German army appoints its first rabbi since Nazis
THE GERMAN Federal Defence Forces has appointed its first federal military rabbi, as part of reforms that have seen Jewish religious leaders reintroduced in the German armed forces for the first time since the Nazis’ rise to power.
“German society and the Jewish community in Germany have come a long way in order to reach this historic moment”, Rabbi Zsolt Balla said as he was sworn in on Monday in a ceremony at the Brodyer Synagogue in Leipzig, a community Mr Balla has led since 2010.
Mr Balla will be tasked with providing pastoral care to the German military’s 300 Jewish soldiers.
He takes up his post as Germany’s defence establishment is dealing with its elite special force’s infiltration by rightwing extremists believed to have been plotting to assassinate public figures on the German left.
In July 2020, German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer disbanded one unit of the Special Forces Command (KSK) as it had become so infested with right-wing extremism that it was beyond reform.
Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer has said that, with Mr Balla’s appointment, the German military was “setting a clear example for a diverse and open military” and helping “to counter the growing antisemitism, right-wing extremism and populism in our society”.
“Through us military rabbis, soldiers will finally have the chance to come faceto-face with living Jews who, as a matter of fact, have been fighting at their side”, Mr Balla told the Jüdische Allgemeine when asked about the military’s extremism problem.
Born in Hungary in 1979, father-ofthree Mr Balla, 42, is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, the son of a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father. In Budapest, he studied engineering and moved to Germany in 2002.
In Berlin, he undertook his rabbinical studies, becoming ordained in 2009. The following year, he took over religious duties in the Orthodox Jewish community in Leipzig. In 2019, he became the chief rabbi of the state of Saxony.
Mr Balla will lead a chaplaincy of 10 military rabbis from Germany’s Orthodox and liberal streams. Not all those rabbis have yet been appointed, though in 2020, the defence ministry began to build the infrastructure that would see the chaplaincy headquartered in Berlin with regional offices around the country.
Established in April 2019 by the previous German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, in cooperation with the Central
Council of German Jews, the chaplaincy brings Germany into line with the United States, France, Britain, and the Netherlands whose armed forces already have Jewish military chaplains.
Jewish chaplains last had a prominent role in the German military during the First World War when rabbis, among them Leo Baeck, visited the frontline at a time when around 100,000 Jews
Jewish chaplains last had a prominent role in WWI’
were serving in the imperial German armed forces.
Jewish participation in the military ended with the Nazi rise to power. Veterans were stripped of their honours and in 1935 Jews were formally banned from serving in the German armed forces.
Today, around 300 Jews currently serve in the German Federal Defence Forces, the country’s defence ministry estimates.
Fifty-three per cent of German soldiers belong to Christian churches. Until now, Jews in the military have had to turn to the army’s Christian chaplaincy, established in 1957, to fulfil their pastoral needs.
The new Jewish chaplaincy will have much the same remit as the Christian one, tasked with conducting religious services and providing emotional and spiritual support for soldiers and their families.
Konstantin Boyko, who serves as a chief petty officer in the German marines, told the Jüdische Allgemeine that though he is not particularly religious, Mr Balla’s appointment was important to him nonetheless.
“It shows that we Jews are citizens too and want to do our duty,” Mr Boyko said.