Who Are We?   Why Are We Here?   What Do We Do?  Events  Calendar
Our Cantor  Recipes  Congress   Media   Archive   Contact Us   Links

 
 

WHY ARE WE HERE?


In the 1990s, Germany's Jewish communities went through major changes: Gesher, a meeting place for Jewish intellectuals, some of whom had no interest in being members
of the community, was founded. The internationally active Jewish artists collective, Meshulash, sought provocative Jewish answers to burning questions of our day. The European Jewish GOLEM-Magazine discussed international issues. The International Conference Galut 2000 focused on Jewish visions for the new millennium. At two Bet Debora conferences - in 2001 and 2003 - Jewish visions for the future were discussed from a female standpoint.

We also saw growth of the nearly 10-year-old egalitarian synagogue at Oranienburger Strasse, which recently became the first Berlin synagogue to hire a woman as a pulpit rabbi (in the late 1930s, Rabbi Regina Jonas, of blessed memory, became the first woman known to be ordained; she served mostly as an educator).