Jews in Germany
When Hitler came to power in 1933, approximately 600,000 Jews lived in Germany, some of whom were among the most prominent members of society. Over the next twelve years, most fled or were murdered, along with millions of East European Jews, Slavs, and other nationalities. After the Second World War, only 60 out of 12,000 Jews who had lived in Munich returned. As of January 1992, seventy-six Jewish congregations and Land associations had about 34,000 members, with the largest communities located in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main. In 2010, today it's 200,000, with just half of them being members of Jewish Council.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several thousand Soviet Jews of German ancestry took advantage of liberalized Soviet emigration policies and German naturalization laws and resettled in the Federal Republic. However, since unification in 1990 and the outbreak of radical right-wing violence, some in the Jewish community, remembering similar events in the 1930s, have left. Although most hate-crimes and violence have been aimed at foreign workers and asylum-seekers, there have been scattered incidents of attacks on Jewish synagogues and memorials.
Because of the government’s role in the Holocaust, states have accepted as an ongoing duty the obligation to provide financial support to the Jewish community, including support for reconstruction of old synagogues and construction of new ones. State governments also subsidize various institutions affiliated with public law corporations, such as religious schools and hospitals that provide public services.
The 2003 “State Agreement on Cooperation” between the federal government and the Central Council of Jews supplements the funding received by the Jewish community from the states. The Central Council receives approximately 5 million euros ($6.7 million) in annual funding to help maintain Jewish cultural heritage, restore the Jewish community, and support integration and social work for the community. In addition, the federal government provides financial support for the Hochschule fur Judische Studien in Heidelberg, the Rabbi Seminar at the University of Potsdam, and the Leo Baeck Institute. The federal government also covers 50 percent of the cost for maintaining former Jewish cemeteries.
A degree of anti-Semitism based on religious doctrines and historical anti-Jewish prejudice continued to exist. Far right political organizations claimed Jews were the cause of negative modern social and economic trends and most anti-Semitic acts were attributed to neo-Nazi or other right-wing groups or individuals. NGOs that monitor anti-Semitism indicated Muslim youth were increasingly involved in attacks on and harassment of Jews. Groups in civil society who monitor and work to counter anti-Semitism reported that anti-Semitism as a trend was on the rise among Muslim youth during the year. Federal authorities generally took action against anti-Semitic offenses. The most common anti-Semitic acts were the desecration of Jewish cemeteries or monuments with graffiti that included the use of swastikas.
The German government went far to demonstrate its "special relationship" with Israel during the visit of Israeli President Shimon Peres to Berlin 25-28 January 2010. German fighter jets met Peres' aircraft as it entered German airspace and accompanied to its landing in Berlin. Security in the city center was at its highest possible level. Peres' moving and very personal speech, which he gave in Hebrew, included a recounting of his own family losses during the Holocaust. Shortly after beginning, with an audience standing in silence, Peres recited the Jewish prayer for the dead "in memory of, and in honor of, the six million Jews who turned to ashes." Despite the "pain of the Holocaust," he said that "The murder of Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany should not be seen as a kind of ... black hole, that ingests the past as well as the future." He expressed his appreciation, naming specifically President Koehler and Chancellor Merkel, for Germany's strong solidarity with Israel: "And you, Madam Chancellor...You have said to the American Senate and House of Representatives that 'an attack on Israel will equate an attack on Germany.' We will not forget this."
Charlotte Knobloch was born in Munich in 1932, daughter of the renowned Jewish lawyer Siegfried Neuland, who had been a German soldier in the First World War. Warned about his imminent arrest by the Nazis in 1936, Neuland was able to hide his daughter on a farm in a small Franconian village in Bavaria before he was forced to work in an ammunition factory. He survived the war, almost blind and incurably ill. Her mother, a Christian who had converted to the Jewish faith to marry Siegfried Neuland, divorced him before the war. Knobloch's grandmother was deported to Auschwitz and, like many of her relatives, did not survive. Charlotte Knobloch only survived because the Catholic Franconian family with whom she lived told authorities she was the illegitimate child of one of their own daughters.
In 1985, following the sudden death of President Lamm, Knobloch was the first woman elected President of Munich's Jewish community, a significant accomplishment given the community's reputation for being extremely orthodox, with a clear distinction between men and women in its synagogue. On June 7, 2006, at age 73, Charolotte Knobloch was unanimously elected President of the Jewish Council in Germany. In light of recent incidents of anti-Semitism, Ms. Knobloch has called on Jews in Germany not to allow themselves to become intimidated. Calling on her fellow Jews to make clear they are an integral part of life in Germany, she said "The time is over when Jews were sitting on packed suitcases, and it won't come back".
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