Jewish Life
Masters Arbeit von Daniella Schmidt
zu Gunter Lichtenstein aus Oberwesel
.
.
The Jews in Germany 2010
Yochanan Elrom, Jerusalem
.
.
Professor Leonard Swidler –
Gala Celebration, Sunday, April 26, 2009
.
.
European Region of the WUPJ
Download current newsletter (PDF)
.
.
Rabbinic students at german seminary wed
Two students from Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, Germany recently tied the knot in a wedding ceremony at the Liberal synagogue in Bielefeld, in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was the first Jewish wedding in the city since 1933.
Tobias Jona Simon, a third-year rabbinic student at the seminary, and Alina Malka Treiger, a fourth-year student, met during their mandatory first year of studies in Israel. (Abraham Geiger College, which is continental Europe’s first post-war Progressive rabbinic seminary, now sends its first year students to Israel as part of an agreement with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion – see WUPJnews #269.)
Simon is from Germany, while Treiger is from Ukraine. Following graduation, they hope to find rabbinic positions in close proximity to one another, possibly in Lower Saxony. They were married by Rabbi Henry Brandt, chairman of the General Rabbinical Conference of Germany. Rabbi Allen H. Podet of Buffalo, N.Y., a former rector of Abraham Geiger College; Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, a lecturer at the college and head of Germany’s Masorti (Conservative) movement; and Lower Saxony’s chief rabbi, Jonah Sievers, co-officiated.
In other Geiger College news, Germany’s state education ministers moved to provide it with €250,000 a year, covering about a quarter of its budget. The funding will begin in 2009. Last year, the federal government decided to provide the seminary with an annual grant of €300,000 toward the cost of rabbinic and cantorial training in Germany. The state of Brandenburg provides an additional €50,000 a year, while the rest of the budget is provided by the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Leo Baeck Foundation.
In addition, Geiger’s cantorial arm, the Jewish Institute of Cantorial Arts, has won the title “Landmark in the Land of Ideas,” joining the rabbinic seminary, which received the honor last year (see WUPJnews #258). The award is presented annually by Germany’s president, Horst Koehler, to 365 companies, research institutes, cultural institutions and community projects in Germany that reflect progressiveness and inventive spirit, and is part of a national image-building initiative sponsored by the Deutsche Bank. There were 2,000 applicants for this year’s awards.