The recent case of the first German woman Cantor Avital Gerstetter, fired by the Judische Gemeinde after writing an article in Welt criticizing Jewish conversions, although generously spread salt on the wounds of the problematic German identity of Jewish communities, still does not deal with the system disfunctionalities that made possible this situation.
Shortly, Gerstetter, born in West Berlin to an Israeli mother and a German - Jewish convert father - mentioned, among others, how the big number of Jewish conversions, some of them Germans with a brown family past, is altering the structure and in the end, the ´Jewishness´ of the everyday practice, including the regular synagogue service itself.
There are a lot of nuances regarding the motives of conversions, that Gerstetter noticed, and there are also individuals differently changed and challenged by their new identity. There are many people who are converting for the sake of a spouse, for having Jewish children, although shortly after the conversion they may give up any trace of practice. They are many belonging to the ´contingent Jews´, those who emigrated from the Soviet Union, with a Jewish father, who may want to convert according to the Jewish Orthodoxy. Some used to celebrate their whole life Jewish holidays and are familiar with the Jewish values therefore the conversion is just an official confirmation of their belonging.
However, there are situations when, unfortunately, situations when exhaustive knowledge about Jewish practice does not help to build the community spirit that connects Jews no matter their background, orientation and level of kashrut. There are those situations when someone who knows very into depth the rules of kashrut or tzniut may make you feel like a second class Jewish citizen because displaying 1 mm more of collarbone that they learned about during the giur classes. That patronizing attitude that, ´puah, they call themselves Jews but look at them, enjoying their plate full of seafood!´/not fasting on Yom Kippur, never coming to the Shabbes service, driving on Shabbes etc.etc.
Reminding someone where is he/she coming from in terms of original religious practice may not be allowed, but what about keeping in mind that it is wrong to make distinctions between Jews, humiliate someone in public, doing lashon hara etc.?
Who are those people learning with for their giur classes? Who are the persons in charge with their giur? What about the rabbis responsible for their giur?
And what about the trauma of the persecutions and the relationship with the state of Israel as the ultimate place of refuge for a persecuted Jew?
In some cases may be that people who went through the years of the conversion process themselves supported the new converts. Before the accused article was published leading to her abrupt redundancy, Gerstetter used to sing in the synagogue in Oranienburger Straße whose rabbi herself is a convert, born in a Protestant family. Another convert actively ´converting´ other people, whose case made less waves that the remarks by Gerstetter, Walter Homolka is accused of being part of a network of sexual abuse created by his husband.
Some may ask why Gerstetter haven´t addressed those issues in the Jewish media that used to generously host Homolka´s achievements? Maybe some of the answers are already stated in the article for the smart and informed readers to figure out by themselves.
In the end, what was not (yet) frontally touched upon is the cause of this problem, mainly a system - not necessarily ´liberal´ or ´reform´-supported - that for very non-religious related reasons allows some conversions instead of others. It´s largely unclear how far this discussion will go, but maybe it was about time to happen, even just for the sake of the historical mentions.
(Hopefully) to be continued...
