This Shabbat is Shushan Purim. It is the Yarhzeit of my father, Rabbi Dr. William Weinberg, who led the community of survivors after the Holocaust in DP Camps in Austria and then in the rebuilt Jewish community of Frankfurt, Germany, and the environs. The reading from the Prophets on this Shabbat is the direct theme of the speech that is referenced below.
In the years following the Holocaust, there has been a resurgence of Jewish life in Germany, all the while that German government was solicitous of the well-being of Jews
In the past decade,there have been ominous developments that undermine the security of the Jewish community. There is the rise of the far right Alternativ fuer Deutschland on the one hand, and the parallel rise of left anti-Semitism, some brought by the new Muslim immigrants,but some also shared with the supposedly enlightened left.
Hence, my father's farewell address of 74 years ago rings all too worrisome, followed by my trasnlation of the Bodemann essay and the original German text of the sermon.
**********
Farewell
sermon by Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg (1901-1976) in Frankfurt ‑
Am Main, on November 11, 1951
Translated
from the German transcript as printed in Menora: Jahrbuch fuer deutsch-juedische
Geschichte 1995(Menora: Yearbook for German-Jewish History 1995).
“Ich verlasse dieses Land” (I leave this country with bitterness, but the window can not be shut upon any nation.” Regarding the Farewell Address of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg, 1901-1976, in Frankfurt/Main, November 11, 1951
Transcription
and historical overview by the late Prof. Michael Bodemann
,
University of Toronto. Prof. Bodemann passed away this January (2025) and I
extend my condolences to his family. He helped me with research for my book,
Courage of the Spirit, and he, in turn, was able to utilize my research in some
of his writings. This is a link to his account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y._Michal_Bodemann
************
YHWH
hu haelohim. The Eternal is God.
We call out this word seven times with a loud
voice before the open Ark of the Covenant to God on the Day of Atonement, seven
times corresponding to the seven days of the week, the everyday life to which
we wish to return and which we want to fill with the spirit of this holy word.
This
word comes from a time that bears much resemblance to our own time.
In
the Book of Kings (1:18) we are told about that time in which Ahab was king over
Israel.
Up! Gather all Israel together on Mount
Carmel,
and all the priests of Baal and Ashtoreth... And Elijah came to the people and
said, “How long will you hop from branch to branch like a bird? If the Lord is
God, follow him; if Baal, follow him. And the people saw it, fell on their
faces, and cried, "The Lord is God, the Lord is God."
How long will you waver between God and idol,
hopping from branch to branch like a bird? Every generation is faced with the
question of whether it is ready. Even in our time, which is plagued by fear of
war and crisis, the question is whether we are ready to open the gates to God
again in order to begin a new life with him, or whether we, to use Spengler's
words, are heading towards destruction knowingly but powerlessly like
Cassandra, whether we want to take the
path of reflection on human solidarity, on the common foundations of our lives
for all people, in order to stop the destruction.
"If
the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do ?" (Ps 11)
Maintaining
the great tradition of the German Jewish communities is an illusionistic wish,
since all the prerequisites for this are lacking. Judaism here can no longer be
a truly full-flowing, spirit-penetrating and dominating living thing. We all
know that and must remain without illusions in this regard. Can one blame
someone who has a child for offering him a humane and Jewishly stable
atmosphere? Our work here is uncertain fumbling around in all areas, everything
is in suspense, unrest, and disagreement.
But
as Isaiah says (42:2-3): "A bruised reed he will not break,
and
he will not extinguish the dimly glowing wick."
It
is the task of the board to ensure that this smoldering wick does not go out,
and it will therefore have to make every effort to find a worthy, even more
honorable successor. I have spoken extensively about all this many times,
especially in my recent sermons.
In
the battle between truth and lies, between power and law, in the millennia-old
dispute over competence between the powers of freedom and unfreedom, there can
be no neutrality. Even in the years of the reign of terror, this country has
not lacked heroes and heroines of resistance against the evil spirit, who have
secured a place of honor in the history of humanity through their courage and
pure greatness of soul. To establish this is a joyful and honorable task,
especially for a Jew who has not lost the gift of differentiation.
At
the same time, however, it is our duty to say that even those of us who
believed or wanted to believe in a change of thinking among the German people
are gradually losing this belief. For even the politically blind are gradually
realizing that those figures who worked for the smooth implementation of the
Nazi order and the Nazi campaign of world conquest are once again haunting the
German lands, this time disguising their face on Mars with an expression of
wounded innocence but tomorrow showing their true face without a trace. We are
gripped by horror and dread when we think that the gruesome figures who are
complicit in the murder of our brothers and sisters and who were complicit in
the genocide of the Second World War, when we see the figures from the devil's
laboratory once again acting in public.
All
this weighs heavily on our minds. The wounds hurt too deeply, the stories from
recent days, when people confronted us as predatory and murderous beasts, are
too deeply etched in our retinas for us to be able to trivialize these events.
More
than Freud and the entire field of depth psychology, those terrible years have
shown us the underbelly of the human soul, of human-inhuman beings, of human-inhuman.
A
black curtain woven from blood, tears and deep sorrow separates us from all
such figures for all eternity. Who has the hubris to speak of Jewish
intolerance here? Are we speaking of Christian intolerance when the Church
excommunicates all those who were complicit in the tragedy of the Budapest
Cardinal Mindszenty ([Note: sentenced to
life imprisonment by the Communist regime, later released]? Are we speaking of
intolerance or vindictiveness when German courts harshly condemn those who
tortured their comrades? Or are there two standards for good and evil?
There
is only one measure, and, in this sense, the Holy Scripture calls us: "You
shall rebuke your neighbor and rebuke him in return, so that you do not become
an accomplice."
There
are circles that believe that the pillars of the National Socialist blood
regime can be used against communism. There were such "believers" in
the Weimar period. It proved to be a tragic illusion then and this time too it
cannot have a different ending.
"O
that they were wise, that they had understanding. They considered the
end," says the Holy Scripture.
You cannot drive out the devil with Beelzebub.
Our
world has sunk in blood and tears. Our ranks have thinned out and alas! They
will not reappear; the gaps will not be filled! Those we have seen fall under
the sickle of death, we will never see them again here on earth. And those who
were saved, those who survived, the so-called DPs? The book of Job tells us the
story of the suffering of a man whose world suddenly sinks into nothingness. As
is well known, this book ends with a happy ending. Job has children again, his
belongings and, in addition, a kind of compensation for his pain and suffering.
So far everything seems to be back in order. In the Talmud, however, one of our
wise men remarks about this strange happy ending: "Not even God could give
back to Job his suffering and the years he lost." Because an injustice
suffered cannot be made up for, or, in the language of our day, made good.
The
words "The Eternal is God; the Eternal is God" keep echoing in my
mind. And the question of the prophet Elijah, "How long will you hop from
one branch to another like a bird?" We believed that people would learn
lessons from this genocide and rediscover the right attitude and an
unchangeable standpoint in this ancient dispute over competence between spirit
and iron. Instead, people spoke of forgetting and recommended drawing a line
under the past . As if history were dissolving into partial stories.
It was neither Jews nor Christians who let
their souls drink from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; it was rather pagan
Greeks who had such ideas. Judaism and Christianity wanted to educate people to
intellectual and moral responsibility, to distinguish between good and evil and
to decide in favor of the good. The Western world has not forgotten the Huns,
nor Genghis Khan or the Janissaries. Nor will it ever forget the accursed Nazi
followers. "Forgetting, according to Schopenhauer, means throwing precious
experiences out the window."
Anyone
who is supported by the certainty of faith cannot speak of drawing a line under
the past. That would mean declaring everything to be null and void, regarding
everything that has happened as meaningless chaos, as a process from nothing to
nothing. The events in the world are too closely intertwined for one to be
able to clearly demarcate eras from one another by dividing lines, and they
have too much of an impact for one to be able to or should forget them.
Contrary to Jacob Burkhardt, spiritual and unspiritual developments do not
happen in leaps or spurts.
A bridge, a bridge between Jews and Germans, carefully built over
twelve hundred years, has been sacrilegiously destroyed by the devil's
generals. A few weeks ago, an emergency ladder was carefully rebuilt in Bonn.
An emergency ladder must be trod with great caution. "It is not fitting to
rejoice, there will be no triumph," as the poet says, all the less so as
dark figures who have turned the world into a hall, into a slaughterhouse, are
again waiting for the moment to tear down this emergency ladder built by
well-meaning Jews. Laws, constitutions, and declarations such as those issued
in Bonn on the German-Jewish question. Bans that have been imposed on us by the
government only offer a guarantee of security and order if they are an
expression of the views of a large, unshakable majority, otherwise they will
one day degenerate into a tragic farce. Only those who have lost touch with
reality can be surprised that most of our people, and especially those who
still have strength and initiative, have their bags packed.
Judaism,
my dear friends, was the first to establish the principle of a unified origin
of the human race; even today, despite all bitter disappointments, we still see
it as the goal of all history to restore this consciousness of unity; that is
part of our messianic ideal. Once, in the days of Canaan Ahab, a rift ran
through Israel between the followers of the god Baal and the Eternal. One man,
the prophet Elijah, had the courage to stand in this rift and to carry the
people along with him to the point that they cried out: The Eternal is our God.
His memory is blessed. May there be more and more German people here who have
the courage to stand in the rift that runs not only between Jews and Germans
but through the whole world and to build new bridges. It took four hundred
years after the Jews were expelled from Spain for some Polish Jews to
re-establish the first Jewish community during the First World War. No new
Jewish communities have been established here yet. We are dealing with the
remnants of old Jewish communities. Development is proceeding much more rapidly
today, both for better and for worse.
I
leave this country with bitterness, but we must not close our shutters on any
people. The future belongs to God, not man. May it not be too long before we
Jews can once again see in the Germans the bearers of a world culture, and in
the German language the language of Lessing, Kant, and Goethe.
Jacob
and Esau, the two enemy brothers [122], meet again one day. The meeting is
stormy and timid at the same time. They then part and promise to see each other
again. The Bible has nothing to say about such a new meeting. But it will
happen in the latter days (Isaiah 2:2-5) that the divine order will be restored,
and God will raise up the offspring of David, his servant, from whom we hope
for salvation. This faith and its partial fulfillment through the
re-establishment of the State of Israel give us the strength to persevere in
the present and to move forward into the future with faith and hope.
Bless
our brothers and sisters who leave this country, bless our brothers and
sisters, no matter for what reason they stay here.
Bless
Israel People and State
Bless
this community with your peace, holy peace of God, that here discord and strife
may never separate and alienate the spirits!
Bless
us who stand here gathered before your face, all who have come to take part in
our celebration!
Bless
the representatives of our community, give them strength and love to strive and
care for the overall well-being of this community.
Bless
the authorities of this land—where unspeakable suffering has befallen us—give
them strength and insight to restore law and justice. May love and reverence
reign here, so that all unite for you and the glory of your name.
Bless
all the people in this land who are of goodwill, pure hearts, and pure hands.
Peace
and joy everywhere; peace and joy for the people and state of Israel.
13
Yevarecha
YHWH veyischmerecha Yaer YHWH Panay elecha viychunecha Yisa JHWH panav elecha
veyasem lecha shalom Shalom, shalom larachok velakarov
Peace,
peace to those near and far.
***************
Translation of the Bodemann Essay:
Bodemann on Rabbi Weinberg
“I leave this land with bitterness, but the window is never
sealed shut on any peoples.”
From the farewell address of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg
(1901-1976) in Frankfurt/Main, on 11 November 1951 by Prof. Y Michel
Bodemann, University of Toronto.
Zur
Abschiedspredigt von Rabbiner Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg Weinberg (1901-1976) in
Frankfurt/Main, am 11 November 1951 by
Prof. Y Michel Bodemann, University of Toronto.
Publication: Menora,
Jahrbuch fuer deursch-juedische Geschichte 1995 (Menorah, Annual Journal of
German-Jewish History) in conjunction with the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish
Studies.
Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg, student of Leo Baeck at Hochschule
fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, served in Frankfurt am Main from
July 1948 as State and Community Rabbi, and immigrated to the USA in November
1951. After some years as Rabbi of a small German-Jewish community in New York,
beginning in 1957 served various synagogues: first in Ohio, then in Washington,
D.C., later in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and finally, until his death in
1975, in New Jersey
Important developments in the
Frankfurt community occurred during his time in Frankfurt: the merger of the
remainder of the "German" community with the "foreign" Jews,
until recently, Displaced Persons, in the Jewish Committee, the former DPs; the
unification of the two was one of the conditions Veinberg had set for coming to
Frankfurt[i]•
Weinberg's time also saw the rebuilding of the Westend Synagogue on
Frhr.-von-Stein-Strasse, the Degesch trial, and a spectacular debate about
anti-Semitism in the case of the physician Dr. Lewin in Offenbach, in which he
actively intervened [ii]• Weinberg
thus belongs to those in the leadership of German post-war Jewry, such as
Norbert Vollheim (Lübeck) or Hans-Erich Fabian (Berlin), who did important
development work in the re-establishment of the communities, but viewed them—in
his case initially ambivalently—as a temporary measure and therefore, after the
founding of the Federal Republic between 1949 and 1951, finally turned their
backs on Germany. Weinberg's decision to leave was, of course, not predetermined,
and only was arrived at during the
Frankfurt years. He shares the role of mediator with Vollheim in Lübeck, Warscher
in Stuttgart, Auerbach in Munich, and several others. As one born in 1901 in
Dolina in Eastern Galicia and lived, from 1914 in Vienna, he stood between
Eastern Jewish and German-Jewish cultures and saw it as his important task to
mediate and integrate both—an extremely challenging task, even in Frankfurt. [iii]
He had already found himself in this role in the pre-war period, when his fellow
students at the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin
elected him as their spokesperson because he could mediate between the two
cultures.
This last sermon is of
particular interest because it reflects something of the disposition of Jewish
community leadership, clearly outlines the facets of Jewish existence in the
postwar period, and points to the dire dilemma of whether to leave or stay. He
himself, tormented by Nazi death threats by mail and telephone, and out of his
deep disappointment with the re-Nazification of the Federal Republic in the
postwar period, ultimately left Germany with his family, like most others who
still had “strength and initiative," keeping their” suitcases packed.” As
far as the future of the community was concerned, his view seems contradictory:
he developed no idea of the
end of this area, and the "smoldering wick" of a weak Frankfurt
"remaining community" should apparently not be extinguished despite
the bad past and the hostile environment.
In contrast to others in the
postwar leadership, Weinberg rejected the concept of “liquidation communities”
at this time, despite his personal decision to leave, the significance of which
is overstated in the usual accounts anyway.[iv]
This reveals the complexity and inconsistency of the self-image of the Jewish
leadership and the (German-) Jewish community in the postwar period. The Jews
of the postwar period were faced with the choice of turning their backs not
only on a largely hostile and Nazi environment, but also on the culture in
which they were deeply rooted and the language of "Lessing, Kant, and
Goethe." Moreover, in the wake of the dual development of the "Christian-Jewish
dialogue" of the Protestant Church and the activation of the Jewish topos
in German domestic and Foreign Policy [v],
the spokesmen of postwar Jewry, especially the editor of the Allgemeine Wochenzeitung
der Juden in Deutschland, Karl Marx, increasingly attempted to play an interesting and important role in German
public life. They therefore faced the difficult choice of furthering often
financially promising careers—with the risk of opportunistically playing into the
hands of German politics—or leading a fuller Jewish life in relative obscurity
abroad. The warning against opportunistic pandering is also evident in Weinberg's
writings and in the sermon with the phrase "all too rapid
development."
Weinberg, who left Germany in "bitterness," must
have had hopes and expectations that were dashed. Weinberg suggests that he had
believed in a "change of mind" among the German people and thus could
not have broken with Germany at that time like other Jewish contemporaries. His
bitterness had several sources. The suffering and humiliation in the Shoah were
also dominant for him; Weinberg himself had prison and concentration camp
experience and a life of migration in various parts of the Soviet Union behind him.
The experience of the Shoah and the attempt to heal a deeply wounded Jewish
identity were at the center of his thinking in this postwar period. As early as
1954(typo 1945?), he promulgated the
Borokhovian( Marxist Zionist) construction, influenced in his case by Meir
Yaari and the Viennese Hashomer Hatzair, of a radically new Jewish identity, free
of the “shtetl” culture and free of the anti-Semitic European world, which purpose would be fulfilled in Eretz Israel. This plays a
particularly significant role in his publications after 1945 and in his
activities at the adult education center in the DP camp in Hallein (Austria),
which he directed until 1948.[vi]
At least as important for the decision to emigrate, however,
was the experience of the post-war period: the outspoken hatred of Jews in
Austria after 1945, also —for him, particularly bitterly—that he encountered in
the labor movement, and later, incomprehensibly, in the young Federal Republic
of Germany. He received letters from a non-Jew, as in the following one, in his
daily correspondence—with the experience of the Jews in the background—and he could
hardly believe in a tolerable existence in Germany:
Dear Chief Rabbi!
At the request of my mother-in-law,
Mrs. J []. E []., née H []. You were kind enough to have me as a witness
without being asked. I would like to briefly inform you of the following in
this regard. I have been visiting my mother-in-law since 1924, and I know well what
religion my mother-in-law was. If I had forgotten in the meantime, the Gestapo
in Frankfurt am Main, Lindenstrasse, reminded me very emphatically in 1943/44.
If various Christians had not taken her under their wing at that time and If they
had not brought her to safety, you would have one more victim to mourn today. [vii]
In addition to this open hostility among the
population—including, as here, relatives of Jews—Weinberg was also regularly
reminded by the desecration of cemeteries, the major anti-Semitic scandals,
such as that involving Offenbach gynecologist Herbert Lewin, and the whitewashing
of war criminals by German courts, e.g., in the Degesch trial, that not much
had changed in the consciousness of his German environment after 1945. This
sermon, as well as many of his other statements, speak very clearly of this bitterness.
However, there were also important reasons for the possible
decision to emigrate: in addition to the difficult pastoral tasks, there was
also the fact that Rabbis like Weinberg, who could mediate between German Jews
and Eastern Jews due to their biographies, were urgently needed in communities
that were not without serious internal conflicts and identity problems. This
involved nothing less than the construction of a new Jewish identity for the
Jews living in post-war Germany. In many cases, with which Weinberg was also
involved, decisions had to be made regarding the conversion or readmission into
the communities of Jews baptized during the Nazi era.[viii]
In contrast to others who viewed this structure as strictly temporary, Weinberg
viewed the community in Frankfurt as a "smoldering wick," albeit a
long-term project. He therefore belongs to the ranks of the martyr-founders
who, despite their own experiences in the Shoah and the anti-Jewish climate of
the post-war period, sought to conceive a new Jewish life in Germany.
This new ethnic conception of Judaism includes, above all,
the break with the universalizing traditions of liberal German Judaism in
worship, shaped by the Enlightenment. This break is also known from other
congregations from this period, such as Berlin. Here it is expressed in the
architectural changes in the interior of the Westend Synagogue, which returned
to tradition, compared to the pre-war period, in the attempt to fully integrate
Eastern Jews into the community, and finally, a strong orientation toward
Israel. Social theorist Chantal Kouffe recently argued [ix]
that the new social movements entail a new form of politics in which modernity itself seems to be questioned; today, rights
are no longer articulated on the basis of universalist but rather
particularistic criteria: "The new rights demanded today are the
expression of differences whose significance is only now being emphasized, and
they are no longer rights that can be universalized (1988:36)." However, this swing of the pendulum did not
begin with the new social movements. It is my thesis that the first reversal, the first
impetus for this turning away from universalism and the defeat of the
Enlightenment, was represented precisely by postwar German Jewry: for here,
individual special rights for a group in society were explicitly demanded,
along with the turning away from assimilationist universalism—even before the time when, on a universal and assimilationist basis, the Civil Rights movement had begun in
the USA. Weinberg, too, sits between two chairs: On the one hand, he emphasizes
the unity of all humanity, and on the other, he sees its deep rifts.
This new particularism was
further accentuated by the fact that these Jewish spokespeople were urged to
participate in the "Christian-Jewish dialogue, outside of the Jewish
realm. Above all, however, German politicians and other public figures sought
to establish closer contact with Jewish leading figures, both for the hoped-for
"clean bills of health"[x]
and for the purpose of legitimizing themselves, especially outside of Germany,
through proximity to Jews. Weinberg recognized an irreversible, deep, and
hostile rift between Jews and Germans: the feuding brothers Jacob and Esau,
whose reunion in the
'
Bible had “nothing new to report." On the other hand,
however, he also saw a positive development in the Bonn Republic, which, while
it could not replace the thousand-year-old bridge between Jews and Germans,
nevertheless cautiously aroused hopes as an "emergency step"
constituted by "security and order."
Apart from these public and principled reasons, this sermon
and previous statements speak almost apologetically of private reasons, which
undoubtedly also played a predominant role for other postwar immigrants of the
time: Weinberg was ultimately unwilling to let his child grow up in a tense and
impoverished Jewish environment, in a "land soaked with Jewish blood"[xi]—a
fact that even today is partly responsible for the fact that rabbis can hardly
be persuaded to work in Germany. The significant role of women, who played a
decisive role in bringing about their families' emigration, remains
unchallenged. A topic that has so far been little researched is how differently
Jewish women and men assessed postwar Germany. What is particularly striking
here is how many politically active, single women have left Germany never to
return.[xii]
Veinberg's emigration, like the
emigration of other important spokesmen of postwar Jewry without a coalition,
took away this pioneering, especially religious, influence of Judaism and may
have further weakened it, but this weakening was undoubtedly structurally
caused by the climate of another Cold War in postwar Germany, which no
postulated or actually existing philosemitism can conceal: a Cold War against
the surviving Jews.
[i] The merger of the two Jewish groups was
achieved through the initiative of Moses Goldberg, on the part of the Zeilsheim
Jewish Committee and Rabbi Dr. Leopold Neuhaus, on behalf on the community. I
thank Rabbi Norbert Weinberg for the preparation of this article and other
information from the congregation and for his friendly help in preparing this
article. The farewell sermon and other sources referenced are from the private collection
of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg. For an overview of Frankfurt's post-war Jewish
history, see Paul Arnsberg, 1974, Nine Hundred Years of the” Mother Community
in Israel: Frankfurt am Main, 1074-1974. Chronicle of the Rabbis. Frankfurt/M,
Josef Knecht.
[ii] See
the debate in the Neuen Deutsche Heften of 1950
[iii] See the letter from Max Meyer to Weinberg in
Hallein dated 27 January 1948, after negotiations between Weinberg and the
Frankfurt community had begun: "It is in the interest of the Frankfurt
community that you soon take over, because the situation here is
developing so unfavorably that a separation of the worship service seems
inevitable, even if we, the committee, are striving to work together for peace
and possibly even for other reasons, are taking its members into the community.
[iv] For
example, in Wolfgang Benz, 1991, "Jewish Life in Germany after
Auschwitz," in Between Hitler and Adenauer: Frankfurt, Fischer, p. 71.
Studies on German Postwar Society There was never a consensus that these
communities had only a transitional function. It was more of a rhetorical
fiction of some international Jewish, primarily Zionist, organizations. In
Frankfurt, too, in September 1950, representatives of the KKL, (JNF)certainly
tongue in cheek, spoke of "probably the last performance of the Jews in Frankfurt."
[v] See
my essays in Micha Brumlik et al., (eds.), Jewish Life in Germany since 1945,
Jewish Publishers Athenäum, p. 49-69, and "State and Minority:
Antisemitism and the Social Role of Jews in the Postwar Period," in Werner
Bergmann and Rainer Erb, (eds.), Antisemitism in Political Culture after 1945,
Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag 1990, pp. 320-331
.
[vi] For
example, in his essay "The State of Israel: Yesterday, Today,
Tomorrow," published in March1949, where he quotes a phrase of Herzl, in
Der Judenstaat, “Race of wonderful Jews"
[vii] Weinberg Nachlass, s. 130
[viii][viii] See also the similar approach in Pnina
Nave Levinson, "Religiose Richtungen und Entwicklungen in den
Gemeinden", in Brumlik et al., op. cit., s. 149
Ix Chantal Kouffe, "Hegemony and New Political
Subjects: Toward a New Concept of Democracy," in Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture. Urbana, University of Chicago Press, (ed.), 89-104,
and "Radical Democracy: of Modern or Postmodernism," in Minneapolis,
Andrew Ross University of Universal Minnesota Press, 31-45. [10]
X Weinberg, like numerous others in postwar Jewish
leadership forums, warned emphatically, against the opportunism of these with old
Nazis, a clear indication that this happened all too often.
[xi] Auskunft Rabbiner Norbert Weinberg,
Brief vom 27 April 1992.
[xii] For example, the Zionist activist Shoshana
Rosenberg-Elbogen, who later left Germany, wrote to Weinberg in November 1949,
"You see, I have become a real Berliner again, but only in the language; otherwise,
I feel like a stranger in a foreign land."
Original Text of the Sermon as reproduced in Bodemann Essay
Abschiedspredigt
von Rabbiner Wilhelm Weinberg (1901-1976) in Frank‑
furt/Main, am 11. November 1951
JHWH hu haelohim. Der Ewige ist Gott. Dieses Wort rufen
wir [sieben] Mal mit lauter Stimme vor der offenen Bundeslade an Gott am
Versohnungstage. Sieben Mal entsprechend den sieben Tagen der Woche, des
Alltags, in den wir zurtickkehren und den wir mit dem Geist dieses heiligen
Wortes erfUllen wollen. Dieser Grub stammt aus einer Zeit die viel Ahnlichkeit
mit der unseren hat.
Im Buch der Konige (1,18) wird uns qber jene Zeit
berichtet in der
Ahab Konig war. Ober Israel. Auf!
sammie ganz Israel auf den Berg Karmel
und alle Priester des Baal und der Astarte... Und Elia trat zum Volke und
sprach: wie lange noch wollt Ihr wie ein Vogel hupfen von einem Zweig zum andere? Ist der Ewige Gott, so folget ihm nach, ist es
Baal, so folget ihm. Und das Volk sah es und fielen auf
ihr Antlitz und sie riefen: "Der Ewige ist der Gott, der Ewige ist der
Gott." wie lange noch werdet ihr schwanken [zwischen] Gott und dem Gotzen,
wie einem Vogel gleich hupfen von einem Zweige zum anderen? Jede Generation
wird vor die Frage gestellt, ob sie bereit ist. Auch an unsere von Kriegs- und
Krisenfurcht gegualte Zeit ergeht die Frage ob wir bereit sind, Gott wieder die
Tore zu Offnen, um mit ihm ein neues Leben zu beginnen, oder ob wir, um mit
Spengler zu reden, wie einst Kassandra wissend, aber ohnmachtig dem Untergang
entgegengehen oder ob wir den Weg der Besinnung auf die menschliche
Solidaritat, auf die alien Menschen gemeinsamen Grundlagen unseres Lebens
beschreiten wollen, um den Untergang aufzuhalten. [missing: top lines on p. 113
...Aufgabe]
"Wenn die Grundfesten zerstort sind, was kann der Gerechte ausrichten?"
(Ps 11) Die grof3e Tradition der deutschen Judengemeinden aufrechtzuerhalten,
ist ein illusionistischer Wunsch, da dazu alle Vorraussetzugnen fehlen. Das
Judentum hier kann kein wahrhaft vollguellendes, die Geister durchdringendes
und beherrschendes Lebendiges mehr sein, das wissen wir alle und milssen in
dieser Hinsicht illusionslos bleiben. Kann man es dem, der ein Kind hat,
verargen, wenn er ihm eine menschlich und judisch gefestigte Atmosphere bieten
machte? Unsere Arbeit hier 1st ein unsicheres
8
Umhertasten
auf alien Gebieten, es ist alles in suspenso, Unruhe und Meinungsverschiedenheit.
Doch wie
sagt Jesaja (42,2-3): "Ein geknicktes Rohr bricht er nicht
und den schwach glimmenden Docht loscht er
nicht." Diesen glimmenden
Docht nicht verlaschen zu lassen ist Aufgabe des Vorstandes und er wird daher
alle Anstrengungen machen mussen, einen wUrdigen, ja wardigeren Nachfolger zu
finden. Ober all das babe ich des Ofteren ausfuhrlich gesprochen, besonders in
meinen letzten Predigten.
Im Kampfe zwischen Wahrheit und LUge, zwischen
Macht und Recht, im jahrtausendealten Kompetenzstreit zwischen den Machten der
Freiheit und Unfreiheit kann es keine Neutralitdt geben. Es hat in diesem Lande
auch in den Jahren der Schreckensherrschaft nicht an Helden und Heldinnen des
Widerstands gegen den Ungeist gefehlt, die durch ihren Mut und ihre reine
SeelengrOe einen Ehrenplatz in der Geschichte der Menschheit sich gesichert
haben. Das festzustellen ist gerade einem Jduen, der die Gabe der
Differenzierung nicht verloren hat, eine freudige und ehrenvolle. Aufgabe.
Zugleich aber ist es Pflicht auszusprechen, daf3
selbst jene unter uns, die an eine Denkwende des deutschen Volkes geglaubt
haben oder glauben wollten, Allmdhlich diesen Glauben verlieren. Denn auch die
politisch Blinden merken es allmdhlich, dal durch die deutschen Lande wieder
jene Gestalten geistern, die fur die reibungslose Durchsetzung der braunen
Ordnung und des nazistischen Welteroberungszuges gearbeitet habpn, diesmal noch
das Marsgesicht durch die Miene der gekrAnkten Unschuld tarnend, morgen jedoch
schon ihr wahres Gesicht unverhallt zeigend. Wir sind von Grauen und Entsetzen
ergriffen, wenn wir daran denken, dal3 die schaurigen Gestalten, die Mitschuld
an der Ermordung unserer Brilder und Schwestern tragen und das Volkermorden des
zweiten Weltkrieges mitverschuldet haben, wenn wir die Figuren aus dem
Laboratorium des Teufels wieder in der Offentlichkeit agieren sehen.
Das alles liegt uns schwer auf der Seele. Zu tief
schmerzen die Wunden, zu sehr haften auf unserer Netzhaut die Geschichten aus
den jUngstvergangenen Tagen, da Menschen uns als raub- und mordlusterne Bestien
entgegengetreten sind, als dai3 wir diese Vorgdnge bagatelliseren kOnnten.
Mehr als Freud und die gesamte
Tiefenpsychologie haben uns jene Schreckensjahre die Untergriinde des
menschlichen Seelenlebens aufgezeigt, menschlichunmenschlichen Wesens,
menschlich-unmenschlicher [page 115 breaks off]
Uns trennt fur alle
Ewigkeit ein schwarzer Vorhang gewebt aus Blut, Tranen und tiefer Trauer von
alien solchen Figuren. Wer hat die Hybris hier von j[Udischer] Intoleranz zu
sprechen! Spricht man etwa von christlicher Intoleranz, wenn die Kirche alle
jene exkommuniziert, die sich mitschuldig gemacht haben an der Tragiidie des
Budapester Kardinals Mindszenty! Spricht man etwa von Intoleranz oder
Rachsucht, wenn deutsche Gerichte Kameradenschinder hart verurteilen? Oder gibt
es zweierlei MaR fur Gut und Bose?
Es gibt nur ein Mass und in diesem Sinne ruft uns die
heilige Schrift zu: "Du sollst deinen Nachsten tadeln und wieder tadeln
auf dass du nicht mitschuldig werdest." Es gibt Kreise, die meinen, dass
man die StUtzen des nationalsozialistischen Blutregimes gut gegen den
Kommunismus verwenden konne. Solche "Glaubige" hat es schon in der
Weimarer Zeit gegeben. Es hat sich damals als eine tragische Illusion erwiesen
und kann auch diesmal kein anderes Ende haben. "0 dass sie weise waren,
Einsicht batten. Sie bedachten das Ende," sagt die Heilige Schrift. Man
kann nicht den Teufel mit Beelzebub austreiben.
Uns ist eine Welt in Blut und Trdnen versunken. Unsere Reihen haben sich
gelichtet und ach! sie Mien sich nicht wieder, die Lucken werden nicht besetzt!
Die wir unter der Sichel des Todes haben hinfallen gesehen, wir werden sie hier
auf Erden nie wiedersehen. Und die Geretteten, die am Leben gebliebenen, die
sogenannten D.P.s? Das Buch Hiob erzahlt uns die Leidensgeschichte eines
Menschen, dem plOtzlich seine Welt in ein Nichts versinkt. Dieses Buch
schliel3t bekanntlich mit einem happy end. Hiob bekommt wieder Kinder, sein Hab
und Gut und noch daruber hinaus eine Art Schmerzensgeld. Soweit scheint alles
wieder in Ordnung zu sein. Im Talmud bemerkt jedoch einer unserer Weisen zu
diesem merkwurdigen happy end: "Seine Leiden und die verlorenen Jahre konnte
auch Gott dem Hiob nicht zuruckgeben." Denn ein erlittenes Unrecht kann
nicht wettgemacht, oder in der Sprache unserer Tage zu reden, wiedergutgemacht
werden.
In mir hallen immer wieder die
Worte, "Der Ewige ist Gott, der Ewige ist Gott." Und die Frage des
Propheten Elias, "Wie lange noch wollt ihr wie ein Vogel von einem Zweig
zum anderen hupfen?" Wir glaubten, dass die Menschen aus diesem
Volkermorden Lehren ziehen werden und in diesem uralten Kompetenzstreit
zwischen Geist und Eisen die rechte Haltung und einen unveranderbaren
Standpunkt wiederfinden werden. Statt dessen spricht man hies von Vergessen und
empfiehlt einen Trennungsstrich unter die Vergangenheit zu setzen. Als ob die
Geschichte sich in Teilgeschichten auflOsen liel3e. Es waren weder Juden noch
Christen, die ihre Seelen aus dem Lethe, dem FluI des Vergessens trinken
liePen, es waren vielmehr heidnische Griechen,'die solche Vorstellungen hatten.
Judentum und [118] Christentum wollte die Menschen zu intellektueller und
moralischer Verantwortung, zur Scheidung zwischen Gut und Bose und zur
Entscheidung fUr das Gute erziehen. Die abendlandische Welt hat die Hunnen
nicht vergessen, auch nicht den Dschingis-Khan oder die Janitscharen. Sie wird
auch die fluchbeladene Nazigefolgschaft nie vergessen. "Vergessen heisst
nach Schopenhauer gemachte kostbare Erfahrungen zum Fenster
hinauszuwerfen."
Wer von Glaubensgewissheit getragen ist, kann nicht von einem Strich unter
die Vergangenheit sprechen. Das hie0e alles fur nichtig erklAren, alles
Geschehen als ein sinnfremdes Chaos, als ein Verlaufen aus Nichts in ein Nichts
betrachten. Zu sehr greifen die Ereignisse in der Welt ineinander als dass man
Zeitalter durch Trennungsstriche voneinander klar abgrenzen konnte und zu sehr
wirken sie nach als dass man sie vergessen kOnnte oder dftfte. Geistige und
auch ungeistige Entwicklungen geschehen, entgegen Jacob Burkhardt, weder
sprung- noch stossweise.
Eine BrUcke, eine in zwolfhundert Jahren mghsam erbeute Briicke zwischen
Juden und Deutschen ist von den Generalen des Teufels frevelhaft zerstort
worden. Ein Notstieg ist in Bonn vor wenigen Wochen wieder mghsam errichtet
worden. Ein Notstieg mu0 mit groOer Vorsicht beschritten werden. "Zu
jubeln ziemt nicht, kein Triumph wird sein." wie der Dichter sagt um so
weniger als dunkle Gestalten, die die Welt in eine Halle, in ein Schlachthaus
verwandelten, wieder auf den Moment lauern, um auch diesen von Gutwilligen
Hamden errichteten Notstieg einzureiPen. Gesetze, Verfassungen und Erklarungen
wie sie in Bonn zur deutsch-jUdischen Frage abgegeben
worden sind', bieten nur Bann eine Gewahr fUr Sicherheit
und Ordnung, wenn sie Ausdruck der Gesinnung einer gro3en, unverruckbaren
Mehrheit sind, sonst sinken sie eines Tages zur tragischen Farce herab.[120]
Nur wer die FUhlung mit der Wirklichkeit verliert, kann sich daraer verwundern,
daJ die meisten unserer Menschen und vor allem jene, die noch Kraft und
Initiative haben, auf gepackten Koffern sitzen.
Das Judentum, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, hat als erstes den Grundsatz
eines einheitlichen Ursprungs des Menschengeschlechts aufgestellt; wir sehen
es auch heute noch trotz aller bitteren Enttauschungen als das Ziel aller
Geschichte, dieses Einheitsbewusstsein wiederherzustellen, das ist ein Teil
unseres messianischen Ideals. Einst in den Tagen des Kangs Ahab ging ein Riss
durch Israel, zwischen den Anhangern des Gatzen Baal und des Ewigen. Ein Mann,
der Prophet Elias, hatte den Mut, sich in diesen Riss zu stellen und das Volk
soweit mitzureissen, dass es ausrief: der Ewige ist unser Gott. Sein Andenken
wurde gesegnet. Mogen sich auch hier immer zahlreicher deutsche Menschen
finden, die den Mut haben, sich in den Rif, der nicht nur zwischen Juden und
Deutschen,[121] sondern durch die ganze Welt geht, zu stellen und neue Briicken
zu bauen. Es hat vierhundert Jahre seit der Vertreibung der Juden aus Spanien
gedauert bis einige polnische Juden im ersten Weltkriege die erste jgdische
Gemeinde wiedererrichtet haben. Hier sind noch keine neuen judischen Gemeinden
errichtet worden. Wir haben es hier mit Resten alter judischer Gemeinden zu
tun, Die Entwicklung geht heute, im guten und schlechten Sinne, viel rascher
vor sich.
Ich verlasse dieses Land mit Verbitterung, doch vor
keinem Volke darf man die Fensterladen zuschlagen. Die Zukunft ist Gottes und
nicht des Menschen. Moge es nicht allzulange dauern, ehe wir Juden in den
Deutschen wieder die Trager einer Weltkultur sehen kannen und in der deutschen
Sprache die Sprache eines Lessing, Kant und Goethe.
7 Weinberg bezieht sich hier
offensichtlich auf die Regierungserklarung von 27 September 1951, in der sich
Konrad Adenauer, o.bgleich sehr verhalten, zur Schuld
an den nazistischen Verbrechen gegen Juden bekannte. Diese erst nach einigem
Zogern abgegebene Erkldrung wurde von Ben Gurion verlangt um die Haager
Verhandlungen mit Israel beginnen zu konnen.
Jakob und Esau, die beiden feindlichen Brilder [122] finden sich eines
Tages wieder. Die Begegnung ist stgrmisch und zaghaft zugleich. Sie gehen dann
auseinander und versprechen sich wiederzusehen. Die Bibel wei0 von einer
soichen Neubegegnung nichts zu berichten. Doch geschehen wirds in der Spate der
Tage (Jeschajahu II 2-5), daP die Ottliche Ordnung wiedererstehen wird und
Gott den Spross Davids, seines Knechtes erstehen lassen wird, von dem wir das
Heil erhoffen. Dieser,Glaube und seine Teilerfallung durch die Wiedererrichtung
des Staates Israel geben uns die Kraft zum Ausharren in der Gegenwart und zum
glaubig-hoffenden Weiterschreiten in die Zukunft.
[122a]
1.
Segne unsere Bruder und Schwestern,
die aus diesem Lande gehen, segne unsere Brilder und Schwestern, gleich aus
welchem Grunde sie hier bleiben
2.
Segne Israel Volk und Staat
3.Segne diese Gemeinde mit Deinem
Frieden, heiligem Gottesfrieden, daP hier nie Zwiespalt und Hader die Gemilter
trenne und entfremde!
4.Segne uns die wir hier stehen versammelt vor Deinem
Angesichte, alle die da herbeigekommen sind, um teilzunehmen an unserer Feier!
5.
Segne die Vertreter unserer Gemeinde,
gib ihnen Kraft und Liebe, fur das Gesamtwohl dieser Gemeinde zu streben und zu
sorgen.
6.
Segne die Behorden dieses Landes--in
dem unsagliches Leid ilber uns gekommen ist,--gib Ihnen Kraft und Einsicht,
Recht und Gerechtigkeit wiederherzustellen. Lai Liebe und Ehrfurcht hier
walten, daP sich alle fur dich und deines Namens Ehre vereinigen.
7.
Segne alle Menschen in diesem Lande, die guten Willens,
reiner Herzen und reiner Hande sind.
8.
Friede und Freude aller Orten;
Friede und Freude ilber Israel Volk und Staat.
13
Yevarecha
JHWH veyischmerecha Yaer JHWH Panay elecha viychunecha Yisa JHWH panav elecha
veyasem lecha schalom Schalom, schalom larachok velakarov
Friede, Friede dem Nahen and
Fernen.
***************
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