RSS
New synagogue in Dresden plans to operate outside of Germany’s Jewish mainstream
(JTA) — A new synagogue billing itself as a neo-Hasidic congregation has opened in the former East German city of Dresden, without the backing of Germany’s main Jewish communal umbrella organization.
The Jewish Community Dresden, or JKD, was founded two years ago by Akiva Weingarten, who received his first ordination in the Satmar Hasidic sect in upstate New York but broke away from his roots and ended up studying at Germany’s liberal rabbinical seminary, the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam.
Weingarten’s Synagogue Neustadt is housed in a refurbished, mid-19th century train station main hall. According to Weingarten, the egalitarian congregation has some 200 members, with just enough seating if all showed up at once, and is officially open to Jews and their non-Jewish partners – something that sets it apart from most synagogues in Germany.
The JKD is also not operating under the umbrella of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and that is by design, Weingarten said.
“We don’t need anyone’s authorization to be Jewish or to have our own community, and we don’t accept the Central Council as any authority about how Jewish life should look,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Rabbi Zsolt Balla of Leipzig, head rabbi in the Central Council’s association in the state of Saxony, where Dresden is located, did not embrace Weingarten’s message. He said Weingarten had his chance to make his mark in Dresden already, having served as a community rabbi for two years, but his contract was not renewed. Now, Balla said, he “claims to help people who are leaving the so-called ultra-Orthodox world, but he does not have the training and the funds and the capacity to handle these things.”
The Synagogue Neustadt is housed in a former train station hall. (Richard.print/Wikimedia Commons)
The Central Council was founded in 1950 as an administrative body to hold together the small Jewish population in post-war Germany. Today, it coordinates 105 communities with about 93,000 members, many of them Jews with roots in the former Soviet Union. An estimated 100,000 more people identify as Jews in Germany but either don’t want to join or don’t meet the Jewish legal (halachic) requirements: having a Jewish mother or having undergone a traditional conversion.
Virtually all German synagogues are under the Council’s umbrella — including another in Dresden, the so-called “New Synagogue,” dedicated in 2001 on the site of the city’s destroyed “Old Synagogue.” But a handful of congregations in Germany are independent, rejecting or not meeting some of the conditions for membership and thus not receiving federal funding channeled through the Central Council.
“Some real change is desperately needed to have Jewish life in Germany in the coming years,” said
Weingarten, whose independent synagogue is supported by private donations, membership fees and funds from the city. The building that houses it also classrooms, a kitchen, offices and the dorms of a yeshiva he started. He calls Besht Yeshiva Dresden the “first liberal-Hasidic yeshiva in the world.”
Dresden Mayor Dirk Hilbert and other local and state officials attended the synagogue’s official dedication on Sept. 3.
—
The post New synagogue in Dresden plans to operate outside of Germany’s Jewish mainstream appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
RSS
Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
RSS
Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.