Female rabbis make history as Germany marks 1700 years of Jewish life (NEWS)

 Female rabbis make history as Germany marks 1700 years of Jewish life (NEWS)

Germany is kicking off a year of anniversary events marking 1700 years of jewish life and culture in the country the nationwide celebration will include performances art installations kosher food tasting sessions and many other events the campaign deliberately deliberately aims to look beyond the persecution of jews during the holocaust instead the focus is on the diversity of jewish life in germany's past and present judaism has many faces in germany today helena shawnee brown identifies as queer

she's soon to become a rabbi and she's an avid instagram user she posts about religion sexuality and life in berlin and is representative of a generation connected by all of these aspects what many people learn about judaism at school is really terrible so they're not really learning anything or they're taught about national socialism but nothing about judaism as it is lived today that's why it kind of became my goal to show jewish life just how it is helena grew up in a religious household she believes there are too few women in high positions and she wants to change that after completing her studies the 23 year old

will likely be germany's youngest female rabbi she also wants to be the contact person she herself never had i'm very clear about the idea that nobody should have to choose between their jewish and queer identities you can't just choose what sexuality you're born with you develop with your sexuality and if you are jewish then you should be able to live both lives it's also thanks to women like giza ettabeg that the jewish community has come so far she had to fight hard to be recognized as a rabbi at all there were people who left the room when i entered so i made sure that i was always there early because then i was already seated and the others had to think about whether to sit down and join in or not giza edeberg converted to judaism now she's the rabbi of berlin's new synagogue berlin is also where the very first female rabbi was ordained in 1935 regina yonas jonas however was limited to teaching religion

and rabbinical pastoral care there she is and you can basically see her main point that god did not query gender she just wanted to be a rabbi she was the only female one but that has to do with the showa there were probably other young women who thought and dreamed of doing the same thing and for me it's just wonderful not to be the first the holocaust is forever present for jews in Germany ragina yonas was also murdered by the Nazis she was forced to pay for her faith with her life and what's it like today the judaism in germany today is more diverse than it has been in decades people like helena will never

let that be taken from them again with more i'm joined by shelly kipfember she's an israeli-born journalist who grew up in former west berlin and works for various media outlets here in Germany shelley thanks for joining dw uh what does this day mean for you actually today as such is not of great importance for me rather the fact that jewish life on the territory of today's germany so all this is really astonishing for many people also for me i have to admit and makes me also think because it is a very difficult violent history as we know the history marked by discrimination exclusion and persecution but also by participation now you've spent most of your life in germany what changes have you noticed in people's perceptions here of jews and judaism and what hasn't changed enough well what has changed i think is a view a perspective of nowadays jewish alive because it can look so different we have religious people we have non-religious very secular people many artists from all over many young jewish um well human beings come to germany to join here it has become very popular to be here in Germany also as a jew and i think many of those younger jewish people really commit to what this country and say yes we are a natural part of it and i think this has really changed because I grew up rather with this view on jewish life in germany in terms of well we sit on packed suitcases and we doubt if we really belong to this country well that sort of leads nicely into what i wanted to ask you next would you recommend germany today as a place for jewish people to live yes of course i would although we have to admit that anti-semitism as we hearda few minutes earlier uh in the film has become louder i think it was it has been always there but nobody talked about it so loudly and this has really changed but on the other hand side we have a very let's say lively and a various and an interesting and a very diverse jewish cultural life in germany and this is something everybody is invited to all right thank you very much .