page_title: History of the Jews in Germany
section_title: Jews in the reunited Germany (post-1990)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Germany / Jews in the reunited Germany (post-1990)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Chanukka-Feier auf dem Marktplatz in Karlsruhe. Oberbürgermeister Frank Mentrup zündet mit Rabbiner Mordechai Mendelson die sechste Lampe an. English: Public menorah in Karlsruhe, Germany, lightened by the Chabad rabbi and the city mayor.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Germany goes back to the Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages when Jewish settlers founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades. Accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death led to mass slaughter of German Jews and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity."
  The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany. Entire communities, like those of Trier, Worms, Mainz and Cologne, were slaughtered. The war upon the Hussite heretics became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed to Jews all possible evils. The atrocities during the Khmelnytsky Uprising committed by Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossacks drove the Polish Jews back into western Germany. With Napoleon's fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression.
context_section_description: The end of the Cold War contributed to a growth of the Jewish community of Germany. An important step for the renaissance of Jewish life in Germany occurred in 1990 when Helmut Kohl convened with Heinz Galinski, to allow Jewish people from the former Soviet Union to emigrate to Germany, which led to a large Jewish emigration. Germany is home to a nominal Jewish population of more than 200,000 (although this number reflects non-Jewish spouses or children who also immigrated under the Quota Refugee Law); 104,024 are officially registered with Jewish religious communities. The size of the Jewish community in Berlin is estimated at 120,000 people, or 60% of Germany's total Jewish population. Today, between 80 and 90 percent of the Jews in Germany are Russian speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Many Israelis also move to Germany, particularly Berlin, for its relaxed atmosphere and low cost of living. Olim L'Berlin, a Facebook snowclone asking Israelis to emigrate to Berlin, gained notoriety in 2014. Some eventually return to Israel after a period of residence in Germany. There are also a handful of Jewish families from Muslim countries, including Iran, Turkey, Morocco, and Afghanistan. Germany has the third-largest Jewish population in Western Europe after France (600,000) and Britain (300,000) and the fastest-growing Jewish population in Europe in recent years. The influx of immigrants, many of them seeking renewed contact with their Ashkenazi heritage, has led to a renaissance of Jewish life in Germany. In 1996, Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin opened a center. In 2003, Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin ordained 10 rabbis, the first rabbis to be ordained in Germany since World War II. In 2002 a Reform rabbinical seminary, Abraham Geiger College, was established in Potsdam. In 2006, the college announced that it would be ordaining three new rabbis, the first Reform rabbis to be ordained in Germany since 1942.
  Partly owing to the deep similarities between Yiddish and German, Jewish studies have become a popular academic study, and many German universities have departments or institutes of Jewish studies, culture, or history. Active Jewish religious communities have sprung up across Germany, including in many cities where the previous communities were no longer extant or were moribund. Several cities in Germany have Jewish day schools, kosher facilities, and other Jewish institutions beyond synagogues. Additionally, many of the Russian Jews were alienated from their Jewish heritage and unfamiliar or uncomfortable with religion. American-style Reform Judaism (which originated in Germany), has re-emerged in Germany, led by the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, even though the Central Council of Jews in Germany and most local Jewish communities officially adhere to Orthodoxy.
  On January 27, 2003, then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder signed the first-ever agreement on a federal level with the Central Council, so that Judaism was granted the same elevated, semi-established legal status in Germany as the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church in Germany, at least since the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949.
  In Germany it is a criminal act to deny the Holocaust or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (§ 130 StGB); violations can be punished with up to five years of prison. In 2007, the Interior Minister of Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, pointed out the official policy of Germany: "We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia or antisemitism." Although the number of right-wing groups and organisations grew from 141 (2001) to 182 (2006), especially in the formerly communist East Germany, Germany's measures against right-wing groups and antisemitism are effective: according to the annual reports of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution the overall number of far-right extremists in Germany has dropped in recent years from 49,700 (2001), 45,000 (2002), 41,500 (2003), 40,700 (2004), 39,000 (2005), to 38,600 in 2006. Germany provided several million euros to fu
caption: Public menorah in Karlsruhe
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