Jewish Community of Berlin bitterly divided as its chairman resigns

04 November 2005

November 04, 2005

The Jewish Community of Berlin, with 12,000 members the largest of its kind in Germany, is sinking into ever deeper turmoil. On Tuesday, police raided the offices of its Board following a complaint of a Community member that funds were embezzled. On Wednesday, its current chairman Albert Meyer declared that would resign from his post prematurely, saying that "unbearable rows" in the community's institutions prevented him from doing a successful job. In a newspaper interview, Meyer added: "Individuals are putting their personal interests before the community interest." Backdrop of the conflict is the increasingly bitter confrontation between representatives of the large section of Jewish immigrants from former Soviet Union countries and the community's "establishment". Russian-born community members have now proposed one of their own, 34-year-old Gideon Joffe, to succeed Meyer. Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, expressed regret about Meyer's resignation and said that the state of the Berlin Jewish Community fulfilled him with sorrow. Some observers believe that the splitting-up of the community is inevitable.