Beyond Kippas

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anti-Semitism, AVIVA-Berlin, Berlin, Happy Hippie Jew Bus, Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin

I forgot to bring a kippa to this week’s ‘Berlin Wears the Kippa’ rally, held in the aftermath of a recent anti-Semitic incident in an area of Berlin known to attract more foodies and trend-setters than bigots and hooligans. “Oh well, here I am four years after attending a similar rally against anti-Semitism at the Brandenburg Gate and all the speeches sound exactly the same,” I thought. I felt more glum and out of place than inspired by the crowd of 2500 or so people clapping and nodding their heads in response to the speeches.

One thing that has changed since 2014 is that Germany has a new anti-Semitism commissioner who will take office next week. One of Felix Klein’s top goals is to create a centralized database of anti-Semitic incidents. Better documentation of such hate crimes will lead to stronger response and prevention measures. But it’s not enough. I hope Mr. Klein will also take steps to increase community-level initiatives to confront hate crimes, the vast majority of which are already documented to come from the far right.

After my failed attempts to pursue volunteer work with the Jüdische Gemeinde (Berlin’s official Jewish Community) a few years ago, which I wrote about in Tikkun Daily, I turned my attention back to other pursuits. But now that I’m close to having a final manuscript for my book, A Place They Called Home, it’s time to revisit the question “What can I do?” I’ve been inspired by initiatives such as AVIVA Berlin’s efforts to promote Jewish-Muslim dialogue, the 2013 Jew in the Box exhibit at the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Happy Hippie Jew Bus (which came to visit my students this week). Berlin is full of creative people who are indeed doing something.

Wearing a kippa to support the fight against anti-Semitism is an important symbolic measure, a starting point for more sustained community action. Berlin is a creative metropolis where top-down and bottom up initiatives can combine to foster an environment where Jewish leaders need not warn the Jewish community not to wear a kippa when walking around our city.

You can read an expanded version of this post on The Times of Israel Blog.

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Die Ganze Mishpocha

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Berlin, Diaspora Jews, die mishpocha, German Jews, Jewish Community of Berlin, Jewish Stammtisch, Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin, Kreuzberg

Jewish Berlin dishes up great soap opera material. While financial scandals and power struggles dominate the official Jewish Community of Berlin, tensions abound at the social level as well. The Jewish Stammtisch, an informal social gathering that I attended when we first moved to Berlin in 2010, had a rift and split into two groups. One group meets at Terzo Mondo, a Greek restaurant in West Berlin’s “schicki-micki” Ku’damm neighborhood. The other group gathers at Seerose, a vegetarian restaurant in the more hip Kreuzberg district that borders on East Berlin.

I don’t detect much of a cultural difference between the two Stammtisch groups. Both are predominantly made up of middle-aged and older Jews from the diaspora who sit around sipping wine and shmoozing for a few hours once a month. Their evening get-togethers may not rock the city, but they do provide Berlin’s Jews with an opportunity to explore shared family and historical connections.

As I chatted with a woman from Argentina at Seerose last week, we discovered that we each had a parent who fled Hamburg in the late 1930s, another parent from Hessen, and we both have cousins who live right near each other in Israel. A sweet older gentleman who was sitting with us (also from Argentina, but born in Berlin in 1936 and once again a Berliner) kept exclaiming “die ganze mishpocha!” as we continued the conversation and learned of other similarities in our family backgrounds.

“Die ganze mishpocha” is a Yiddish phrase that refers to an entire family network of relatives and even friends. Lots of Jewish Berliners bemoan the cultural and political divide between the City’s East European Jews and the much smaller group of us with German Jewish roots. But Berlin is still a place where anyone with a German Jewish background may find others who are a part of their mishpocha. Even if you don’t meet anyone from your mishpocha, those who you do meet will have their own fascinating stories to tell over a glass of wine, whether in the posh west or trendy east part of the City.

Willkommen, добро пожаловать, ברוך הבא

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American Jews, Berlin, German Jews, Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin, Russian Jews

So you’re going to Berlin and want to experience that vibrant Jewish life you’ve heard about? What should you know ahead of time? Since I’ve put out the call for American Jews to step inside the door of a  transformed Germany, I feel obliged to point out a few caveats.  Berlin’s Jewish community doesn’t focus much on American Jews. After all, the vast majority of the city’s Jewish population is from Russia and Eastern Europe and a substantial network of programs and services is geared towards this population.  That is as it should be.

But as an American it can be daunting to get a foothold, let alone find a niche, in the Jewish community. It’s heavily guarded, leans conservative to Orthodox, and is tightly structured compared to American Jewish communities.  A Jewish friend of mine ran into trouble at a Berlin synagogue’s security checkpoint when the guard asked for identification and saw that her husband’s first name was Christian. If she had not been able to speak Hebrew they might not have been allowed to attend services. When I sought assistance with my German citizenship application from the Jewish Community of Berlin, I discovered that there were people who could help me get on welfare but no one to help me have my citizenship restored. The beautiful monthly magazine Juedisches Berlin offers a gateway into the city’s Jewish life but only for those who speak German, Russian, or Hebrew. A multilingual Jewish publication of such significance could at least offer a few English entries!

As a European center for Jewish life, the Berlin Jewish community could do more outreach to show that it’s doors are open to the diaspora. The influx of Russian Jews to Germany has slowed; though integration challenges remain, the future will bring more diverse groups to experience Jewish life in Berlin. Nearly half of the global Jewish population resides in English-speaking countries. While I don’t mean to suggest that there are no resources for this population, the welcome mat could be a little more visible for them.