Independent Perspective News

The Jewish population grew almost 7 times in Germany since the late 80s.

Six decades after the Holocaust, the number of Jews who choose to live in Germany keeps growing. The Hebrew community there is the one growing fastest in the whole world. Thousands of Jews arrive in German territory in search of a home, an identity or a better life. Almost all of them are Russian, Ukrainian or citizens of some other former Soviet republic. And most of them weren't born Germans.

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As said in modern German, Jewish is in, it's hip, it's fashionable. All tourists go on the inevitable ride round the Jewish quarter of Mitte, they visit the New Synagogue or attend the halls of the Hackescher Markt, where there are performances every night, typically in Yiddish.

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But the "new Jews" usually only speak Russian (they don't speak German, Yiddish nor Hebrew) and bring with them the cultural background of the Soviet era. Many of them were forced to lose their Jewish identity under the communist regime. They know practically nothing about Judaism and are often out of work. Jewish organizations and the German state receive them with generosity and grant them all kinds of financial and social aid, from housing to language courses.

Andreas Nachama, also a member of the Jewish society of Berlin, remembers that until not long ago -and for many, still today - being a Jew an living in the German capital was "abnormal". It entailed exposing oneself to a strong rejection by the Jews of other countries, who refuse to step on the city because of their memories of nazism (...).

But today Germany is seen as a land of opportunities, where anti-Semitism isn't such a serious problem as in other countries, in spite of the neo-nazi groups, who are under control.

The Yiddish renaissance

The resurgence of the Jewish culture in Germany has brought about the Kleshmer music and Yiddish, which was for almost a century the language of the German Jews, and of those from East and Central Europe. Its literary peak took place in the late 19th and the early 20th century, but most its speakers died during the Holocaust.

Since the majority of the immigrants can't speak German, they use that ancestral tongue. Now they are trying to spread this language in Berlin among the newly comers from the former Soviet Union as well as other interested groups.

In the German universities of Treveris and Dusseldorf two of the six university courses of Yiddish in the world are taught. Another two are taught in Israel, and the rest in the US.

Meanwhile, the Kleshmer music is undergoing a boom that has exceeded the Jewish sphere. Many German groups are choosing this style (...).

"We need to teach them the Jewish language and religion", said Alexander Brenner, the president of the Jewish community in Berlin. "Most of the immigrants come for personal reasons, because they have relatives here, or they come in groups of refugees", added Brenner, who also pointed out that official Jewish organizations take care of the integration of these immigrants to society.