First Jewish ordination in Germany since Holocaust

A TRIO of students will be confirmed as rabbis today, the first such ordination in Germany since the Nazi regime began the slaughter of six million European Jews more than 60 years ago.

The first graduating class of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam is made up of just three men. But Dieter Graumann, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he hoped this number would rise exponentially.

“We need many, many more rabbis in Germany. We have a great hunger for rabbis,” he told a news conference introducing the rabbinical candidates who will be ordained at a ceremony at the New Synagogue in the eastern city of Dresden today.