CER’s New Headquarters in Munich - Opinion

The Conference of European Rabbis, the umbrella organization representing hundreds of mainstream Orthodox Jewish communities throughout the continent, last week opened its first official headquarters, in Munich, Germany, at the invitation and with the support of the Bavarian government. 

The opening was held in the important period between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, when Jews worldwide celebrate a fresh beginning. This center will be the first established and institutionalized base of operations for the CER and marks a significant step for Jewish life in Germany. As Chairman of the Council of Patrons of the CER, I am proud of this development. Last May, I was delighted to award the Lord Jakobovits Prize of European Jewry to Bavaria’s Minister-President, Dr Markus Söder, for his contribution to Jewish life. I remain grateful to him for his continued support.

Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the President of the Conference of European Rabbis, was joined at the opening by Dr. Florian Herrmann, the Head of the State Chancellery and State Minister for Federal Affairs and Media, Dr. Michael Piazolo, the Bavarian Minister for Culture & Education, 91-year-old Charlotte Knobloch, the President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, Mr. Dieter Reiter, the Mayor of Munich, politicians, rabbis, journalists, community members, and Munich residents.

Yet is this opening really a new, clean beginning, a “Rosh Hashanah” for Jewish life in Germany? In late August, a scandal within German politics broke out. Hubert Aiwanger, Deputy Minister-President Minister for Economics, State Development and Energy in Bavaria, admitted possessing a profusely antisemitic pamphlet as a teenager, horrifying in its content, that joked about the Holocaust. Recently, Aiwanger made a hazy, almost half-hearted apology over Twitter, and the exact details of the pamphlet’s author have been debated. Antisemitism in Germany continues, and that is why this opening is important.

Antisemitism is often turned on like a light switch but can never be turned off like a light switch. With the opening of CER’s headquarters, we are marking the start of something new and vibrant. Yet, there is, of course, a problematic past that lingers. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once remarked, “The best way to understand antisemitism is to see it as a virus.” Jew-hatred needs to be treated and consistently fought against. The horrific sentiments against the Jewish people must be combatted, protested, and expunged from society, but unfortunately, like with a virus, this remains a process and an ongoing effort. It must and will be done, but through concerted steps.

Our new center will offer rabbis and rabbis’ wives from all over Europe a comprehensive educational program on halachic and rabbinic issues, strengthening rabbinic leadership throughout the continent. It will also organize international conferences on current issues affecting Judaism and the contemporary Jewish world. The CER will use these initiatives to actively contribute to making Jewish life in Europe more visible and open, thereby reducing prejudice against Jewish fellow citizens and combating antisemitism, racism, and extremism more effectively. The CER intends to further promote social exchange for a more public image of Judaism and to battle against any notions of antisemitism.

On Rosh Hashanah, Jewish tradition demands us to reflect on the past, looking back and analyzing all we have done over the previous year. Perhaps this is precisely in order to gain perspective and to be able to create lasting change for the future in the most effective way. There is no clean break with history, no on-off switch to transform ourselves or the world around us.

With our Munich headquarters, too, we are certainly celebrating a New Year and a new period in Jewish communal life in Germany. Yet, the book of Jewish life in Germany remains with a dark past and sometimes a troubling present. Our job is to keep writing these pages in a positive way, actively composing a future chapter of hope, activism, and prosperity, beginning a new chapter. That is why I celebrated the opening of the CER’s headquarters.

This year, may we be inscribed in the Book of Life. 

About Dr. Boris Mints

The writer is chairman of the Council of Patrons of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), the primary Orthodox rabbinical alliance in Europe. He is also president and founder of the Boris Mints Institute, which is based at the Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences at Tel Aviv University. In 2016, he created the Mints Family Charitable Foundation.