If you forget that you are a Jew, sooner or later you will be reminded of it. Depopulation of Jewish communities began in Germany Your children continue family musical traditions

Depopulation of Jewish communities began in Germany
(In the margins of recent statistics)

Pavel Polyan- specially for Demoscope

Not so long ago, the Central Benevolent Organization of Jews in Germany (ZBOEG) released a statistical guide on German community Jewry in 2006. Nothing special, an annual routine.

The only difference here is 2006 itself, the last year of a positive balance of 17 years of Jewish immigration from the former USSR to Germany. This balance, as will be shown below, would be negative now, but the role of a statistical magic wand was played not by anyone, but by 1912 members of a dozen liberal communities in Germany, united in two land unions (Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony), adopted in 2006 in the not too friendly bosom of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (CCJ).

And this is deeply symbolic, since the entry of liberals under the umbrella of the pro-Orthodox Central Council of Jews in Germany was undeniably the central event in Jewish community building in 2006. This event, doomed to continue, ended another long-term “internal Jewish war” in this country - the struggle of the Union of Progressive Jewry for “coming out of the shadows” and official recognition of Jewish liberalism in the homeland.

A few words about the liberal communities themselves. First of all, their small size is striking - an average of 159 people per community (against 1126 people in the "conservative"). But the point, most likely, is not in their many times less popularity on the ground, but in their, so to speak, greater adequacy: members of liberal communities really treat them confessionally, while the vast majority of members in the remaining 94 communities, from the confessional point of view, are fictitious. and exist only on paper.

The statistical balance of 2006 is a spoonful of butter and a barrel of tar. On the one hand, there are 107,794 people in the Jewish communities of Germany, or 177 new members more, but on the other hand: whenever the liberal Jews mentioned in 1912, who came out of the statistical shadow (some of them may have been registered twice), the balance was would be negative and would amount to "-1740" people. Recall that, since 1991, the balance was only positive and practically did not fall below the mark of 2 thousand people (and even then in 2005).

By itself, the dynamics of the number of German Jews consists of three components. The first is purely demographic (natural population movement), the second is migration (mechanical movement) and the third is spiritual (religious attraction of Judaism):

In terms of demographics, there were 1,302 deaths for every 205 births in 2006. This is so far the largest negative balance (1097 people) for all the years of immigration from b. USSR (the total number of community members who died in 1990-2006 was 13518 people against 2277 born).

The migration component associated with the movement of community members either across the border or within Germany, in turn, consists of three different flows. The first stream, and over the past 16 years the most massive, determining the dynamics of the number of communities as a whole, is the arrival of contingent refugees (or, starting from 2005, Jewish immigrants) from the former USSR. And here for the first time we come across a clear defect in the declared data.

If we are obliged to take all other figures from the Frankfurt statistics on faith, since there are simply no alternative sources of statistical accounting, then the situation is different. The number of new members of communities - immigrants from b. The USSR, equal, according to statistics, to 1971 people, cannot correspond to reality in any way. The fact is that the number of people who arrived in Germany through the Jewish line (from among those who were still eligible to use the old immigration regulations) in 2007 amounted to only 1079 people - also a record low. An analysis of the community data leads to the conclusion that among the declared 1971 people, the majority are clearly persons from among the immigrants of 2005, namely, those whose cases, according to the established regulations, were being checked in the same CBOEG for the purity of their belonging to the Jews. Thus, we are faced with another artifact - artificially "delayed", or statistically "delayed" immigration. She became the second fig leaf of the "positive" balance of Jewish immigration in 2006.

The second international flow covers all other countries of the world, except for the countries of the former USSR. In 2006, 229 of them came to Germany and were registered in the communities of halachic Jews, while 282 left in the opposite direction. The balance is negative, although small - 53 people. As for internal migration, seemingly connected only with the change of communities when moving, the scale here is completely different: 701 people arrived in Jewish communities and 2411 people left, there is a colossal difference - 1710 people. In 2005, for example, the corresponding figures were only 496, 924 and 428 people. More than a threefold jump in the negative balance can hardly be caused by random, secondary factors.

To an even greater extent, this is true for the third component of the population dynamics - the ratio of entry into and exit from Judaism. The number of those who converted during the year slightly decreased: 46 people - against 61 in 2005. But the number of confessional renegades in 2006 was 1084 people, while in 2005 there were only 308 people. And again - more than three times the growth!

We will return to the interpretation of these phenomena themselves, but for now we will formulate the main conclusion that we have arrived at.

In 2006, the process of Jewish depopulation actually began in Germany. Both the liberal recruitment and the "postponed immigration from the former USSR" thrown over from 2005 to 2006 are no more than two one-time factors for it, somewhat softening the blows. An analysis of the structure of real dynamics leaves no doubts: if earlier it was still possible to talk about a slowdown or a temporary suspension of Jewish immigration from b. USSR, now its accelerated folding is evident.

Depopulation itself, of course, is not ubiquitous, but selective. At the same time, the geography of the positive dynamics in the number of Jewish communities, if we ignore the 12 newly recognized liberal communities, is quite expressive - these are mainly the southern and eastern lands (excluding Mecklenburg - New Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt). This is connected, firstly, with the policy of preferential direction of new immigrants upon their arrival to the east, as well as with the special attraction of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria and the tendencies of the secondary intercommunal redistribution of immigrants. The largest increase was recorded in Brandenburg (+13.8%), followed by Württemberg (+9.8) and Thuringia (+8.9), then Saxony (+5.6), Baden (+4.6%), and also Bavaria and Munich (0.7-0.9%).

At the level of individual communities in Baden, for example, the communities of Baden-Baden and Emmendingen are quite dynamic, while the only community with a negative balance is in Freiburg, where 23 of its former members, or 3.1%, left it. Growth continued in Bavaria in its largest communities, Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg (with some decline noted in Amberg). The growth of the largest community in the country, Berlin, also stopped, but its attractiveness for intra-German movements remained unchanged.

The regions where the communal population has declined are mainly the northern and northwestern states of Hamburg, Cologne (-2.7%) and the communities of Westphalia (-1.4%). In other regions, the number of members fluctuated within the framework of average, generally stagnating, values.

I deliberately did not give a figure that characterizes the dynamics of the members of the Hamburg community. I did not bring it, because it is truly phenomenal and unbelievably great! If at the beginning of 2006 it still included 5125 people, then at the end - 3086 people, or 2039 people less! In one year, one of Germany's largest communities has shrunk by 39.8%, or two-fifths! This 40% drawdown of Hamburg is perhaps the main statistical sensation of the year (although, in fact, it is also nothing more than a statistical artifact!).

The lion's share of the decline fell on two factors - the transition to other communities (1253 people) and the exit from Judaism (677 people). You can't find these "other" communities with the help of the 2006 statistics, but you can with the help of the 2005 statistics. It was in 2005 that, after many years of struggle, a whole land union - the Jewish communities of Schleswig-Holstein - spun off from the city community of Hamburg. In two of the three communities that made it up that year - Lübeck and Kiel - 1153 people of unknown origin were immediately assigned: however, for someone who knows where these communities spun off, their origin is not a mystery.

Much more serious than this worldly misunderstanding is the second component of the 2000th leak, which was given by the Hamburg community. These 677 people who came out of the same community within one year are the real sensation of the year, and, moreover, extremely disturbing. Of course, it can be assumed that these statistics hide members of the liberal communities of the same Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg itself, who were previously (at least partially) included in the card index of the Hamburg community. But why, then, did they not fall into the most suitable rubric for this - those who moved to other communities?

If we trust the statistics as such, then Hamburg alone accounted for about two-thirds of the total number of confessional "renegades" who left Judaism in 2006. Of course, both in Hamburg and in Germany there are genuine renegades or converts among them, who have converted to other confessions or sects for fundamental spiritual reasons (the Baptist missionaries from the Jews for Christ movement are especially active and often successful here). It is their choice and their right. There are also those who, parting with Jewish confessionality, break not with religion, and even more so not with the people, but with specific communities in the place of residence. Those grievances, scandals and other charms that many of them had to face during the years of membership (and the vast majority of the communities did not skimp on this at all) moved them a certain distance from the actual community Jewish life. If, however, individual grievances and injustices that communities have voluntarily or unwittingly inflicted or are inflicting are added to this atmosphere, then the natural reaction is to leave such a community, which, in the absence of the fact of moving to another city or land, in fact, means leaving Judaism. Among the Halachic Jews there are also “overcautious” people who are afraid even of envelopes with Magendovids and other Jewish symbols in their mailboxes.

The new side of the process recorded by statistics, I think, is still in a different one - in a purely material aspect, or rather, in its intensity. Those newly arrived members who were willing to be members of them and even support them, but only at a minimal and financially not burdensome level, pulled away from the communities. And if they were still willing to pay a moderate community fee, established by the communities themselves (considering it as their material tribute to Jewry and intuitively believing that their passive membership was not worth more), then the German church tax to the cash desks of the land ministries for religious affairs was already No. It would be too much for them - both psychologically and economically, especially since the legal requirements to pay for it may include arrears for several years. Independent, but far from wealthy people, often balancing on the verge of work and unemployment, they are not so pious and not so firmly on their feet that they do not think about the role of this tax in their budget. Many, by the way, first learned about this from the bulletins of their communities, which strictly indicated the need for members of the communities to pay the church tax due from them - before that no one had directly demanded this, so many had never heard of him at all.

But some of those who are not threatened by the church tax in any way (the elderly, the unemployed and social workers) also seem to vote with their feet: for this they are deregistered in communities in the form of a move (real or fictitious), but after that they are no longer in any Jewish communities no longer join (it is possible that even modest community fees - in the absence of feedback - are still expensive for them). Recall that this particular leak - with a negative balance of 1710 people! was the highest in 2006.

It seems that, statistically, we are faced with the phenomenon of a “burst pipe”, which in the future may have an impact on Jewish community building in Germany, perhaps no less significant and no less negative than the catastrophic balance of births and deaths.

It is symptomatic that the most active and independent, economically active (against the background of those who remain in them, of course) members enter into divorce proceedings with the communities. They replenish the same, already most of the post-Soviet Jewry, which from the very beginning did not approach the communities and which was not seen point-blank either in Berlin (the Central Council of Jews in Germany) or in Frankfurt am Main (ZBOEG). They do not see and do not want to see.

Mitgliederstatistik der einzelnen Jüdischen Gemeinden und Landesverbände in Deutschland per 1. January 2006. / Hrsg. von Zentralwohlfahrtstelle in Deutschland e.V. Frankfurt am Main, 2007.
It would be more correct today to talk about conditionally conservative, or unified, communities
Official data from the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees. This is more than Jewish immigrants to the United States (612 people), but significantly less than the number of repatriates to Israel (7470 people).
A priori, it seemed that the relevant statistics should have been based on the date of arrival in Germany, or at least of contacting the community, and not on the date of completion of the check in Frankfurt. So this randomly revealed circumstance should be taken into account when analyzing all similar retrospective data starting from 1993. Without influencing the final retrospective indicator, equal, by the way, to 48.2% for the period from 1990 to 2006, it distorts its annual values.
Mitgliederstatistik der einzelnen Jüdischen Gemeinden und Landesverbände in Deutschland per 1. January 2006. / Hrsg. von Zentralwohlfahrtstelle in Deutschland e.V. Frankfurt am Main, 2006. S.5.
According to the nature of the dynamics of their development, all Jewish associations of the 1st level (land unions and isolated communities) can be divided into three groups: a) with positive dynamics (growth of more than 0.3%), b) stagnating (growth from -0.3 to +0.3) and c) with negative dynamics (reduction of more than 0.3%).
In the first case, the situation practically does not change; in the second case, there is even a noticeable negative growth (-4.0%). We leave this last value without consequences here, since the data on the communities of Dessau and Magdeburg (in the latter for three years now, Commissar S. Kramer) should be recognized as defective: they take into account only one category of registration - or those who arrived from the former USSR (Dessau), or only departures (in the case of Magdeburg; here, probably, the result of a check of the lists).
Mitgliederstatistik der einzelnen Jüdischen Gemeinden und Landesverbände in Deutschland per 1. January 2006. / Hrsg. von Zentralwohlfahrtstelle in Deutschland e.V. Frankfurt am Main, 2006. S.67.
And it makes up a solid quota of 8% of income tax in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria and 9% in the rest of the western federal states (in the eastern lands, representatives of the Jewish faith are exempt from paying church tax).
Such letters were sent out in 2005-2006. in at least two communities - Düsseldorf and Hamburg.
It remains to be seen what exactly served as the "detonator" here: I do not exclude that people are being pushed to this by the reform of the labor market: getting a job, albeit a low-paid one, is much tougher than before, fastened to its fiscal side. It is possible that tougher fiscal and immigration policies have made their contribution, placing more serious and often inadequate economic criteria on entrants.

Lübeck - an imperial free city in Germany, not far from the Baltic Sea, together with the surrounding area constituted a special state. In 1350, the city council asked Duke Otto of Brunswick-Lüneburg to exterminate all Jews living within the duchy, arguing that the plague would stop only with the destruction of the latter. From the fact that the council does not indicate by what measures to carry this out in the city itself, it can be concluded that there were no Jews living in the city at that time. The chronicler Reimer Kock (1495) affirms positively that "there are no Jews in L., for there is no need for them there." The Thirty Years' War, and perhaps the massacre during the time of Khmelnytsky, sent many fugitives to L. The goldsmiths' workshop complained in 1658 that many Jews and other suspicious (!) Persons make their way into the city daily for jewelry work. According to the decision of the Senate dated 15 April. In 1677, a Jew was allowed to stay overnight only with special Senate permission, which, however, was given only in rare cases. In 1680, two Schutzjuden Senates are mentioned: Samuel Frank and Nathan Simsens, but when the Senate recognized Simsens's son-in-law, Goldschmit, as his "Schutzj ude", this aroused strong displeasure of the townspeople. The guilds insisted on the expulsion of the Jews (1699). Despite this, Jews continued to visit the city, and already in 1701 the Senate recognized one Jew as Schutzjud. The latter paid an annual fee of 300 marks. Many Polish fugitives settled in the neighboring village of Moisling (1701), on Danish territory, and, as Danish subjects, enjoyed the right of entry into Latvia, albeit limited, despite the protests of the guilds. Wanting to take over the Jews of Moisling, L. acquired in 1765 this estate, the owner of which enjoyed feudal rights over the inhabitants. - In 1806, Denmark ceded the whole area to L., including Moisling, and the Jews fell under the authority of the city. With the annexation of Latvia to France (Jan. 1, 1811), the special taxes that weighed on Schutzjuden were abolished, and the Jews of Moisling and other places went to Latvia. Their number increased rapidly, especially during the siege of Hamburg. As soon as the dominion of the French fell, the senate began to think about the restrictions of the Jews; the guilds demanded their expulsion from the city (1815). The Jews appealed to the Congress of Vienna along with the Jews of other free cities. Their interests were defended by lawyer August Buchholz. The city did not yield, despite the efforts of the Prussian Chancellor, Prince Hardenberg, and the Austrian Chancellor, Prince. Metternich. In the end, the Congress of Vienna adopted paragraph 16 of the Bundesakt, which granted all Jews in Germany the rights that they received "from various states", and not "in" various states, as the original version (June 8, 1815) said. L. immediately exercised his right, and on March 6, 1816, all Jews were ordered to leave the city within 4 weeks. The Jews were forced to move to Moisling, retaining the rights of citizenship of L., of course, with certain restrictions. In 1824, all the Jews, with the exception of a few "clients", left the city. The Senate provided the rabbi with a house in Moisling and built a new synagogue for which the community paid a modest annual fee. Since 1831, Jews began to serve in the army, in 1837 a public school was opened, subsidized by the city, and in 1839 the Senate ordered the shops to register Jewish apprentices. Law 9 Oct. 1848 destroyed all restrictions. In 1850 a new synagogue was purchased. In 1859 the rabbi moved from Moisling to L.; A community school was also opened there. The law of 1862 (Aug. 12) changed the Heb. oath (more judaico), the new form remained in force until 1879, when it was abolished by the law regulating German civil procedure. The L. community has a 3-grade school, and the teaching of the law of God in general schools became compulsory under the law on 17 October. 1885 The community receives a certain annual subsidy from the city and has a number of educational, social and religious organizations. In 1905 in L. 631 Heb. (0.60% of the total population). - Cf.: Jost, Neuere Gesch. d. Israeliten, I, 32 et seq.; Grätz, Gesch., XI, 324 et seq.; Carlebach, Gesch. d. Juden in Lübeck und Moisling, Lübeck, 1898. .

Basic information about the city

Hamburg is located in the northwest of Germany. It is one of the largest ports on the North Sea. It has the status of an independent federal state and still retains the title of a free and Hanseatic city.

Hamburg stands at the mouth of the Elbe River, about 100 km from the sea. Altona and Wandsbek, which are part of it as districts, were separate cities with their own ports until the 20th century. The climate of the city is mild, seaside.

The area of ​​the city is 755.3 km². The population at the end of 2013 was 1,746,342, including 254,354 in the Altona area and 409,176 in Wandsbeek.

The first castle called Gammaburg was built in 825 on a cape at the confluence of the Elbe, its tributary Alster. In 834, an archbishop based there, sending missionaries to the north. In 845 the Vikings burned the city, Hamburg was rebuilt and burned again eight times in the next 300 years.

In 1120-1140. some trading companies have started their business in the city. After the founding of Lübeck on the Baltic Sea, Hamburg became its outport on the North Sea, which determined its economic development. In 1188, the Count of Holstein ordered a company of Hamburg entrepreneurs to build a new city next to the old one, with a harbor on the Alster River and with facilities for using the Elbe as an outward roadstead. This order was confirmed by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, granting special trade and navigation rights and tax benefits.

Hamburg and Lübeck. Goods were transported along a system of rivers instead of being transported by sea around Denmark.

In the 13th century, the economic importance of Hamburg grew due to the development of the Hanseatic League, in which the role of Hamburg was second only to Lübeck. It was the main staging post for trade between Russia And Flanders. Hamburg controlled the trade routes along the lower reaches of the Elbe. In 1459, the last count of Holstein died, and Hamburg formally came under the sovereignty of the king. Denmark.

By 1550, Hamburg surpassed Lübeck in economic importance. The exchange was founded in 1558, and the Bank of Hamburg in 1619. The sea convoy system for cargo ships was opened in 1662; the merchants of Hamburg were the first to be accompanied on the high seas by warships. Around the same time, marine insurance was introduced there, a first in Germany.

In 1770, under an agreement with Denmark, Hamburg became directly subordinate to the German emperor (became a free imperial city) and received additional territories. At Napoleone Hamburg was occupied by the French army and in 1810 annexed to the French Empire. After the fall of Napoleon (1814-15), Hamburg became a member of the German Confederation, with the designation "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" from 1819. Altona remained under Danish jurisdiction until 1864.

The city prospered on international maritime trade. Even the fire of 1842, which destroyed a quarter of the city, did not affect the development of business. In 1880 a new port was built. The city greatly expanded territorially, merging with the suburbs. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a population of 700,000.

Among them were financiers, shipbuilders, importers (especially sugar, coffee and tobacco from the Spanish and Portuguese colonies), weavers and jewelers. Some Jewish financiers took part in the establishment of the Hamburg Bank in 1619.

XVII-XVIII centuries

Not later than 1611 in Hamburg there were three synagogues. In 1612 the Jews of Hamburg paid an annual tax of 1,000 marks, and in 1617 this amount was doubled. kingdoms Sweden , Poland And Portugal appointed Jews as their ambassadors in Hamburg.

Thirteen Portuguese families from Hamburg settled in Altona in 1703, adding to the already existing small Portuguese colony. They organized a community known as Beit Yaakov HaKatan(Later Neve Shalom). Synagogue was built in 1770. But this community remained a branch of the community in Hamburg.

Among the prominent rabbis of the united congregation of Altona, Hamburg and Wandsbeck were J. Eibenshütz(held this position from 1750), Yehezkel Katzenelenbogen (? -1749), Raphael Cohen (1722-1803) and Zvi Hirsch Zamosz (1740-1807). Also lived in Altona rabbi, scientist and public figure I. Emden, who led the polemic with Eibenshutz. Rabbi Raphael ben Yekutiel Cohen, who served the community for 23 years, was one of the fiercest opponents Mendelssohn translation Pentateuch (1783).

The physician and writer Rodrigo de Castro (1550-1627), rabbi and scientist lived in Hamburg Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo(in 1622-25), physician and encyclopedist Benjamin Musafia (1609-1672), Isaac Halevi - author of "Dorot ha-rishonim", grammarian and writer Moses Gideon Abudiente (1602-1688), rabbi and writer Abraham de Fonseca ( d. 1651), poets Shalom ben Yaakov ha-Kohen and Yosef Tsarfati (d. 1680), memoirist Glickel of Hameln, merchant and philanthropist Solomon Heine (uncle Heinrich Heine), Moses Mendelssohn. A great composer was born there F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

Jews in Altona were engaged in commerce, some of them were shareholders of ships engaged in South American trade and, especially, in the 18th century, whaling. Special economic privileges were granted to them by the Danish kings. Hamburg Jews often helped finance these ventures.

Typography

The old synagogue "Temple" in Hamburg, built in 1818 (not preserved).

The role of Hamburg and Altona in history is great typography on Hebrew. From 1586 Jewish books, especially books bible, were published in Hamburg by Christian printers, mostly with the help of Jewish staff.

In 1732, the wealthy Ephraim Heckscher opened a printing house, which a year later passed into the hands of his assistant Aaron ben Elijah ha-Kohen, nicknamed Aaron Setzer (“setter”, cop dog). He continued to print, and in 1743 he became head of the printing house. Jacob Emden, where many of Emden's polemical writings against Jonathan Eibenshütz. In 1752 they parted, and Aaron went over to the side of Eibenshütz.

Another assistant at Emden's printing house, Moses Bonn, opened his own printing house in 1765, and this firm, known as the "Bonn Brothers", operated until the end of the 19th century under the direction of his sons and grandsons.

Until the end of the 18th century. immigrants from Spain and Portugal used Spanish and Portuguese; in 1618-1756 fifteen Jewish books were published in these languages ​​in Hamburg. Nearly 400 Jewish books were printed in Hamburg between the 17th and 19th centuries. In the 19th century, Jewish printers published mainly liturgical books, Pentateuch, books on mystical knowledge and popular literature.

19th century

Synagogue with ritual hall at Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg, opened in 1883. Photo by Klaus-Joachim Dikov.

Around 1800 approximately 6,300 Ashkenazi and 130 Portuguese Jews lived in Hamburg, making up approximately 6% of the population.

The united "congregation of the three cities" lasted until 1811, when Napoleon I included Hamburg in the French Empire, and the Jews of the three cities were ordered to create a single consistory, uniting and Sephardim, And Ashkenazi. During the French occupation (1811-14), the Jews officially enjoyed complete equality, but suffered greatly from the terror organized by Marshal Davout.

After the expulsion of the French and the abolition of the equality of Jews in 1814, many of them left Hamburg for Altona, which remained Danish. Until 1864, the combined rabbinate of Altona and Vandbeck remained there.

The manager of the affairs of the Jewish community of Lubeck, Zoya Kanushin, took the chair of a deputy from the CDU in the city parliament of Lubeck, thus becoming, perhaps, the first Jewish immigrant from Russia to enter the city parliament...

The manager of the affairs of the Jewish community of Lubeck, Zoya Kanushin, took the chair of the deputy from the CDU in the city parliament of Lubeck, thus becoming, perhaps, the first Jewish immigrant from Russia to enter the city parliament.

Zoya Kanushin has been on the board of the city organization of the CDU since 2005. In addition, she is the deputy chairman of the Democrats. “Actually, there should be nothing unusual about this, but so far it is still rare,” says Oliver Fredrich, spokesman for the city's parliamentary faction of the CDU. “We also hope that with Zoya Kanushin the Jewish community will become closer to the Lübeck community.”

This 65-year-old woman has more than a decade of experience in Germany as a social worker, so in the city parliament, Zoya Kanushin would like to deal primarily with the problems of low-income Jewish immigrants and cultural issues.

Isn't this a contradiction: a "Russian" Jewess and the Christian Democratic Union? Kanushin does not think so and says that during the internal party election campaign for a seat in the Lübeck parliament, she received support from all sides. And how do members of the Jewish community feel about Zoya Kanushin's political career in the Christian Democrats? “There is nothing special about this,” says one of the members of the community, Eduard

Stelmakh. “My daughter, who lives in Estonia, is also a party member with a Christian bias.” But not all of the 780 members of the Jewish community feel this way: some of them are unhappy that the community manager joined the party, in the name of which there is the word "Christian". True, Zoya Kanushin herself says that no one expressed such criticism to her face.

Zoya Kanushin is an example of the successful integration of Russian-speaking Jews into German society. She is at the very center of this society. This became possible, first of all, thanks to a good command of German, which Zoya, being a translator from English and Italian, learned on her own. And, of course, thanks to the experience of working in Germany. Soon after the family arrived in Rostock in 1990 on a Jewish line, Zoya Kanushin found a job - she began to take care of the social security of her fellow countrymen. At the time, her family lived with other Jewish immigrants in

hostel in Gelbenzand, a village of 2,000 people 15 km from Rostock. In 1992, right-wing extremist youth attacked a hostel in nearby Liechtenhagen. But this outburst of hatred for foreigners did nothing to shake Zoya's confidence that they had done the right thing by coming here. “Anti-Semitism exists not only in Germany,” says Kanushin, “it is also present in

Zoya Kanushin moved to Lübeck with her husband and son in 1993. Shortly before that, she received a job as a social worker at the Jewish Community of Hamburg, but Lübeck was her immediate place of work. A lot of work awaited Zoya there. There was a time,

when she took care of the social needs of all contingent refugees of Schleswig-Holstein. At the age of 50, she passed her license and began to travel all over the federal land, settling the problems of her wards.

In the process of "revival" of the Jewish community of Lübeck in 2005, she became the community manager and one of its two staff members. At the same time, Zoya is not a religious person. In Lübeck, for the first time in her life, she crossed the threshold of the synagogue. When people from

the congregations asked her for advice on various religious issues - which in the early years, while Lübeck did not yet have its own permanent rabbi, happened often - she could not help them. Zoya Kanushin got an idea about Judaism only thanks to the Hamburg rabbi Barzilai, whom she translated in Lübeck.

Kanushin joined the CDU in 2003. She justifies her decision as follows: “After the experience with socialism and communism gained in the Soviet Union, I did away with the left parties.” In her native Moscow, Zoya worked for more than 20 years as a translator in

"Intourist". Asked why other members of the Jewish community eschew municipal politics, employees of this state-owned travel company who had constant contact with foreigners, Kanushin replies that many prefer to remain in the background. Yes, and the language barrier plays a role - after all, the community consists mostly of older people who are embarrassed to speak German. But in general, in her opinion, both sides lack the desire to conduct a dialogue - both visitors and

native inhabitants of Lübeck. Zoya Kanushin is an exception, and not only in her community. “As a resident of this beautiful city, I consider it my duty to work for the benefit of all the inhabitants of Lübeck,” she proudly declares, emphasizing that she intends to speak out not only for Jewish immigrants.

M. Biltz-Leonhardt, M. Fried, "Jewish newspaper"