Germany: Last Thoughts

Sorry it's been so long.... it's been much harder to find a computer, and i've had much less free time to boot...

On Friday Michael and two good friends of his (David and Erika---both ex-pats from S. Dakota--none of the 3 being Jewish...) went to services at an 'egalitarian' service.

It was held in the old "New Shul" in the heart of east-Berlin. The building is just amazingly beautiful, with this vaguely middle-eastern architecture (there are some pictures of it early on in my collection).

The service itself was different than anything i've ever experienced... It was led by a woman rabbi (who, I'll be honest, really provided a good argument in favor of the orthodox... they say that women and men should be separate because if a woman is leading, there could be inappropriate thoughts... and this woman was BEAUTIFUL). Anyhow, that aside, the service was egalitarian in its prayers (i.e. the imahot were included in the amida). However, with that exception, it was very similar to a traditional service. It was al in Hebrew, it was continuous, and with the exception of page numbers, there was no German at all. However, it was sung the entire time (no guitar or anything like that...just traditional melodies), and there must have been people in this small room (there were only 30-40 people, and the room was FULL) who were choral singers...because it was beautiful. Everything was harmonies, everything was just amazing...

The experience itself was....Enlivening. It was just amazing to see a modern, progressive Judaism in the heart of Germany! There are 110,000 Jews living in Germany today, and it was an amazing thing to see.


Overall, I really had a...positive... time in Germany. The time with Michael was wonderful, and it was great to see that the connection that we had still existed. Germany itself (though admittedly I saw "Jewish Germany") was much less depressing and much more enlivening than I ever would have guessed... to the point where I would recommend any Jew go there... so the Jewish Museum, see the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.... See the Jewish community there today.

Speaking of which, Elana asked me yesterday (the person i'm staying with right now in Jerusalem...but more on that later) what it felt like Germany's relationship with the holocaust is... if i had to sum it up, it is one of ownership, but not guilt. The newer generations own that their culture, their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did this, and they do understand (for the most part...and from what a limited spectrum of people I saw) and believe in the importance of ownership and remembrance, and yet they don't feel guilt about it (though there is a spectrum that have a strong guilt complex, and there is a spectrum that has responded to that with a very much, "enough is enough on this whole holocaust thing").


Ok--those are my thoughts for now.

I'll update everyone on Israel soon.

Daniel