By Bart Schut
An election poster showing AfD top candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel is fixed on a lamp pole in Frankfurt, Germany, February 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
February 21, 2025, 5:06 am
German Jews express alarm after JD Vance helps boost far-right party before election
Head of Jewish federation warns ‘Jewish life in Germany would be in danger’ if AfD comes to power, as ‘Holocaust deniers and antisemites feel at home’ in the party
By Toby Axelrod
People take part in an anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin, May 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
January 9, 2025, 12:45 pm
With antisemitism in Berlin at a post-WWII high, Israeli expats explain why they stay
The police chief says Jews shouldn’t enter certain neighborhoods and some Muslim immigrants in the city can be hostile to Israel. But it still offers unbeatable perks, Israelis say
By Bart Schut
The Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Block, placed outside Anna Donat’s Berlin home shows when she was deported to Auschwitz. (Courtesy Stolpersteine)
January 1, 2025, 4:24 pm
German woman who lives in home looted from Jews must give it up, judge rules
Capping a decade of legal wrangling, the ruling has exposed the complex stories German families tell themselves about the Holocaust, and societal ambivalence towards the victims
By Toby Axelrod
A supporter hoists a Palestinian flag as Sahra Wagenknecht speaks at a campaign rally in Frankfurt, Germany, May 29, 2024. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
December 26, 2024, 8:58 am
While extremists rise, German Jews expect pro-Israel voices to prevail in Feb. election
The local community enjoys wider political support than in most other Western European countries, but hostile voices on the far right and left raise concerns for the future
By Bart Schut
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and then-Bild newspaper chief editor, Kai Diekmann, right, look at original blueprints of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland, in Berlin, August 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Rainer Jensen, Pool)
November 30, 2024, 8:27 am
Bild’s ex-editor on that leaked document: It’s a journalist’s job to publish secret info
If someone gives you a document, they’re always pursuing an agenda, says Kai Diekmann; he also discusses the paper’s unique stance on Israel and his most dramatic meeting with Netanyahu
By Katharina Kunert
File: Berlin's Police Chief Barbara Slowik (C) visits some of her officers on patrol at Boxhagener Platz, on April 30, 2020. (Odd ANDERSEN / AFP)
November 19, 2024, 12:16 pm
Berlin Police chief warns Jews, gay people to ‘be careful’ in Arab neighborhoods
Barbara Slowik says residents of some neighborhoods express open support of terror groups; 6,200 probes into antisemitic crimes opened since Oct. 7
By ToI Staff
Marianne Bern and the key she kept from the Bielefeld synagogue that was destroyed on Kristallnacht. (Courtesy of Jennifer Bern-Vogel via JTA)
November 12, 2024, 3:36 am
86 years after Kristallnacht, German congregation gets back key to destroyed synagogue
The relic, one of only two items that survived, was kept by a young girl who escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport; now it heads home to a community in the midst of a revival
By jacob gurvis
Rabbi Walter Jacob, center, ordains three rabbis during a ceremony at the Pestalozzi strasse Synagogue in Berlin, Novemer 4, 2010. (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images/via JTA)
October 30, 2024, 3:10 am
Walter Jacob, Pittsburgh rabbi who helped revive Reform Judaism in Germany, dies at 94
Descending from a 400-year-old line of rabbis, the scholar whose family fled the Holocaust returned to foster a Liberal Jewish renewal that grew to over 30 communities countrywide
By Beth Kisseleff
The School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam, May 2022. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
September 22, 2024, 2:55 am
LA and Jerusalem rabbis tapped to support German rabbinical schools
Rabbis Bradley Shavit Artson, Yehodaya Amir set to lead seminaries associated with the University of Potsdam in a move criticized as endangering ‘the unity of the Jewish community’
By Toby Axelrod
Illustrative: Cantors and rabbis are ordained at a ceremony at Berlin’s Rykestrasse synagogue, September 5, 2024. In all, 55 candidates have been ordained since Geiger College opened in 1999. (Toby Axelrod/ JTA)
September 13, 2024, 8:15 am
Riven by scandal and uncertainty, a German Jewish community welcomes moment to celebrate
As Abraham Geiger College marks the graduation of 8 rabbis and cantors, its future remains precarious following its founder’s departure after accusations of misconduct
By Toby Axelrod
A new synagogue and community center in Potsdam, Germany, dedicated on July 5, 2024, is home to four congregations. (Monika Skolimowska/picture alliance via Getty Images via JTA)
July 10, 2024, 2:31 pm
Four German congregations to share new synagogue in heart of Potsdam
Congregations will take turns using multi-denominational facility, which took some 20 years to build; synagogue is ‘a gift to us all,’ says German president
By Toby Axelrod
Margot Friedlander, 102, is on the cover of the July/August Vogue Germany edition. At right, she appears during an event at the Bundestag in January 2024. (Michele Tantussi/AFP/Getty Images via JTA)
June 21, 2024, 12:03 am
Vogue Germany’s next cover model is a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor
Margot Friedländer moved back to Berlin when she was 89 years old, decades after surviving Theresienstadt, and has since become a local celebrity
By PHILISSA CRAMER
A man pushes an elderly woman in a wheelchair as she carries a suitcase on her legs. In the back can be seen a truck from the shipping company sent to pick up the luggage. The wall projection on his right shields the photographer from being seen. Breslau, Silesia, November 21, 1941. (Courtesy of the Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden)
May 4, 2024, 5:21 am
A Jewish photographer’s rare images of an early Holocaust transport are now online
13 recently published pictures covertly taken in Breslau, Silesia, in November 1941 show one of Germany’s first deportations of Jews through the lens of the victims and not the Nazis
By Robert Philpot
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