Dear fuenfnullzwei.de/60pages,
I have been in Germany happily since 2011. Despite everything, Germany is a real democracy because there is a complete separation of religion and state and it’s totally annoying that I cannot get married to my boyfriend in Israel if he’s not Jewish. Nor can I get married to my girlfriend if she’s my girlfriend. Sure, I could just go get married in Cyprus if I still lived in Israel and get hitched through a loophole. But mostly I am in Berlin because I am studying Gender Studies at Humboldt. Still, sometimes I miss that Jewish feeling on the bloody cold winter nights when I am walking to my flat from the U-Bahn.
I know what you will tell me, go to shul. But I don’t want to go to shul. I don’t want to wear a long skirt or go there three times on Shabbat when I could be outside in the park or eating hummus at City Chicken. And I don’t think the rabbi likes my piercings very much. Puh – I don’t need all that stress!
What I want is a shul – it doesn’t have to be in my neighborhood, just a shul that I know about – that is orthodox to the core – but that I don’t have to go to. Unless I want to, which probably will never happen, because it’s orthodox. If I can have that, it will feel just like home, in Israel. Why doesn’t Germany have this?
Do I believe in most of the stuff those orthodox folks pray to? I don’t know, maybe. Do I have to decide this now? But please, don’t bother me with that Liberal Jewish stuff, Reform and the like. That’s not real Judaism, that’s some Jewish culture institute with songs and games. Those people believe in something, I am not sure what, but the cantor has an acoustic guitar? What is that about? I don’t need to go there to feel Jewish because that’s what I am from birth as an Israeli. Except for when I miss it because I am not in Israel anymore except for a week over Pesach, when I hit the Tel Avivy beaches to warm up. You know what I mean, don’t you?
-Internally conflicted
Dear Internally conflicted,
If you have a German passport, and statistically speaking, if you are Israeli in Berlin, the odds are that you might, I might have a solution for you. Have you considered just paying the Kirchensteuer to the Jüdische Gemeinde? It gives you a connection to shul and you never have to walk inside it. Secular Germans who identify as this or that Christian have been enjoying paying and not going to church for years now. What’s the point of being internally conflicted if the Gemeinde itself can do all of the chaotic infighting for you? Even with fists? And just like home in Israel, the tax money flows into the hands of the Orthodox, which everyone hates. Meanwhile, you could be relaxing and munching on some labneh cheese with your German and Israeli pals and enjoying the balebustish feeling at Feinberg’s where it stays warm on a cold Saturday afternoon. Stay for the sweet malabi. It’s not like you have run off to pray mincha!