Three Men are Ordained as Rabbis in Germany

Three men were ordained as rabbis in Germany on Thursday, an event which was hailed by many as representing the start of Germany's emergence from the shadows cast by the Nazi regime during the Second World War, given that no rabbi ordination had taken place in Germany after the College of Jewish Studies in Berlin was destroyed by the Nazi troops in 1942.

In addition to this, the ordination was perceived as the rebirth of Jewish communities' life in Germany, after decades of pain and suffering triggered by the Holocaust.

47 years old Daniel Alter from Germany, 35 years old Tomas Kucera from the Czech Republic and 38 years old Malcolm Mattitiani from South Africa were named rabbis following a special ordination ceremony, which took place in a synagogue in Dresden, which had suffered numerous reconstruction operations since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

After the ordination, Alter and Kucera declared that they wish to remain in Germany and continue their work here, while Mattiani highlighted that he would return to his homeland in South Africa. Before the ceremony, Mattiani expressed his excitement and happiness that the ordination occurs in Germany "because of the scholarship and the symbol of reviving Judaism in Germany. It's the birthplace of progressive Judaism and it has a long history of Jewish scholarship".

German President Horst Koehler insisted on the uniqueness of this event, as well as on positive aspect: "After the Holocaust, many people could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany could blossom again. That is why the first (post-Holocaust) ordination of rabbis in Germany is a very special event indeed".

"All of Germany celebrates with us today and all of Europe as well. Today, we have made a new beginning", Rabbi Walter Jacob, the president of a rabbinical seminary in Potsdam, near Berlin, stated in front of 250 people of the congregation, many of them from the United States and Israel.