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Post-War Germany`s First Locally-Ordained Rabbis

In a truly historic announcement, the Federal Republic of Germany`s sole rabbinical school is set to ordain the country`s first class of rabbis since the end of the Holocaust in 1945. For decades, Germany has had to depend on rabbis trained outside of the country - either in England, Israel or the United States for example - because the country`s last Jewish seminary was shut down by Nazis in 1942 and one was not re-opened for long after the end of the war.

SGermany`s only rabbinical school, the Abraham Geiger College, opened in 1999 sponsored by the government, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and the Leo Baeck Foundation. Since the reunification of West Germany and East Germany in 1990, the country`s Jewish population size has grown to 100,000. Similar to programs adopted by Israel, Berlin instituted a program for the acceptance Jews from the former Soviet Union, many of whom come already highly educated and ready to contribute.

German political and religious figures welcomed the ordination as a sign that Jewish life can flourish in a reunified, post-war, increasingly multi-cultural and democratic Germany. President Horst Koehler says, "After the Holocaust, many people could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany could blossom again... That is why the first ordination of rabbis in Germany is a very special event indeed." The rabbinical college`s director, Walter Homolka noted the ordination on Thursday was just the beginning. "We need many more rabbis," he said.