A month ago I posted about Jewish immigration to Germany-here is a follow-up story in Newsweek.
…Germany’s pre-war Jewish community of 500,000 was just 15,000 after the war. Now, it’s back up to 200,000. More than 60 synagogues have been built or refurbished in the past few years, many in cities where Jewish life had been all but extinguished.
There are complications: as many as 30 percent of the immigrants aren’t recognized as Jews by German rabbis because their mothers weren’t Jewish. (For Soviet authorities, the father passed on his “nationality,” whereas in Jewish rite, it’s the mother.) The head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews last year asked the government to remove “improper” Jews from the applicants. But the German Foreign Ministry refused: never again, officials said, would Germans sort out who is a Jew.
If, as I suspect, Israel becomes an untenable state for Jews in future generations because of the growth of the Arab citizenry because of the latter’s high birthrates (20% of the population now, I don’t think that Jews would be comfortable if they grew to more than 30%, which it seems like they will barring another infusion of Jewish immigrants like the post-Soviet one or a sharp drop in Arab birthrates), I have always believed that the United States would be the number one destination for the Israeli Jewry fleeing the sinking boat of the “Jewish” state. But now I wonder, Germany has a problem with an aging native population, and a growing hostile Muslim minority, perhaps an influx of Jews could serve as a nice counterweight to the latter.
Just some heterodox ideas.
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