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Prominent German rabbi resigns from leadership roles as report confirms allegations against him
BERLIN (JTA) – In a landmark step, investigators commissioned by Germany’s main Jewish organization have concluded that abuse of power and sexual harassment did occur at Germany’s liberal rabbinical seminary — and some of it, they say, may have crossed the line into illegality.
The 44-page “executive summary” of an investigation initiated by the Central Council of Jews in Germany is the latest and most damning report about the leadership of Rabbi Walter Homolka since accusations against him broke into public view last May.
Issued Wednesday after tense public conflict between the council and Homolka’s attorneys, the report concludes that structural changes are required to set Germany’s liberal rabbinical seminary, known as Abraham Geiger College, and other related Jewish institutions on the correct footing.
“A significant cause for the emergence of the problems identified by the investigators at the institutions under investigation is the personal misconduct of Rabbi Prof. Dr. Homolka in his function as a leader or person with great influence, which the investigators are convinced of,” the investigators wrote in their report.
Homolka announced Monday that he would withdraw from all functions in the seminary that he and a German-born American rabbi named Walter Jacob, founded in 1999. He also dropped out of the running on Tuesday for another term as chair of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany.
A more comprehensive report including details about incidents in which investigators concluded that Homolka and his husband engaged in misconduct is due out in January, according to the Cologne-based law firm Gercke Wollschläger.
The preliminary report was welcomed in a joint statement by the Central Council, the German Interior Ministry and the Brandenburg State Ministry of Science, Research and Culture, which said they would “continue to fund the Abraham Geiger College to the same extent as before until the structural new beginning has been completed.”
It was also greeted with relief by the rabbinical student whose complaints kicked off the scandal.
“I think the report and the subsequent documents are a blessed development,” Itamar Cohen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It seems to confirm many suspicions which I and others share. It does affirm that I did the right thing and [this] could be the beginning of a new chapter of liberal Judaism in Germany.”
The scandal that erupted publicly in May began after Cohen sought help from Jonathan Schorsch, a professor at the School of Jewish Theology, in dealing with unsolicited pornographic material allegedly received from Homolka’s husband, who was also an employee at the seminary. (Abraham Geiger College is part of the School of Jewish Theology, which itself is under the auspices of the University of Potsdam.)
A German newspaper’s report about the allegations and an apparent effort to obscure them opened the floodgates for criticism of Homolka from past and current students, employees and colleagues. Homolka took a leave of absence from the numerous leadership roles he held with liberal Jewish religious and educational institutions that he had helped found since the late 1990s.
The scandal has shaken the foundations of modern liberal Judaism in Germany, and the new report suggests that those foundations were weak because they rested largely on one individual.
Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of German Jews, said the report made it clear that Homolka could not continue in his previous roles.
Homolka has rejected the allegations against him throughout, and his attorneys told German news media Wednesday that they believed the entire investigation was politically motivated. They accused Schuster of wanting to see Homolka exit Germany’s liberal Jewish leadership and said the Central Council had failed to consider fully the statement Homolka had given to investigators.
Rabbi Walter Homolka. at left, with other leaders of Germany Jewry including Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, at far right, at an event in October 2019. (Wolfgang Kumm/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The report is the first to emerge from a third-party investigation into the allegations against Homolka. A separate investigation by the University of Potsdam, released in late October, found that some of the accusations regarding abuse of power to be justified, but did not find any criminally actionable behavior and thus confirmed Homolka’s ongoing employment there as professor. It did not investigate the sexual harassment accusations, as Homolka’s husband had left his job by then.
The new report did scrutinize those allegations. The investigators said they found 13 specific incidents involving allegations against Homolka’s husband. German libel law bars the publication of his name. Using what they called a “traffic light system,” the investigators classified nine of these incidents as “red” cases, in which 25 instances of misconduct could be identified. Two of these cases involved the “initial suspicion of a criminal offense,” they added.
Regarding allegations of abuse of power against Homolka himself, they found — after interviewing 73 individuals — a total of 45 concrete incidents, 14 of which they classified as “red,” involving a total of 23 instances of misconduct. A detailed account of those cases, including responses that Homolka delivered earlier this week, will be included in the final report in January, they said.
More broadly, they said, their interviews had illuminated a culture of misconduct in which unchecked, unlawful or arbitrary decisions could be made largely because of a consolidation of power under Homolka. He presided over an institution ruled by a “culture of fear,” the investigators found, leaving employees and students alike less likely to express criticism or concerns because of the possibility of reprisals.
The investigators said structural changes were needed if there was any hope of shifting the culture. “As long as institutions are in private hands or even in the hands of an individual, or at any rate within the essential sphere of influence of the person who, in the opinion of the investigators, practices and exemplifies misconduct himself, it is hardly conceivable that the causes of the deficits identified can be remedied,” their report says.
Cohen told JTA he wants to see “real change in the leadership” of all liberal Jewish institutions in Germany, and “an external compliance system set up.”
He said, “I hope to see the institutions Homolka founded take a life of their own, no strings attached.”
Anticipating the report, the Abraham Geiger College had announced its own restructuring plans on Monday, a day after ordaining four new rabbis and two cantors at a ceremony in Berlin.
In a statement, interim director Gabriele Thöne said a new foundation would become the provider of rabbinical training in Potsdam.
Gabriella Thoene, interim director of Abraham Geiger College, in Berlin’s Rykestrasse Synagogue on the occasion of an ordination ceremony, Dec. 1, 2022. (Toby Axelrod)
Further, Thöne said the “door is open to Zacharias Frankel College” — the Conservative movement seminary also under the umbrella of the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam — “to join the new foundation on an equal basis while at the same time maintaining its independence.”
But in a scathing response issued Wednesday, the Conservative seminary said the Geiger College interim administration had not consulted them about the restructuring.
“A partnership between equal parties requires joint preparation, mutual trust, transparency and consensus. All this has been lacking so far, and continues to be lacking,” the statement said.
Signed by Rabbi Bradley Artson, dean of Zacharias Frankel College and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, the Conservative seminary in Los Angeles among others, the statement also said the preliminary report released Wednesday “confirmed the asymmetrical constellations of power in the two Potsdam rabbinical training colleges.”
Zacharias Frankel College “was in a state of dependency on the will of one person from the time it was founded in 2013. Our institution was deliberately pushed into invisibility and excluded from communication with funders in Germany,” the statement read in part.
“From the outset, the project of a Masorti rabbinical training in Potsdam was merely a makeshift means of being able to found the School of Jewish Theology [also in 2013] and give it the appearance of representing several denominations, and thus of being pluralistically positioned. Instead, however, the accumulation of power led to a monopolization of non-Orthodox Judaism in one person” – namely, Homolka.
For their part, the government and Jewish funding organizations said in their statement Wednesday that they were “committed to ensuring that there will continue to be both liberal and conservative rabbinical training in Potsdam in the future,” but that the proposals developed so far at the Abraham Geiger College do not meet the requirement of being “a clear cut from the previous structure and a comprehensive new beginning.”
The release of the Central Council-commissioned report was preceded by a volley of statements by lawyers for both parties.
On Monday, the council’s attorneys announced that their preliminary report would come out in two days. On Tuesday, Homolka’s attorneys issued a statement criticizing the impending “sudden” release of the report’s summary, suggesting it reeked of “prejudgment.”
The law firm representing Homolka — Behm Becker Geßner — noted that its client had received “a list of questions with serious accusations” from the council’s attorneys, and that he had responded in writing last Sunday. “Should the result not take into account the meaningful statement of our client, there would be a massive violation of personality rights,” warned the lawyers, who have successfully battled some critical press coverage of Homolka.
The Central Council criticized what it called Homolka’s delay tactics, saying its attorneys had asked Homolka in early September if he would respond to questions but had not gotten any response to questions sent Oct. 19 until late Sunday night, well after multiple previous deadlines. Still, the council confirmed, its investigators would take Homolka’s responses into account.
“This tactic is the main reason why the law firm will not be able to complete the final and detailed report of the investigation by the end of the year,” the Central Council said. “The courage of the numerous victims must not be sacrificed to Homolka’s delay tactics.”
Meanwhile, the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany is to meet next week in Berlin, after a three-month postponement. Board elections will be held for the position of chair, previously held by Homolka.
On Nov. 26, that group published a report from an investigation that it had commissioned, which concluded that there was no proof of abuse of power at Abraham Geiger College.
German rabbis who are part of the General Rabbinical Conference, Germany’s liberal rabbinical association, file into Berlin’s Rykestrasse Synagogue for an ordination ceremony, Dec. 1, 2022. (Toby Axelrod)
On Wednesday, a critic within the body, the State Association of Jewish Communities of Lower Saxony, said the Central Council’s commissioned report “supports us in our demand for the resignation of Walter Homolka from all his offices within the Jewish community, which we already made in May.”
And there is dissent within the General Rabbinical Conference, Germany’s liberal rabbinical association, as well. About a dozen members issued a statement in November, breaking from the official, cautious tone, saying that “the abuse of power proven against Rabbi Prof. Dr. Homolka [in the university’s report of Oct. 26] is not compatible with the values of Jewish and general ethics.”
The association, known as ARK, issued a statement at the end of November stating that, despite differences of opinion in their ranks, they join the call for a structural and personal new beginning, as “a chance for the next phase of rabbinical training in Germany.”
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Canada Sees Record Surge in Antisemitic Incidents for Second Consecutive Year, New Report Finds
A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Antisemitic incidents in Canada surged to a record high in 2025 for the second consecutive year, with 6,800 acts of anti-Jewish hate reported nationwide, underscoring a persistently hostile climate for Jews and Israelis across the country, according to newly released data.
On Monday, the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada released its annual report on antisemitism documenting a 9.3 percent increase in hate crimes last year, surpassing the previous record total of 6,219 set in 2024.
With an average of 18.6 incidents per day, this latest figure represents a 145.6 percent increase from 2022, before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
B’nai Brith Canada CEO Simon Wolle described the findings as a “national crisis,” warning that antisemitism has become increasingly normalized within Canadian society and calling on authorities to confront this rising hatred with stronger, sustained action.
“Our review of the past year’s antisemitic incidents must be understood as a wake-up call,” Wolle said in a statement. “Hate and extremism are a threat to Canadian democracy and civil society, not only to the Jewish community.”
According to the latest data, the report found that antisemitism has “metastasized” across all aspects of Canadian life, with the vast majority — 92 percent — of recorded incidents occurring in digital spaces, including 6,248 cases of online harassment.
Among the recorded cases, there were also 10 incidents of violence, 299 cases of vandalism, and 243 incidents of real-world harassment.
Online platforms have also seen a rise in Holocaust denial, with artificial intelligence being used to fabricate and distort historical narratives.
While geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have contributed to the surge, the report warns that antisemitism has moved beyond the “radical fringes,” pointing to troubling trends on university campuses and in public schools, where Jewish students and faculty increasingly report feeling vulnerable.
The trend appears to be continuing into 2026, with several high-profile attacks — including gunfire directed at three synagogues in Toronto last month, alongside vandalism targeting businesses and physical assaults — signaling an ongoing escalation of violence.
Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy at B’nai Brith Canada, said many who describe themselves as “anti-Zionists” are in fact reviving long-standing tropes used to dehumanize Jewish people, warning that such narratives are increasingly being normalized in mainstream discourse.
“The fact of the matter is that when it becomes acceptable, and even popular, to demonize Zionists, Jewish communities suffer,” Robertson said in a statement.
This latest report came after Canada’s Senate last week released a separate assessment offering a comprehensive roadmap to counter rising Jew-hatred, calling for expanded law enforcement resources to investigate hate crimes, strengthened Holocaust education, and the implementation of digital literacy programs for youth.
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Smith College to Hold Talks With Students for Justice in Palestine Following Unauthorized Encampment
The “People’s University” encampment, established by Students for Justice in Palestine, on the campus of Smith College in April 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts has granted Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) a meeting with high-level officials in exchange for the group’s ending an unauthorized encampment established on campus to protest the board of trustees’ decision to reject a proposal inspired by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
On April 18, SJP commandeered the Chapin Lawn and renamed it “The People’s University.” Armed with a litany of demands calling for “restructuring” Smith’s governance of its endowment, transferring power over the institution from administrators to faculty and students, and a “required course on race” informed by the divisive critical race theory discipline, the students initially vowed to dwell in the encampment indefinitely.
Over seven days, SJP hosted a series of anti-Israel themed events on “Palestinian resistance,” “Indigenous resistance,” and “organizing.” On other days, the group filled time with “listening sessions” and even provided dinner, suggesting that the encampment received financial support sufficient to feed dozens of college students. However, the mounting presence of public safety officers around the encampment site and little indication that the demonstration held the drawing power of encampments of previous academic years prompted SJP to consider settling for less than it wanted.
Additionally, the college had notified the group of being in violation of campus policies on peaceful assembly and threatened SJP with disciplinary sanctions, which the group described as “fear tactics.” Tamra Bates, director of student engagement, personally told the students they would be punished as “individuals” and, the group added, public safety officers addressed “at least one student” by their “full name.” After three days, paranoia took hold of the organizers, and they issued a prohibition on photography “at any time … especially of people’s faces.”
SJP ultimately agreed to enter negotiations with the college over email, a process which concluded with Smith College agreeing to hold a meeting with the group and college trustees “before the end of the semester.” The students decamped on Saturday.
Smith College has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s inquiry regarding the substance of the deal.
As previously reported, Smith College became one of the latest higher education institutions to see a class between anti-Zionists and administrators over institutional ties to Israel as college trustees neared a vote on what SJP titled the “ethical investment” proposal. Brimming with falsehoods, the document accused Israel of the crime of “femi-genocide,” which SJP described as “sexual and reproductive violence” and mass murder perpetrated against Palestinian women and girls. The enterprise continues a pattern of depicting Israel, the most progressive country in the Middle East, as a foe of left-wing causes and an enemy of liberalism.
Additionally, the proposal called on Smith to withdraw investments in armaments manufacturers while arguing that divestment from Israel is a prelude to divesting from fossil fuels, a subtle but common tactic in which far-left groups place Jews and Zionists at the center of an array of alleged conflicts and social maladies.
“Militarism and the use of explosive weaponry has a devastating impact on our climate: military carbon emissions from the ongoing occupation and genocide of Palestinians exceeds that of several countries combined,” the proposal said. “We face interconnected human rights crises at home and abroad that jeopardize our immigrant and international students, faculty, staff, and community members. Broader patterns of forced displacement are inseparable from climate change, and are fueled by a longer history of neoliberalization, securitization, and colonization.”
Citing fiduciary concerns, virtually all colleges asked to adopt BDS have rejected it.
In March 2025, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine did so when its Board of Trustees voted to accept the counsel of a committee that recommended maintaining investment practices which safeguard the institution’s financial health and educational mission. In a report authored by the college’s Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility, it said, “Interventions in the management of the endowment that are rooted in moral or political considerations should be exceedingly rare and restricted to those cases where there is near-universal consensus among Bowdoin’s community of stakeholders.”
Boston University rejected divestment the previous month, with its president, Melissa Gilliam, saying, “The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East.”
Adopting divestment proposals dictated by anti-Zionist groups is a recipe for squandering tens of billions of dollars in endowment returns, according to a report published in September 2024 by the JLens investment network, an arm of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report said BDS would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion in growth, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Groups Blast Mamdani for Vetoing Bill to Limit Protests Near Schools
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
Major Jewish organizations are sharply criticizing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he vetoed a bill aimed at limiting protests near schools, condemning the mayor for what they argue is a failure to protect Jewish students at a time of rising antisemitism.
The legislation, which passed the City Council with bipartisan support, would have created buffer zones around educational institutions to prevent obstruction, intimidation, and disruption during demonstrations. Supporters said the measure was a direct response to recent protests outside Jewish schools and community spaces that have left students feeling unsafe.
In statements following the veto, several Jewish advocacy groups said the mayor’s decision sends the wrong message amid a surge in antisemitic incidents across the city. They warned that without additional safeguards, Jewish students could remain vulnerable to harassment and disruption near their schools.
A group of leading Jewish organizations subsequently released a statement condemning the veto, saying they were “deeply disappointed” with the decision.
“This legislation represented a crucial step toward ensuring that every school and community institution can be better protected,” read the statement from UJA-Federation of New York, ADL New York/New Jersey, AJC New York, Conference of Presidents, JCRC-NY, New York Board of Rabbis, Orthodox Union, The Rabbinical Assembly, StandWithUs, Teach NYS, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin condemned Mamdani’s veto.
“Ensuring students can enter and exit their schools without fear of harassment or intimidation should not be controversial,” Menin said.
New York City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz similarly criticized Mamdani, saying in a statement that the mayor had undercut his campaign promise to ensure the safety of Jewish New Yorkers.
“The mayor promised to keep New Yorkers safe and increase police transparency,” Dinowitz said. “By vetoing this bill, he is breaking yet another campaign promise.”
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a far-left and fringe anti-Zionist group, released a statement framing Mamdani’s veto as a victory for free speech rights.
The group wrote that Mamdani “further demonstrated his commitment to protecting New Yorkers’ First Amendment rights, and his refusal to endorse what is quite simply bad policy.”
“The ‘buffer zone’ bills are not about keeping New Yorkers safe. They are about silencing our voices,” the organization continued. “That they do so under the auspices of combating antisemitism doesn’t just add insult to injury; it actively endangers Jews. At best, these bills change little. At worst, they divide and silence New Yorkers and contribute to the broader political climate targeting protestors.”
Mamdani defended his decision, arguing that the bill’s language was overly broad and could infringe on constitutionally protected protest rights. He said the definition of educational institutions could extend beyond K-12 schools to include universities, museums, and other public-facing institutions, potentially restricting a wide range of demonstrations unrelated to antisemitism.
“As the bill is written, everywhere from universities to museums to teaching hospitals could face restrictions,” Mamdani said. “This could impact workers protesting ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement], or college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels, or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”
The mayor also pointed to existing laws that already prohibit harassment, threats, and obstruction, suggesting the proposed measure was unnecessary and legally vulnerable.
Still, critics say those protections are insufficient in the current climate. They argue that recent demonstrations, particularly those tied to tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, have at times crossed into intimidation, and that clearer boundaries are needed to ensure student safety.
The backlash has put Mamdani at odds with some Democratic lawmakers and community leaders who had supported the bill. While he allowed a separate measure strengthening protections around houses of worship to become law, opponents say excluding schools from similar safeguards leaves a critical gap.
Skeptics also claim that the veto undercuts Mamdani’s previous vow to protect the local Jewish community amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the Big Apple.
Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist and anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities who has been widely accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.
Leading members of the Jewish community in New York have expressed alarm about Mamdani’s victory, fearing what may come in a city already experiencing a surge in antisemitic hate crimes.
The City Council could attempt to override the veto, though it would need to secure additional votes to reach a two-thirds majority.
The dispute highlights a broader national debate over how to respond to rising antisemitism while preserving First Amendment protections, as protests tied to global conflicts continue to unfold across the United States. For many Jewish leaders, however, the issue in New York is immediate and personal, and they say the mayor’s decision falls short of the moment.