(IsraelNN.com) For the first time in over 70 years, two rabbinical students were ordained at a German seminary that was closed by the Nazis in 1938.
Zsolt Balla and Avraham Radbil received their ordination at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin on Tuesday.
The president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, stated at the ceremony that the rabbis were “spiritual pillars” necessary to revive Jewry in Germany and added that she couldn’t imagine even a few years ago that such a “small miracle” could occur in Germany. “The Jewish infrastructure, which is emerging in many places in the country, is now receiving a spiritual foundation,” she said.
Most of German Jewry today is not German-born. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, immigrants flooded the borders of Germany, which has relaxed immigration policies. In light of its historic responsibility and the weight of the past, Germany offered Jewish immigrants generous resettlement support. The government provided benefits including fast track citizenship, medical care, language lessons, job training and a free first-class education for their children, from elementary school through university. About 200,000 Eastern European immigrants make up Germany’s Jewish population. The Hungarian born Rabbi Balla has lived in Germany since 2003. Ukrainian born Rabbi Radbil moved with his parents to Leipzig when he was 12 years old.
Rabbi Dr. Azriel Hildesheimer founded the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin in 1873 for the training of Orthodox rabbis. The seminary graduated prominent rabbinical leaders until it was closed by the Nazis in 1938. It was not until 2005 that the seminary reopened. Rabbi Chanoch Ehrentreu, former head of London’s Orthodox rabbinical court, heads the seminary that currently has nine students enrolled.
Some of the Hildesheimer Seminary’s famous alumni include philosopher Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovitz, British rabbinical leader Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Halevi Dunner, Jewish ethicist Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, American rabbinic leader Dr. Leo Jung, and parliamentarian Rabbi Dr. Yosef Burg.
The ordination of the two rabbis was not Germany’s most recent. The Lubavitch Yeshiva Gedola of Berlin ordained 16 students. The Reform movement’s Abraham Geiger College ordained three rabbis in 2006.
Posts
