When Daniella L. is finally quite an adult, the youth center closes. She still knows how great the Jewish community is at that time and how great the possibilities are for everyone, only for her. Young people go to Sunday school. Daniella is still too small. Young people are traveling on holidays. Danielle is not yet allowed to go with this.
Her mother founded the center for Jewish teenagers in Shverin in the late nineties. This is one of the few places where young people did not need to assimilate or justify themselves. “Everyone had Soviet Jewish experience here,” says Daniella L.
It only remembers the door to the center. Someone painted a balloon and a hand that holds it.
When it comes to the third grade, the door remains closed – until today. Reason: many have gone away. Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin. Because in Shverin “there is nothing,” she says. Yuri Kadnikov, the regional rabbi Meklenburg-western of Pomerania, told Deutschlandfunk that he needed to go to the cemetery all the time instead of celebrating the Mizwas or Bat Mizwas-a, like “consecration of youth” for Jews.
In the end, Daniella L. remain only two or three children, except for her. She will also move to Berlin after graduation.
The reduction threatens to exist
What is happening in Shverin is happening in many Jewish communities. Especially in the East German federal states. Compared to West Germany, according to the Central Council of Jews, municipalities have significantly fewer members. The Central Council is the greatest representation of Jews in Germany. The union of progressive Jews is much smaller and has only one municipality in East Germany, in Magdeburg.
Jewish communities in East Germany without Berlin have only about 800 members more than the Frankfurt municipality, only I am. If the East German communities are reduced, this quickly threatens their existence. This is a problem for young Jews. According to the statistics of membership in 2023, the Central Center for Social Support of Jews in Germany is 22-30 years only for seven percent in communities. But where to go when you are looking for a Jewish community?
The fact that in Shverin was a youth center and many children in Shverin for some time is associated with the so -called “refugees to the quota”: the Jews who left the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 2005, because the government led by Helmut Kolya wanted to revive Jewish life in Germany. Without them, one cannot tell the history of Jewish life in Germany. Only after 220,000 migrants the community in Germany grew up in Shoa. Historian Dmitry Belkin writes: If immigration had not occurred, there would be no Jewish communities behind large cities in today’s Germany.
When the refugees came to Schverin, entitled headlines Schweriner Volkszeitung: “Houses in Shverin – the Jewish community welcomes its thousandth member.” Timesyevo member, it was Daniella L. in the photo, one year old, sits on the hand of her mother and looks into the cell. Daniella’s family came to Germany from the Soviet Union in 1986. Daniella L. talks about this today, she laughs: “It is interesting how we were reported about us at that time. Finally, the Jews in Shverin again. ”
In 2021, it was only 600. Unfortunately, Zsolt Balla says that the number of members in Jewish communities is reduced again. He is a rabbi in Saxony and a municipal abbey in Leipzig. Many conditional refugees will have their own Jewish identity only in the birth certificate. From the strong secularization in the Soviet Union, the refugees of the quota knew little about the Jewish religion and culture. “Therefore, educational work in communities is important,” says the point.
Nevertheless, he is sure that Jewish life has a future in Saxony.
Low -heating sentences
This applies, in particular, to Leipzig. Katrin I am proof. As a child, she tried every hobby in the Jewish community of Leipzig. She sings in the choir, plays the piano, takes part in art lessons, goes on excursions. Today she is 24 years old, since 2019 she helps with a weekly Shabbat and on holidays. Cover the table, invite people, consider games for evenings.
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How they are committed to others – the community is growing. Also, “because the offer becomes lower, from young people for young people,” she says. Visitors become more diverse. While many have grown up in the past, it is changing. “Now we have many foreign students. Basically, we are talking about German, not in Russian and Jewish, but in English. ”
Leipzig is an eastern German city, which has grown most since 1996. “I have the feeling that Leipzig is special,” says Katrin I. The association community says that many prospects from Orthodox to non -religious ones.
At the same time, three students work at the community. One of them is Catherine I. You work in Hillel, a Jewish educational initiative that supports communities. “It would be impossible five years ago,” she says. But although the community is growing, there is no Jewish proposal in the city. Unlike Munich, Frankfurt A.M. Home or Berlin, there are no Jewish schools, there are no kindergartens, nor kosher restaurants and grocery stores.
Catherine, I say that she does a lot between Leipzig and Berlin, “because I can make purchases there or, if I want to spend a good evening in a restaurant.” Other parishioners have children who go to school in Berlin. “If you want to lead a religious or cultural Jewish life, sooner or later you will move to one of the major Jewish cities.”
There are also historical reasons for which a proposal in West Germany is better. After 1945, an economic rise occurred, which also influenced the financial support of communities. It was different in the GDR – the economic situation was bad, it is unlikely that any money entered the community. The GDR considered himself as an “anti -fascist” state, but anti -Semitic incidents failed. Since 1950, anti -Semitic propaganda has increased. Since then, SED has banned cultural events, condemned the chairman of the Jewish communities and asked for members of the members. 400 Jews left the GDR in 1953 – also five of the eight municipal chairmen.
Alliance for Central Germany
In order to get to young Jews in East Germany outside Leipzig and Berlin, Alexander Tsiterer founded Jam in October 2023, “Jewish Central Germany of the Allian”. The association is intended for people aged 18 to 35 years who are looking for a young Jewish community and actively participate in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg or Thuringia.
Alexander Tsiterer wants to show: in East Germany there is a variety of Jewish life. At least a 21-year-old teenager from Chemnitz is currently doing this. “Young people disappear in the end,” Tsyter fears. He wants to open society – also for people who are not religious for children of Jewish fathers, grandparents who are not Jews in accordance with Jewish religious law. Many communities did not accept them as members without a Jewish mother. “We cannot afford it, because there are so few of us in East Germany,” says Tsyterer.
I like older people, but I am young, and they are old – and they know it, and I know
David, member of the Jewish community outside Leipzig
How important is the community can be seen in David. He must travel from a small community in East Germany to Leipzig and wants to remain anonymous. The problem is in his community: “I love the elderly, but I am young, and they are old – and they know this, and I know.”
This is a melancholy atmosphere, also because the lack of young people announces the extinction of the institution, he says. In addition, most members speak only in Russian. “It is difficult for me to contact many, because I can not make Russian.”
It is also necessary that most people do not know in the city of David. The community does not appreciate to be visible, also because fear is very great. “There is simply a egregious hidden threat from right -wing extremism. Here, hundreds of immersed right -wing extremists are in motion, armed in case of doubt, and these are the conditions under which Jewish life occurs here. ”
David fears that “right -wing extremism overtakes a demographic problem.” The RIAS Saxony report, which covers anti -Semitic incidents throughout Germany in 2023, heads Saxony and Thuringus as a “leader”.
David does not know if there will be Jews in East Germany in ten years. “I would immediately pack my things if there will be participation in the AFD government.” Therefore, he considers it unlikely that young people are moving to his city. People who are important for Jewish community life did not stay here.
David remains. Nevertheless, the community is not his house here – rather Leipzig. When he is there, he also meets young people who speak his language. “I already know a couple, I’m glad to see them. And it’s just good. ”
