The German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, inaugurated the headquarters of the military rabbinate of Germany in the center of Berlin.
Pistorius and Schuster participated together with several rabbis and soldiers of the Jewish faith in the symbolic writing of the last letters of a Torah scroll, which was then transported in a solemn procession to the headquarters of the military rabbinate.
"Jewish military spiritual care has a firm place among the troops," declared Pistorius, who noted that the vitality of this religious service is good for the Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) as a whole.
For his part, Schuster highlighted that with the inauguration the Jewish community has definitively taken possession of its place in the Bundeswehr.
"The anchoring of Judaism in the Bundeswehr is something that is taken for granted, but even what is taken for granted must be fought over and over again," he declared.
The ceremony concluded with a prayer by the senior military rabbi, Zsolt Balla.
Jewish military spiritual care was instituted in 2021 through an agreement between the Ministry of Defense and the Central Council of Jews in Germany and currently employs about 50 people, including a dozen rabbis.
The number of soldiers of the Jewish faith among the 180.000 soldiers of the Bundeswehr is unknown, which also has spiritual care services for Christians of Catholic or Protestant confession.
This Thursday, with the participation of the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a new synagogue was also inaugurated in Potsdam (east), the only capital of one of the 16 federal states that still lacked one. EFE and Aurora
It seems to me that there is more important news such as that Hamas is not willing to "dialogue" and the Israeli population does not understand that it is at war.
Congratulations to the Germans for taking this step for Jews in the military ranks