Seminary closed by Nazis graduates rabbis once again

Last update - 06:23 05/06/2009

Seminary closed by Nazis graduates rabbis once again

By Raphael Ahren

Two Orthodox rabbis were ordained by the reestablished Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin this week, for the first time since the seminary was closed by the Nazis in 1938.

At a ceremony broadcast live on German television, Zsolt Balla and Avraham Radbil became the first rabbis to graduate from the seminary, which historians consider the cradle of Modern Orthodoxy.

"Sixty years ago, who would have thought that we'd be standing here today?" said Charlotte Knobloch, chairwoman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, at Tuesday's ordination ceremony, which took place in Munich's Ohel Jacob synagogue. "I myself wouldn't have thought it would be possible ... It's a small miracle."

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble said it was a "moving" and "magical" event. "In the very city where the Nazis' reign of terror started, we are able to celebrate that Jewish life thrives again in Germany," he said in his speech, which also surveyed the history of the legendary seminary.

Rabbi Azaria Hildesheimer, whose great-grandfather founded the original seminary in 1869, also addressed the new rabbis.

Balla, 28, was born in Budapest and came to the German capital in 2003 to study at Yeshivas Beis Zion, which is sponsored by the Ronald Lauder Foundation and a part of the new seminary. He will lead outreach programs for the yeshiva in Berlin and serve as a "weekend rabbi" in Leipzig, Germany, the same city where his fellow graduate lived after emigrating from his native Ukraine at the age of 12. Radbil, 25, who later this year will also conclude his psychology studies, will become Rabbi Yaron Engelmayer's assistant in Cologne.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090525.html

Just awesome.