The temple association criticizes that the unit claims that it represents all Jewish communities in Hamburg. From the only recognition of state law, it is “in fact a monopoly in state church law.” For example, the Senate only completed the state agreement for Judaism with the unit community.
Sergio Bergman, President of the World Union of Progressive Judaism (Wujp), who came to Hamburg at a press conference on Thursday, announced a model of the unitary community to fail. This not only contradicts the variety of Jewish life, but also by democratic principles and human rights. “The Israeli temple association is the maternal community of global progressive Judaism,” Bergman said. “Your constant structural discrimination is an insult against Jewish history and the present at the same time.”
Bergman mentioned the fact that in 1817/1818 the first community of the reform synagogue in Hamburg was founded. It was about making religious practice a compatible with participation in society. This community was dissolved only by the Nazi regime in 1938, said Eik Steinig, deputy chairman of the temple association, who claims to be continuing the association since 1817/1818 with the name at that time.
Link to the Federal Administrative Court
The clogging refers to the decision of the 1997 Federal Administrative Court. Accordingly, the Israeli community of the synagogue (Adass Jisroel) Zurin has neither under the rule of national socialism, nor as a result after the Second World War. The court established an identity – and not only legal continuity – a new one with the old community and its legally continuous continuous existence as a corporation in accordance with public law from 1885 to today. From the point of view of the Hamburg community, the same applies to its business.
“We want to return our historical rights,” said WuPJ President Bergman. WuPJ expects Hamburg to protect the legacy of its liberal Jewish Geimeinde, and apparently promotes. Thus, the old synagogue in Poolstraße “as a mental, religious and cultural center of progressive Judaism should be restored all over the world and transferred to care for the legal heir – the Association of Israeli Temples.”
The Senate of Hamburg notes that the temple association has already abandoned the temple in Poolstraße in 1931 – before the Nazi was launched – and moved to a new building. In the course of the reconciation procedure in 1954, the Jewish Trust Corporation did not apply for all property claims against the payment of 20,000 points.
To maintain the historical heritage of the temple, the Senate bought real estate in 2020. Currently, it is considered how the damaged building for the place of memory can be prepared. “All interested actors” – especially the Jewish community and the Israeli temple association – will participate in this. At the beginning of the year, the Senate introduced a virtual tour with which he can be studied on the site, as it could be watched here.
The Senate does not see unequal treatment
From the point of view of the Senate, the heritage of Jewish communities continues the Jewish community, which was founded in the summer of 1945 by members of the German-Israeli community and zone organization of the Israeli temple association. In 1947, he was granted the rights of the corporation in accordance with state law.
The Senate claims to promote Jewish communities per capita. He left the rooms at the Israeli daughter for free in the Israeli temple association. Against this background, the Senate cannot “admit any unequal appeal between the Jewish communities of Hamburg.”
