November 30, 2005

Orthodox Union’s Youth Program, NCSY, to Share 50 Years of American Expertise With Berlin-Based Group Working to Strengthen Jewish Observance in Central Europe

Following an appeal from a Canadian-born rabbi who is trying to rebuild Jewish life in Germany, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has agreed to provide the skills, experience, techniques and materials developed over 50 years of outreach by its National Conference of Synagogue Youth to create an NCSY-type program in Berlin and other areas in Central Europe in conjunction with an educational initiative already in existence in the former German capital. The program will include the training of European youth leaders in the United States and visits to Berlin by NCSY personnel to train leaders on-site.

The Orthodox Union, as the organization is commonly known, is the umbrella organization for hundreds of congregations across the United States and Candada.

The announcement of the OU plan was made by OU President Stephen J. Savitsky, who led an OU delegation on a Thanksgiving weekend trip to Berlin.

The delegation consisted of Mr. Savitsky; OU Senior Vice President Stanley Weinstein of Miami Beach, FL; OU National Executive Director Rabbi Moshe D. Krupka; and Rabbi Steven Burg, National Director of NCSY.

They met with Rabbi Josh Spinner, Director of the Bais Medrash of Berlin and Vice President of the Ronald Lauder Foundation. The trip was an outgrowth of a meeting that Moshe Bane, OU Senior Vice President, held previously with Rabbi Aba Dunner, the Secretary General of the Conference of European Rabbis. Mr. Bane was representing the OU at a meeting of the World Jewish Congress several months ago and Rabbi Dunner suggested to him that the OU look into ways of providing help and expertise to a vital Lauder Foundation program for Central Europe.

Many Jews In Germany Are From the FSU

There are now approximately 250,000 Jews in Germany and Hungary, Rabbi Dunner told Mr. Bane, adding that the Jews in Germany for the most part came from the Former Soviet Union and were granted benefits and incentives to move to Germany. Many of them, Rabbi Dunner explained, have little or no connection to Jewish life but have a real thirst to understand Jewish tradition and Jewish heritage.

According to Mr. Savitsky, Rabbi Spinner has created a program in Berlin to deal with this yearning. “Rabbi Spinner is a young, dynamic individual who grew up in Canada, was educated at Columbia University, was ordained in Jerusalem, and has lived for the last six years in Berlin. Through a grant from the Lauder Foundation, he established the Bais Medrash of Berlin with the goal of serving as the hub for outreach of Torah education in Central Europe.”

Mr. Savitsky explained that the Bais Medrash has approximately 50 students, all from Germany and Hungary, and has just started an ordination program. The institution has established outreach centers in several German cities and in Budapest. “While we were there several young men from Budapest came to spend Shabbat in the Bais Medrash. If you closed your eyes for a moment, these young men looked just like the teenagers we recruit to come to our NCSY Shabbatonim (Sabbath celebrations),” Mr. Savitsky said.

A Relationship Is Born

As a result of the trip, the OU is in the process of establishing a relationship with the Bais Medrash which will be called the Ronald Lauder Bais Medrash of Berlin/OU/NCSY Outreach Program for Central Europe. According to Mr. Savitsky, “We will be providing them with access to all of the wealth of materials that we have developed over the years at NCSY. They will reprint many of our manuals, benchers (compilations of blessings and Sabbath songs) and other materials in Russian, German, and Hungarian. They will also send some of their leaders to the United States to be trained in outreach by our NCSY professionals. Additionally we will probably send a small group once or twice a year to help them develop a successful outreach program there,” Mr. Savitsky said.

In a report to OU Officers and Members of the Board of Directors explaining what he termed “a most exciting breakthrough at the OU,” Mr. Savitsky wrote, “I am excited about the opportunity to take our expertise at the OU/NCSY and make it available to a population that is in dire need of our sophistication and our skills. It is an opportunity and a responsibility that we have at the OU because we are no longer just a North American organization but really an international organization. There are other places in the world besides North America and Israel that need our expertise and we should feel a responsibility to help wherever possible.”

Dealing with the contentious issue of why the Jews from the Former Soviet Union emigrated to Germany and not to Israel, Mr. Savitsky declared, “The reality is that we are not dealing with German Jews but we are dealing with Russian Jews, who for personal and economic reasons, decided to move to Germany. I am certain that if anyone would listen to the stories we heard from Jews who lived in the Soviet Union in poverty and had an opportunity to enhance their lifestyle, we would understand that it is not for us to judge but to deal with the reality of the German Jewish population as it is today.”

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The Orthodox Union, now in its second century of service to the Jewish community of North America and beyond, is a world leader in community and synagogue services, adult education, youth work through NCSY, political action through the IPA, and advocacy for persons with disabilities through Yachad and Our Way. Its kosher supervision label, the , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol and can be found on over 409,000 products manufactured in 83 countries around the globe.

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