JTA — A legislation agency that investigated abuse expenses throughout the Catholic church in Germany is now doing the identical for the nation’s most important Jewish group, within the newest growth of a mounting scandal that might topple Germany’s liberal Jewish institution.
The Gercke Wollschläger agency will study “allegations of sexualized harassment and abuse of energy” at Abraham Geiger Faculty, the Central Council of Jews in Germany introduced final week.
It’s the second investigation associated to allegations towards Rabbi Walter Homolka, the seminary’s founder and chief, and his husband that burst into public view Might 6 in an explosive article in Die Welt, a German newspaper.
Earlier this yr, the College of Potsdam, the place the seminary is housed, tasked its equal alternative fee with investigating whether or not Homolka’s husband, the school’s spokesperson, despatched lewd messages to college students and whether or not Homolka or others swept proof of misconduct beneath the rug, primarily by investigating themselves, because the newspaper reported.
After Die Welt’s story ran, Homolka instantly took a depart of absence from the various Jewish organizations by which he performs a job, saying that he would step again till investigations are full. That may very well be a while: The college says its inquiry ought to conclude by August, whereas the Central Council of Jews in Germany stated the investigation it has now commissioned won’t wrap up till early 2023.
“We’d like an unconditional, impartial and full investigation of the allegations, significantly for the sake of doable victims,” Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, stated in an announcement asserting the transfer.
Additional accounts have come to mild in current weeks. A number of college students advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company about troubling experiences with Homolka or his husband; all have shared their tales with faculty employees and the college probe.
“We should defend these affected, whereas on the identical time attaining the best doable transparency,” Schuster added. “Additionally it is vital to forestall hurt to the Jewish neighborhood.”
However hurt has already been finished, say many individuals with data of liberal Judaism in Germany.
Born in early Nineteenth-century Germany, the liberal motion engendered Reform Judaism in the USA. After the Holocaust, the small inhabitants of survivors in Germany was principally Orthodox, although just a few liberal congregations cropped up, led primarily by US and British army chaplains within the post-war occupied zones. Within the Nineties, after the Chilly Warfare ended and East and West Germany have been reunited, pockets of non-Orthodox observance bloomed.
Ordained in 1997 by — amongst others — the German-born American Rabbi Walter Jacob, Homolka turned an early chief and, in 1999, based Abraham Geiger Faculty along with Jacob, who turned its president. A cantorial faculty, a second seminary for Conservative rabbinical college students and a bunch of different establishments adopted. Homolka additionally performed a vital position in ensuring that authorities funding for Jewish communities would movement to liberal establishments by way of the Central Council, German Jewry’s most important federation.
Now, the suspected coverup constitutes “the largest scandal that has occurred throughout the postwar Jewish neighborhood,” stated Susan Neiman, an American scholar who has studied up to date Jewish life in Germany and for the final twenty years has headed the Einstein Discussion board, a German assume tank.
The allegations about doable sexual harassment by Homolka’s husband on the faculty Homolka co-founded, she stated, “are actually solely the tip of the iceberg.”
Modifications have already taken place at Geiger Faculty and associated establishments in response to the scandal.
The Geiger seminary had been arrange as a nonprofit owned by Homolka. On Friday, the seminary introduced that full possession had been transferred to the Leo Baeck Basis, a Potsdam-based group that beforehand owned a minority share. (Homolka had chaired the inspiration’s board till after the Die Welt article appeared.) Notably, there’s nonetheless an overlap in management: The performing chair of the Leo Baeck Basis is Anne-Margarete Brenker, who can also be chancellor of the seminary.
The school additionally appointed an interim chief, a former finance secretary for the state of Berlin, Gabriele Thöne. She is charged with restructuring the seminary in response to the problems raised by the allegations, the college introduced.
Privately, sources say they anticipate extra modifications, together with personnel modifications. Already, the chief director of the Faculty of Jewish Theology, a division of the College of Potsdam, has stepped down.
Daniel Krochmalnik lamented in an electronic mail asserting his resignation final week that the mounting scandal was doing “public harm to the [college] and its director.” He stated he had urged folks with criticism of Abraham Geiger Faculty to air them solely internally however was not profitable in convincing them.
The Faculty of Jewish Theology — along with the Geiger seminary and the Conservative seminary, Zacharias Frankel Faculty — is a part of the college’s European Heart for Jewish Studying; Homolka has performed a job in all three.
“Now we have an excellent new constructing and a ruined public picture,” Daniel Krochmalnik stated in his resignation letter, which didn’t point out the scholars who had reported abuse.
In the meantime, leaders of many organizations that Homolka helped construct — together with among the practically 30 liberal Jewish communities throughout the nation and in Austria — have publicly distanced themselves from him, and a few have known as for his resignation.
The Chawurah Gescher neighborhood in Freiburg known as for Homolka’s rapid resignation as chair of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany. Göttingen’s liberal Jewish neighborhood — referring to “psychological accidents to the people affected” — stated that “structural abuse of energy” is “incompatible with liberal Judaism.”
Hanover’s liberal congregation stated it was “appalled by the accusations” and demanded not only a depart of absence however “the resignation of Walter Homolka from all his positions,” to “decrease the harm to liberal Judaism in Germany and … out of solidarity with these affected.”
Not all teams are calling for Homolka’s resignation proper now. “The presumption of innocence applies,” famous the Basic Rabbinical Convention, a non-Orthodox skilled affiliation often known as ARK, of which Homolka is a member. In an announcement, the ARK board demanded a “speedy clarification” in mild of “the good significance of the establishments introduced into being by Rabbi Homolka for Jewish life in Germany.”
The rabbinical affiliation is among the many teams that may cooperate with the Central Council investigation. Based on the council’s announcement, the Leo Baeck Basis, the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, Zacharias Frankel Faculty and a scholarship program for presented Jewish college students often known as ELES have additionally “expressly agreed” to cooperate.
They’re among the many many Jewish establishments with which Homolka has had an in depth involvement, holding each paid and unpaid positions. The newly appointed spokesperson for Geiger Faculty advised JTA in an electronic mail that they’re “not allowed to touch upon [salary questions] for causes of information safety and labor legislation.”
Homolka’s hand will be seen nearly in every single place within the non-Orthodox Jewish panorama in Germany. And but controversy additionally has accompanied Homolka, who stated in his assertion asserting his depart of absence, “All dedication additionally finds opponents who don’t like what you obtain.” His conversion to Judaism as a young person and the truth that he’s married to a person made him stand out from the traditional rabbi.
However extra considerably, the focus of so many roles in a single particular person has raised eyebrows through the years. Till now, few have dared to criticize Homolka brazenly: Instantly or not directly, he has had the flexibility to affect hiring, firing, scholarships and careers.
“Eventually … somebody is taking this critically,” stated Berlin-based Rabbi Walter Rothschild, who has lived and labored in Germany for greater than twenty years. He likened the reckoning occurring now inside liberal Judaism in Germany to the #MeToo motion, the wave of revelations about public figures accused of sexual harassment and abuse that started in 2017.
“Each liberal rabbi in Europe is broken by this,” stated Rothschild. And “additionally they might have talked about it earlier. They have been afraid — and now they’re afraid of the implications of being afraid.”
The coed who made the unique criticism stated he has no regrets and isn’t fearful about reprisals.
“I’m not scared in any respect,” he advised JTA. “I’ve the reality on my aspect.”
It was in 2019 that the scholar acquired a Fb message from a Geiger worker, who he stated supplied to ship photos from his newest trip together with his husband.
“It was not framed as something sexual,” the scholar recalled. “So [when] he stated, ‘I’m embarrassed about my dimension,’ I assumed he meant his weight.” As an alternative, the video he acquired was sexually specific.
“I stated, ‘This has to cease proper now, that is inappropriate,’” recalled the scholar. “He apologized and stopped contacting me.”
After the scholar reported the alleged incident to the police, Geiger Faculty arrange an inner investigative committee whose three members have been on the employees. They supplied the scholar mediation and counseling, however — stated the scholar — no penalties for the alleged harasser.
Brenker, Geiger’s chancellor, recognized the alleged harasser in a March 1 electronic mail to college students and employees by identify as Homolka’s husband. She stated she was sharing the data due to a press inquiry to the college. In a later, public assertion, she stated the worker had been terminated from all positions.
David Gessner, an lawyer on the Berlin legislation agency Behm Becker Gessner, which is representing the worker, advised JTA that “sexual harassment… was by no means the topic of the felony investigation, which, by the way, has been discontinued.” He was responding to a JTA question about what each the Central Council and Brenker, in her inner electronic mail, had known as “sexualized harassment.”
The coed advised JTA that the school’s dealing with of his allegations infuriated him.
“My coverage after this committee was, ‘This isn’t my secret, it’s another person’s… and I don’t preserve secrets and techniques,’” the scholar advised JTA. “I advised everybody who would pay attention.”
That introduced him into contact with Jonathan Schorsch, an American professor on the college of the Faculty of Jewish Theology, who stated he had heard allegations about harassment of assorted varieties for a while. “The extra I heard, the extra disturbed I received,” he advised JTA.
A second pupil advised JTA that the worker had invited him in a textual content message to share a resort mattress on a visit he had organized, and insisted the invitation wasn’t about intercourse. However, the scholar advised JTA, “How might he ship a message like that if he’s in such a place?”
A 3rd pupil advised JTA that he had been afraid to inform Homolka he was considering of transferring to the Leo Baeck Faculty liberal seminary in London, to be near his associate. “I used to be afraid of reprisals,” he wrote.
“When he discovered that I used to be contemplating [this move], he [Homolka] discovered my Skype profile and began calling me in the midst of the evening.” The coed has since been interviewed by the investigative fee on the College of Potsdam.
Alarmed by what he was listening to from college students, Schorsch raised issues in regards to the faculty’s dealing with of the scholar’s allegations throughout a college assembly in December 2021. Brenker subsequently supplied extra particulars in regards to the inner investigation, he stated — including that what he discovered solely strengthened his resolve to talk out.
“All three folks on that fee straight and utterly owe their jobs to Walter Homolka,” stated Schorsch. Certainly one of them, JTA has confirmed, had been terminated by the director of one other group for having sexual relations with feminine college students.
“I used to be ready to do one thing as a result of I had tenure and everybody else was terrified,” stated Schorsch, who compiled a report for the college’s equal alternative commissioner and inspired others to come back ahead.
Sonja Guentner – @EUProgJudaism Chair and WUPJ Vice Chair – acquired the distinguished Israel Jacobson Jubilee Plaque from the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany.
The award was offered throughout a ceremony at Abraham Geiger Faculty by Rabbi Walter Homolka.
Mazel tov Sonja! pic.twitter.com/W0VrZJLThn
— World Union for Progressive Judaism (@WUPJudaism) April 15, 2022
Schorsch’s report triggered the primary investigation, by the College of Potsdam. Now others are getting underway.
An lawyer whose associate was a Frankel rabbinical pupil has collected allegations on her personal, sharing stories from roughly 10 folks with the state ministry answerable for overseeing schooling.
“Individuals shared screenshots and likewise textual content messages and photos,” the lawyer, Nathalia Schomerus, advised JTA.
One graduate of the Geiger seminary contacted by JTA stated neither he nor one different pupil with whom he had spoken had heard of any sexual harassment or felt an environment of worry on the faculty. In an electronic mail, the graduate, who’s now working as a congregational rabbi in Europe, stated he was “curious how the outcomes of the investigation will likely be completely different from my expertise.”
With the revelations nonetheless recent, it stays to be seen how the scandal may have an effect on liberal Judaism in Germany and past, amongst worldwide liberal organizations which have linked with these in Germany. However the stakes are excessive, in line with Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish historical past at Brandeis College who has been following current scandals in US Jewish institutions.
“Information of betrayal after betrayal on the a part of rogue Jewish leaders will make it onerous for nice Jewish leaders to win the assist and respect they want so as to succeed,” Sarna stated.
The present scandal should not be allowed to utterly blot out Homolka’s accomplishments, stated Armin Langer, who was expelled from Geiger Faculty in 2016 after he criticized the Central Council of Jews in Germany, a funder of the college, over the group’s stance on Muslim refugees. Each he and the college stated on the time that he had been expelled for failing to stick to the college’s media guidelines, which require that college students ask permission earlier than talking with the press.
“Homolka did an vital job in making the Central Council acknowledge liberal communities, increase the reform rabbinical seminary and all his foyer work for liberal Judaism,” stated Langer, who was ordained Sunday by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Faculty in Philadelphia.
“I need to acknowledge that, however it should most likely be time for him to retire and let a brand new era of progressive rabbis or Jewish leaders tackle the roles — the various completely different roles — he had previously many years.”