Russian Jewish immigrants seeking renewed contact with their Jewish heritage The influx of refugees many of them seeking renewed contact with their Jewish heritage has led to a renaissance of Jewish life on German soil Although this sounds very nice this is just wishfull thinking and a lack of knowlegde of the reallity of the russian jewish german immigration To further explain my point I ll use a bit from the Germany Talk page that during the last years more Jews prefered emigrating to Germany than to Israel as they usually Ashkenazies feel much closer to Germany and the German language Yiddish is a Germanic language than to Israel The Hebrew language is too much different from Yiddish and Israel is a Mideast nation in a conflictive area so an increasing number of Ashkenazies prefer emigrating to Germany where they feel more integrated These kind of comments and insights are simply not true are totally away from reality and show a profound lack of knowledge of current german jewish life Good and reputable sources on this matter are abundant I would suggest that you first start by readind the Juedische Allgemeine Germany s internationally aclaimed leading daily newspapers devoted to the jewish community You ll find there lots of insights analysis studies newsreports and this will help you a lot to understand the reality of the Russian Jewish post 90 s emigration to Germany Furthermore the german government policies decisions and the impacto on german society have also been thouroughly described analysed and commentated on the main media press Spiegel etc easly more Jews prefered emigrating to Germany than to Israel or feel much closer to Germany The reason number one for this preference is the exceptionally conditions read money that this german post berlin wall policy entitles them to much to the critic of the Israeli Governement Most of Russian who came would never have left the ex Soviet Union if it was nt for this special german policy and the catastrophic collapse of pensions and social security in Russia Not to Israel not to anywhere So it is incorrect to say preferred They just grabbed the opportunity They neither feel closer to Germany nor to Israel They feel and will continue to feel close to Russia were they have already spent 2 thirds of their lives Israel is a Mideast nation in a conflictive area Most of the young connected to Judaism educated Russian Jews have indeed by enlarge emigrated to Israel Canada or the US This started happening in the 1970s and peaked in the 90s feel much closer to German language Yiddish is a Germanic language again this is nonsense as the vast majority of these people have never spoke yiddish They spoke Russian and are connected to the russian culture a renaissance of Jewish life on German soil and Chabad Lubavitch Chabad Lubavitch opened this Chabad Lubavitch ordained that this and that Chabad Lubavitch opens and ordains all over the world From Beijing to Antartica And indeed more and more in the recent years What I simply can not understand is how come a minority and extremly active stream in modern Judaism can be representative of the a renaissance of Jewish life on German soil The issue of the renaissance with integration and participation of the russian jews in the german jewish community their clashes and success stories is a well documented and problematic one Again read the german jewish and non jewish newspapers In their vast majority they were already above 50 when they arrived in Germany and I would not say that their connection with judaism was is that big Actually because many of them are from mixed marriages their offspring in Germany no longer considers itself or has interest in their jewishness The cornerstone of they identity is Russia not Judaism Again read the german sources