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In a twist, German rabbi at scandal’s center cedes rabbinical school ownership to Berlin Jews
(JTA) — In a shocking development, the embattled founder of Germany’s non-Orthodox rabbinical schools has relinquished his ownership stake in them to the Jewish Community of Berlin.
The 25,000 euro transaction means that Rabbi Walter Homolka is no longer in control of the Reform Abraham Geiger College and the Conservative Zacharias Frankel College at the University of Potsdam.
The sale achieves a result that the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the seminaries’ main funder, has been trying to reach openly since late last year, after two investigations confirmed that Homolka had abused his power at the seminaries.
The Jewish Community of Berlin had not publicly been part of the efforts to overhaul the schools launched after allegations against Homolka broke into public view last May. The allegations initially related to a sexual harassment scandal involving his husband, who was also his employee, but widened to implicate other aspects of Homolka’s leadership.
The group’s announcement late Wednesday of the purchase, executed the day before, initially alarmed some who have been advocating for changes at the seminaries, because the plan did not clearly rule out a role for Homolka. The Central Council of Jews in Germany issued a statement lambasting the fact that the deal “took place without consultation with the students, employees, or the donors” and said the new arrangement would not improve rabbinical education in Germany.
But in a hastily arranged meeting Thursday, Berlin Jewish Community President Gideon Joffe assured Josef Schuster, the council’s head, that Homolka would not be part of the seminaries going forward. The meeting left Schuster prepared to collaborate with Joffe’s group, a spokesperson for the council confirmed.
Now, the path is clear for the official Jewish community to seize authority over non-Orthodox rabbinical training in the country where Reform Judaism was born in the 19th century.
“This may not be the ideal situation, but it is a compromise that allows almost everyone to live with the results,” Cantor Itamar Cohen, the graduate whose complaint kicked off the scandal, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said he would fully embrace the offer “if it is accepted by Klal Israel, the majority of the Jewish community as encapsulated in the main representing bodies.”
Concerns about the surprise announcement largely reflected worries that Homolka could have structured the deal in a way that benefits him.
Rabbi Walter Homolka, then rector of the Abraham Geiger College, in the Liberal Jewish community’s synagogue in Hanover, Germany in December 2016. (Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Two separate investigations — one by the university and the other by lawyers commissioned by the Central Council — recently determined that Homolka had created an “atmosphere of fear” among students and staff in the very institutions he launched more than 20 years ago. The final report from the Central Council investigation is expected to be released in the coming weeks. Homolka has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
In the wake of those findings, there was an increasing appearance of desperation on the part of the old guard to hold on to control of the two seminaries. In December, days after the damning Central Council interim report was issued, the Union of Progressive Judaism in Germany — with a newly elected board friendly to Homolka — announced it had replaced the interim director of the Geiger College with its own appointee. The Central Council promptly nixed that plan, calling the Union of Progressive Judaism a puppet of Homolka and announcing its appointment of the scholar Gerhard Robbers to work on restructuring the two colleges.
Skeptics of the latest development said they were sure Homolka’s influence would emerge somewhere, for example in appointments to the reconstituted institutions.
“I don’t find this reassuring,” said Nick Hoermann, a current student at Frankel College. “It has been clear for a while now that Homolka’s only way to act in the future would be through back doors.”
But for now at least, the Central Council — which initially called the sale announcement “astonishing” — says it is ready to work with the Jewish Community of Berlin.
Though the official community’s move came as a surprise to many, Joffe and his team had been considering some kind of rescue maneuver since the scandal broke last May, Ilan Kiesling, a spokesperson for the community, said in an email to JTA. The concrete plan emerged only after the damning preliminary expert opinion came out in December.
Joffe approached Homolka directly at that point and convinced him “that a completely fresh start at [Abraham Geiger College] was indispensable – together with a complete renunciation of all his leadership positions. Rabbi Homolka agreed to this renunciation and transferred all shares of the non-profit limited company to the community,” Kiesling wrote.
The legally binding takeover took place this week, and did not cost the community anything beyond “the capital contribution of the limited company in the amount of 25,000 euros,” Kiesling said.
He added that the community “guarantees a complete and transparent new start” for the Geiger seminary. “There will no longer be an accumulation of offices” under one person, one of the habits for which Homolka has been criticized. There was no specific reference to the Frankel College, which until now has appointed its own academic leadership.
The community plans to establish an international advisory board and an external contact point for students to report any problems. Early on in the scandal, it emerged that Cohen’s complaint had been investigated internally, by parties beholden to Homolka.
Kiesling also told the JTA that the community had engaged a former community president, Rabbi Andreas Nachama, chair of Germany’s liberal rabbinical conference, known as ARK, to advise them from a rabbinical perspective. Nachama was ordained by the U.S.-based Alliance for Jewish Renewal movement and leads an egalitarian Reform congregation in Berlin.
In his statement Wednesday, Joffe said, “The top priority for us at the moment is to bring the Abraham Geiger College into calm waters and pave the way for the students to continue their education in a stable structure.”
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The post In a twist, German rabbi at scandal’s center cedes rabbinical school ownership to Berlin Jews appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that he has “political disagreements” with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and sparked a rift within the Republican Party.
But that won’t impact their friendship, Vance said during a press conference on Thursday at the White House.
“Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with,” Vance said.
He pointed to Carlson’s criticisms of Vance’s boss, President Donald Trump, as well as Carlson’s suggestion that he would rather Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed win Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat than Republican Mike Rogers, as examples of where they disagree.
“Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” Vance said.
Vance’s refusal to disavow Carlson comes days after he appeared in a closed-doors session in Las Vegas before hundreds of Republican Jewish Coalition members, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vance as Trump’s successor in 2028.
His RJC appearance started and ended with standing ovations for the vice president, and he spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and denounced antisemitism during the 35-minute conversation. He angered a number of attendees and Jewish conservatives, however, when he sidestepped a question about Carlson and other controversial right-wing podcasters.
On Thursday, a reporter asked Vance about “those who are uneasy” with his close relationship to Carlson and believe that he is avoiding addressing questions about it.
“I’m not avoiding anything,” Vance countered.
After declining to distance himself from Carlson, Vance said that his refusal to do so should be a model for how other Americans engage in discourse across lines of disagreement.
“If you have a disagreement with someone politically — even over a deeply held issue — you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” Vance said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson appeared first on The Forward.
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Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat
(JTA) — Cafe Basimta, the Jerusalem coffee shop that became a flashpoint in the city’s long-running dispute over Shabbat observance, will stop opening on Saturdays beginning this weekend after two months of weekly ultra-Orthodox protests.
The cafe said Thursday that the decision was made “after prolonged deliberation and with a heavy heart,” out of a desire to lower tensions and restore calm.
Eli Birnbaum, CEO of the messianic group Jews for Jesus, which runs the cafe, called the move a “difficult and painful decision” in the statement, saying it stemmed from a responsibility to its customers, its faith and Israeli society.
“Over the past few months, the cafe has become a focal point of friction and danger, a reality that contradicts our identity as Jews who believe in Jesus and our belief in loving others, respect and bringing people closer together, even with those who oppose us,” Birnbaum said.
He thanked Israel Police, the Jerusalem municipality and those who had come to support the cafe during the protests. “We now want to return Cafe Basimta to what it was intended to be: a calm, pleasant and open place for coffee, culture and dialogue.”
The decision marks a reversal for Cafe Basimta and its operator, Yoel Ben David, who said after the first protest on July 4 that the business would continue opening on weekends despite pressure from demonstrators. By late July, Ben David told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the protests had actually helped business financially, but added: “Me and the staff, we don’t love it. We’d all love it to just chill out.”
Basimta opened earlier this summer in Jerusalem’s central Nahlaot neighborhood, near the Mahane Yehuda market. It later emerged that the cafe was operated by Jews for Jesus, a missionary organization whose members identify as Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.
The demonstrations began July 4 and continued for nine consecutive Saturdays through Aug. 29. At the first protest, dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of them minors, surrounded the cafe, banged on its windows and overturned tables, according to staff and video from the scene.
Later protests saw demonstrators break through police barricades and try to approach the cafe, while a bag containing feces was thrown at its entrance on another weekend. In August, a woman was accused of putting glue in the front-door lock, delaying the cafe’s opening.
Supporters meanwhile began turning up each Saturday to patronize the cafe, at times forming long lines outside, while police deployed officers and barricades to separate the two sides. Politicians including Yisrael Beytenu Chairman and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Democrats Chairman Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, also visited or backed supporters of the cafe.
Golan denounced Thursday’s decision as the result of “haredi terror,” saying weeks of violence, demonstrations and threats had ultimately forced the cafe to give in. Liberman said the closure showed growing religious coercion, writing on X that in “Israel 2026,” drinking coffee on Shabbat was forbidden while “hating, attacking and rioting on Shabbat was permitted.”
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Adir Schwartz, who heads the pluralist Hitorerut municipal faction, also criticized the closure. Hitorerut said it was examining ways to operate a cafe on Saturdays in response to Basimta’s closure.
A spokesperson for Jews for Jesus told JTA that any such initiative was unrelated to Basimta or the organization.
Basimta’s ties to Jews for Jesus have also prompted a separate campaign against the cafe by anti-missionary activists. Rabbi Binyamin Vulcan, who heads the counter-missionary activities of Or LeAchim, told JTA in July that the organization was planning a weekday demonstration focused specifically on the cafe’s connection to Jews for Jesus and was seeking to have it closed through municipal channels.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat appeared first on The Forward.
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Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025
(JTA) —
MADRID — Spain’s Jewish umbrella organization and a watchdog group have reported that antisemitic incidents rose 14.5% in 2025, warning that hatred was being “normalized.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) recorded 221 antisemitic incidents in Spain last year, up from 193 in 2024, in a report released Wednesday together with the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI), a Spanish human rights group. Spain is home to an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Jews.
The trend matches an increase in hate incidents documented by the Spanish government. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in June that Jews were targeted in 69 hate crimes and incidents in 2025, jumping from 37 in 2024. Data from the Interior Ministry reflects crimes that are formally reported or detected by police, while the FCJE monitors incidents collected from community members, social media and other sources.
The new report came from the Observatory of Antisemitism, a joint initiative by the FCJE and the MCI to track antisemitism since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing assault in Gaza. The initiative has followed incidents such as the vandalism of Holocaust memorials with swastikas, the desecration of Jewish graves and the individual targeting of Jews, including a group of French tourists who were harassed and spat on in July while leaving a synagogue in Barcelona.
“Since October 7, 2023, Spanish Jews have had to go to our gathering places with special security measures,” FCJE president David Obadía said in a statement. “Our children are the only ones who go to school with a police presence, and insults and discrimination are part of our reality practically every day.”
María Royo, a spokesperson for the FCJE, blamed “campaigns against Israel” for the rise in antisemitic incidents. She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that some groups, saying Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, also “blame all Jews.”
“The security forces are doing everything within their power, but the government, politicians, media and opinion leaders could be much more rigorous and careful to prevent this situation,” said Royo.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is among Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel, which he says has committed genocide. The Israeli government has repeatedly said the Spanish government is antisemitic, an accusation that Spain strongly rejects.
Esteban Ibarra, the president of the MCI, said in a statement that antisemitism should be distinguished from debates about Israel.
“Antisemitism is not an opinion or a political disagreement: it is a form of hatred and discrimination against Jews,” said Ibarra. “When it is tolerated, normalized or minimized, coexistence deteriorates and democracy is weakened.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025 appeared first on The Forward.
