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BERLIN (JTA) – In a landmark step, investigators commissioned by Germany’s fundamental Jewish group have concluded that abuse of energy and sexual harassment did happen at Germany’s liberal rabbinical seminary — and a few of it, they are saying, could have crossed the road into illegality.
The 44-page “govt abstract” of an investigation initiated by the Central Council of Jews in Germany is the most recent and most damning report in regards to the management of Rabbi Walter Homolka since accusations towards him broke into public view final Might.
Issued Wednesday after tense public battle between the council and Homolka’s attorneys, the report concludes that structural adjustments are required to set Germany’s liberal rabbinical seminary, often known as Abraham Geiger Faculty, and different associated Jewish establishments on the proper footing.
“A major trigger for the emergence of the issues recognized by the investigators on the establishments underneath investigation is the private misconduct of Rabbi Prof. Dr. Homolka in his operate as a pacesetter or particular person with nice affect, which the investigators are satisfied of,” the investigators wrote of their report.
Homolka introduced Monday that he would withdraw from all capabilities within the seminary that he and a German-born American rabbi named Walter Jacob, based in 1999. He additionally dropped out of the working on Tuesday for one more time period as chair of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany.
A extra complete report together with particulars about incidents wherein investigators concluded that Homolka and his husband engaged in misconduct is due out in January, in line with the Cologne-based legislation agency Gercke Wollschläger.
The preliminary report was welcomed in a joint assertion by the Central Council, the German Inside Ministry and the Brandenburg State Ministry of Science, Analysis and Tradition, which stated they might “proceed to fund the Abraham Geiger Faculty to the identical extent as earlier than till the structural new starting has been accomplished.”
It was additionally greeted with reduction by the rabbinical scholar whose complaints kicked off the scandal.
“I feel the report and the next paperwork are a blessed improvement,” Itamar Cohen advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company. “It appears to substantiate many suspicions which I and others share. It does affirm that I did the correct factor and [this] could possibly be the start of a brand new chapter of liberal Judaism in Germany.”
The scandal that erupted publicly in Might started after Cohen sought assist from Jonathan Schorsch, a professor on the Faculty of Jewish Theology, in coping with unsolicited pornographic materials allegedly obtained from Homolka’s husband, who was additionally an worker on the seminary. (Abraham Geiger Faculty is a part of the Faculty of Jewish Theology, which itself is underneath the auspices of the College of Potsdam.)
A German newspaper’s report in regards to the allegations and an obvious effort to obscure them opened the floodgates for criticism of Homolka from previous and present college students, staff and colleagues. Homolka took a depart of absence from the quite a few management roles he held with liberal Jewish spiritual and academic establishments that he had helped discovered for the reason that late Nineties.
The scandal has shaken the foundations of contemporary liberal Judaism in Germany, and the brand new report means that these foundations have been weak as a result of they rested largely on one particular person.
Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of German Jews, stated the report made it clear that Homolka couldn’t proceed in his earlier roles.
Homolka has rejected the allegations towards him all through, and his attorneys advised German information media Wednesday that they believed the whole investigation was politically motivated. They accused Schuster of eager to see Homolka exit Germany’s liberal Jewish management and stated the Central Council had failed to contemplate absolutely the assertion Homolka had given to investigators.
Rabbi Walter Homolka. at left, with different leaders of Germany Jewry together with Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, at far proper, at an occasion in October 2019. (Wolfgang Kumm/image alliance by way of Getty Photographs)
The report is the primary to emerge from a third-party investigation into the allegations towards Homolka. A separate investigation by the College of Potsdam, launched in late October, discovered that among the accusations concerning abuse of energy to be justified, however didn’t discover any criminally actionable habits and thus confirmed Homolka’s ongoing employment there as professor. It didn’t examine the sexual harassment accusations, as Homolka’s husband had left his job by then.
The brand new report did scrutinize these allegations. The investigators stated they discovered 13 particular incidents involving allegations towards Homolka’s husband. German libel legislation bars the publication of his identify. Utilizing what they known as a “site visitors gentle system,” the investigators categorized 9 of those incidents as “purple” circumstances, wherein 25 cases of misconduct could possibly be recognized. Two of those circumstances concerned the “preliminary suspicion of a prison offense,” they added.
Relating to allegations of abuse of energy towards Homolka himself, they discovered — after interviewing 73 people — a complete of 45 concrete incidents, 14 of which they categorized as “purple,” involving a complete of 23 cases of misconduct. An in depth account of these circumstances, together with responses that Homolka delivered earlier this week, shall be included within the last report in January, they stated.
Extra broadly, they stated, their interviews had illuminated a tradition of misconduct wherein unchecked, illegal or arbitrary selections could possibly be made largely due to a consolidation of energy underneath Homolka. He presided over an establishment dominated by a “tradition of concern,” the investigators discovered, leaving staff and college students alike much less prone to categorical criticism or considerations due to the opportunity of reprisals.
The investigators stated structural adjustments have been wanted if there was any hope of shifting the tradition. “So long as establishments are in personal fingers and even within the fingers of a person, or at any price throughout the important sphere of affect of the one that, within the opinion of the investigators, practices and exemplifies misconduct himself, it’s hardly conceivable that the causes of the deficits recognized might be remedied,” their report says.
Cohen advised JTA he desires to see “actual change within the management” of all liberal Jewish establishments in Germany, and “an exterior compliance system arrange.”
He stated, “I hope to see the establishments Homolka based take a lifetime of their very own, no strings hooked up.”
Anticipating the report, the Abraham Geiger Faculty had introduced its personal restructuring plans on Monday, a day after ordaining 4 new rabbis and two cantors at a ceremony in Berlin.
In a press release, interim director Gabriele Thöne stated a brand new basis would turn into the supplier of rabbinical coaching in Potsdam.
Gabriella Thoene, interim director of Abraham Geiger Faculty, in Berlin’s Rykestrasse Synagogue on the event of an ordination ceremony, Dec. 1, 2022. (Toby Axelrod)
Additional, Thöne stated the “door is open to Zacharias Frankel Faculty” — the Conservative motion seminary additionally underneath the umbrella of the Faculty of Jewish Theology on the College of Potsdam — “to affix the brand new basis on an equal foundation whereas on the identical time sustaining its independence.”
However in a scathing response issued Wednesday, the Conservative seminary stated the Geiger Faculty interim administration had not consulted them in regards to the restructuring.
“A partnership between equal events requires joint preparation, mutual belief, transparency and consensus. All this has been missing thus far, and continues to be missing,” the assertion stated.
Signed by Rabbi Bradley Artson, dean of Zacharias Frankel Faculty and the Ziegler Faculty of Rabbinic Research, the Conservative seminary in Los Angeles amongst others, the assertion additionally stated the preliminary report launched Wednesday “confirmed the asymmetrical constellations of energy within the two Potsdam rabbinical coaching faculties.”
Zacharias Frankel Faculty “was in a state of dependency on the need of 1 particular person from the time it was based in 2013. Our establishment was intentionally pushed into invisibility and excluded from communication with funders in Germany,” the assertion learn partly.
“From the outset, the venture of a Masorti rabbinical coaching in Potsdam was merely a makeshift technique of having the ability to discovered the Faculty of Jewish Theology [also in 2013] and provides it the looks of representing a number of denominations, and thus of being pluralistically positioned. As a substitute, nevertheless, the buildup of energy led to a monopolization of non-Orthodox Judaism in a single particular person” – specifically, Homolka.
For his or her half, the federal government and Jewish funding organizations stated of their assertion Wednesday that they have been “dedicated to making sure that there’ll proceed to be each liberal and conservative rabbinical coaching in Potsdam sooner or later,” however that the proposals developed thus far on the Abraham Geiger Faculty don’t meet the requirement of being “a transparent minimize from the earlier construction and a complete new starting.”
The discharge of the Central Council-commissioned report was preceded by a volley of statements by attorneys for each events.
On Monday, the council’s attorneys introduced that their preliminary report would come out in two days. On Tuesday, Homolka’s attorneys issued a press release criticizing the approaching “sudden” launch of the report’s abstract, suggesting it reeked of “prejudgment.”
The legislation agency representing Homolka — Behm Becker Geßner — famous that its shopper had obtained “an inventory of questions with severe accusations” from the council’s attorneys, and that he had responded in writing final Sunday. “Ought to the end result not have in mind the significant assertion of our shopper, there could be an enormous violation of persona rights,” warned the attorneys, who’ve efficiently battled some crucial press protection of Homolka.
The Central Council criticized what it known as Homolka’s delay ways, saying its attorneys had requested Homolka in early September if he would reply to questions however had not gotten any response to questions despatched Oct. 19 till late Sunday night time, nicely after a number of earlier deadlines. Nonetheless, the council confirmed, its investigators would take Homolka’s responses into consideration.
“This tactic is the principle cause why the legislation agency won’t be able to finish the ultimate and detailed report of the investigation by the tip of the yr,” the Central Council stated. “The braveness of the quite a few victims should not be sacrificed to Homolka’s delay ways.”
In the meantime, the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany is to satisfy subsequent week in Berlin, after a three-month postponement. Board elections shall be held for the place of chair, beforehand held by Homolka.
On Nov. 26, that group printed a report from an investigation that it had commissioned, which concluded that there was no proof of abuse of energy at Abraham Geiger Faculty.
German rabbis who’re a part of the Basic Rabbinical Convention, Germany’s liberal rabbinical affiliation, file into Berlin’s Rykestrasse Synagogue for an ordination ceremony, Dec. 1, 2022. (Toby Axelrod)
On Wednesday, a critic throughout the physique, the State Affiliation of Jewish Communities of Decrease Saxony, stated the Central Council’s commissioned report “helps us in our demand for the resignation of Walter Homolka from all his workplaces throughout the Jewish group, which we already made in Might.”
And there may be dissent throughout the Basic Rabbinical Convention, Germany’s liberal rabbinical affiliation, as nicely. A couple of dozen members issued a press release in November, breaking from the official, cautious tone, saying that “the abuse of energy confirmed towards Rabbi Prof. Dr. Homolka [in the university’s report of Oct. 26] is just not appropriate with the values of Jewish and common ethics.”
The affiliation, often known as ARK, issued a press release on the finish of November stating that, regardless of variations of opinion of their ranks, they be part of the decision for a structural and private new starting, as “an opportunity for the subsequent section of rabbinical coaching in Germany.”
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