In Western Europe, a Jewish Community is like an expensive members-only club

In the United States, when Jews say they identify as part of the Jewish community, they say they belong to a broad cultural and religious framework. They can refer to the Jewish community in their city, their state, the country in general or in the world and it does not mean that they belong to a synagogue.

In Western Europe, this is true in some situations. In others, however, saying one is part of a Community (capital C) carries different connotations. This is because Jewish communities and congregations are organized in a system that is radically different from that of the United States.

The European model is called Kultusgemeinde, German for the cultural community. Most major cities have organizations called communities, for example, the Jewish Community of Milan, the Jewish Community of Berlin, and so on. Membership usually includes genealogical verification and an annual fee determined by income level. (For example, belonging to the Amsterdam Jewish Community, a nonprofit dealing with Jewish Orthodox affairs, costs an average of over $ 600.)

Belonging to communities come with some tangible benefits, particularly free access to Jewish schools in most countries with significant Jewish populations. This usually costs American families tens of thousands of dollars.

But there are also examples of the model, including the culture of homogenization that leaves little room for religious innovation.

The American equivalent would belong to the Seattle Jewish Community, if it existed, rather than just a synagogue in the city of Washington.

The decentralized American model and its Western European antithesis have arisen from different historical circumstances and today have advantages and disadvantages that both shape and reflect some of the major differences in Jewish communal life in those parts of the world. Here it means what belongs to a European Jewish Community.

Origin

The Kultusgemeinde model was born in the 19th century in Central Europe because European governments wanted to oversee Jewish communities in an organized way, said Sergio Della Pergola, an expert on Jewish demography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

It ended up being, at times, a fairly effective tool for Jewish communities to pursue their interests through their elected leadership, he said.

According to Della Pergola, who was born in Trieste, Italy and grew up as a member of the Jewish Community of Milan, the Kultusgemeinde model has allowed Jews to lobby governments effectively on crucial issues for centuries. It has helped them come together to achieve successmeleesome attempts to restrict their religious freedoms; pool their municipal resources in order to hire rabbis and other municipal services; fundraising; caring for their poor; and make strong political alliances, said DellaPergolaand and other advocates of the European model.

Some of the largest today are in places with large Jewish populations, such as Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam.

Nuts and bolts

Many Kultusgemeinde communities receive funding from their state or city governments, which tends to distribute those payments according to membership size. Being a state-recognized religious charity means that a Community can receive tax-deductible donations. For example, in Hungary and Italy, taxpayers can choose a charity, to which the government will transfer 1 percent of the amount it collects as income tax each year.

To become a member of the Kultusgemeinde, applicants are verified for their Jews. For Orthodox communities, applicants must prove that their mothers are Jewish. In some cases, applicants also have to choose and commit to a synagogue in a given city under the jurisdiction of the Communities.

The Reform and Masort congresses also operate on the Kultusgemeinde model in Europe. They are less strict about admissions, but they also have a vetting process.

Once logged in, members have access to utilities and things like a razor or a wedding chuppah that cost members less. In addition to schools and synagogues, communities may include other organizations such as JCCs, libraries, restaurants, and even special media. In France, for example, the Consistoire, an organization set up in the 19th century by local Jews at the request of Napoleon Bonaparte, operates one of the youngest and glitziest community centers in the world, $ 17 millionEuropean Center of Judaism.

Acting outside the Kultusgemeinde model in relatively small Jewish communities means a major disadvantage in terms of funding and recognition, said Emile Schrijver, a professor of Jewish book history at the University of Amsterdam and director of cities.Jewish Cultural Quarter(a non-governmental organization that is not Kultusgemeinde, but serves as an umbrella structure for five Jewish museums and institutions).

The best

The centralized model of organization can reap great benefits.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, the bodies Kultusgemeinde Belgium CCOJB and the Central Jewish Organization of the Netherlands have served as legal entities that were necessary to combat the proposed national hive slaughter bans, which would have dealt a major blow to respectful communities. This war success in the Netherlands in 2012 and currently is being foughtfrom the Belgian Kultusgemeinde community.

In France, where Napoleon essentially forced Jews there to form the Konsusoire-si Kultusgemeinde, this structure is now distributing aid to help thousands of French Jews overcome the financial consequences of the coronavirus crisis.

The central design of the community means that there is a clear address, in the case of France, for financial matters, DellaPergola said, citing the Juif Unifi Social Fund, or United Social Fund, where Jews can get help.

The Kultusgemeinde model also means that Western European Jews have leading rabbis who act as a supreme religious authority and, sometimes, help Jews have a voice in social debates..In England, for example, current and former British rabbis (Ephraim Mirvis and Jonathan Sacks, respectively) have helped amplify the anti-Semitic claims surrounding the Labor Party in the national media, in part because of the authority that takes their title.

Then there is free tuition.

Many European governments, including France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Italy, have agreed to allow Jewish religious schools to function as public schools as long as they also teach the required minimum curriculum. This mixture of church and state has led to repetitionclashesbetween education officials and the Jewish faculty, who critics say do not teach subjects such as evolution and sex education.

Cons (and costs)

In normal times, being a member of a Kultusgemeinde community can add to the cost.

Even after you have paid several hundred dollars a year for membership, a deductible tax expense in most European countries, significant additional payments are required for rabbit services and other ceremonial services such as weddings and mitzvahs with grass and sticks.

(The situation is different in the revived Jewish communities of post-communist Eastern Europe, where membership fees are largely covered by foreign donations, government funds, and Holocaust return funds.)

The model has also made numerous communities against each other for government recognition and funding and led to decades of tensions between the crowd and foreigners. Her legal battles even began.

In Hungary, an apparent war between the two competing Kultusgemeinden federations has been going on for years. The pit of the Mazsihisz federation, which is mainly Neolog, a local designation similar to Masoreti or Conservative Judaism, against EMIH, the orthodox federation of affiliated Chabadi communities.

In Poland, a 2012 court ruling forced the Warsaw Jewish Orthodox Community to allow a non-Orthodox community called Ec Chaim. When the non-Orthodox congregation joined the Community, some local Reform Jews a minority within the Jewish population of most European countries downloadedEc Chaim as a shy group was only meant to give the illusion of inclusion while other non-Orthodox communities remained outside the umbrella.

We are prone to fighting, and when you create a policy and give it to the leader, they will become targets, increasing the impression of division, DellaPergolasaid.

The model also disincentives modernization efforts in many Western European communities, including the largest in France, home to some 500,000 Jews. On the other hand, it alienates young Jews, said Nigel Savage, who was born in Britain and is the CEO of Hazon, a New York City-based environmental organization.

Regardless of the costs, or this sense of conservatism, the numbers show that the model is becoming less popular. In the Netherlands, where there are 45,000 Jews, less than a quarter are members of the community, while before the Holocaust there were about 75% of Dutch Jews, said Ruben Vis, secretary general of the Orthodox Organization of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands, or NIK.

In the United Kingdom, home to 250,000 Jews, a reportby 2017 showed that only about 80,000 Jewish families, many of them elderly individuals, are registered members. This figure accounted for a 20% drop in membership from 1990.

American influence

DellaPergolastill favors the European model, in part because he believes the American alternative has been less successful in gathering Jews for common causes.

I think the effort to achieve union ends by increasing it, and this is preferable to the chaos that defines Jewish communal life in the United States, DellaPergolasaid.

That chaos, he hesitates, is even costing American Jews money.

In the American Jewish community there is a crazy repetition and overlap, which can lead to loss of money, said Savage, who has lived in New York for 20 years. At this point there are for example many synagogues and synagogue buildings.

But, he added, the adaptive freedom that Jewish communities have in the US has led to an explosion of creativity that is exported to the entire Jewish world.

Savage referred to the establishment in 2018 ofAziz, the first Jewish environmental farm in the UK, stylized after the successes of thisgrowing movement in the USEstablished in 2013 iathe modern Jewish communitycentral London was also inspired by New York institutions.

In a world with so many interest groups and clubs competing for people to engage with them, Kultusgemeinde needs to become a community of values ​​much like the American one, Vis said. I think this is where they headed, like this or not.