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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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US Sends Additional Arms to Israel to Sustain Iran Operations
The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. Photo: US Army.
i24 News – The United States has recently increased shipments of munitions to Israel to support ongoing Israeli air operations against Iran.
According to reports broadcast by the public radio network Kan Reshet Bet, several weapons deliveries have arrived in Israel in recent days as part of what officials describe as an ongoing airlift aimed at sustaining the pace of military strikes.
Since the start of the campaign, Israeli forces are believed to have dropped more than 11,000 bombs on targets across Iran.
The shipments come as reports emerge about a potential shortage of ballistic missile interceptors in Israel. US officials told the news outlet Semafor that Israel’s interceptor stockpiles have been heavily used during the conflict.
According to those sources, Washington had already been aware for months that supplies could become strained, though it remains unclear whether the United States would be willing to share its own interceptor reserves. Israeli officials have since rejected claims that such a shortage exists.
Unlike the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and projectiles, ballistic missile interceptors serve as Israel’s primary defense against long-range missile threats. Fighter jets can also be used to attempt interceptions, though this method is considered a supplementary measure to missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has taken additional budgetary steps to support the war effort. During an overnight vote between Saturday and Sunday, ministers approved a roughly 1 billion shekel reduction across various ministry budgets to help finance classified military purchases linked to Operation “Roar of the Lion.”
The government had already approved a 3 percent cut in ministry budgets, a move expected to increase the defense budget by approximately 30 billion shekels as the conflict continues.
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Pope Leo Decries ‘Atrocious Violence’ in Iran War, Urges Ceasefire
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, March 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Pope Leo made an impassioned plea on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the expanding Iran war, lamenting “atrocious violence” that he said had killed thousands of non-combatants and caused suffering across the region.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, the first US pope warned that violence would not bring the justice, stability and peace that the peoples of the region long for.
“For two weeks, the peoples of the Middle East have been suffering the atrocious violence of war,” the pope said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“In the name of Christians in the Middle East and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: Cease fire!” Pope Leo said.
IDEA THAT WAR SOLVES PROBLEMS IS ‘ABSURD’
Leo added that the situation in Lebanon – ravaged by a war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah – was also a cause of “great concern.”
“I hope for paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently underway, for the common good of all the Lebanese people,” the pope said.
During a visit to a Rome parish later, the pope said war could never resolve problems and hit out at people who invoke God to justify killings.
“Today many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and disagreements can be resolved through war, when instead we must engage in unceasing dialogue for peace,” he said during his homily.
“Some even go so far as to invoke the name of God to justify these choices of death, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. Rather, He always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity.”
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US, China Economic Chiefs Meet in Paris to Clear Path to Trump-Xi Summit
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk as they leave after a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Top US and Chinese economic officials wrapped up the first of two days of talks in Paris on Sunday to iron out kinks in their trade truce and clear a path for US President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of March.
The discussions, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, were expected to focus on shifting US tariffs, the flow of Chinese-produced rare earth minerals and magnets to US buyers, American high-tech export controls and Chinese purchases of US agricultural products.
The two sides met for more than six hours at the Paris headquarters of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, with talks to resume on Monday morning, a Treasury spokesperson said. China is not a member of the club of 38 mostly wealthy democracies and considers itself a developing country.
The spokesperson did not provide any details on the tone or substance of the talks, and Chinese officials left the OECD without speaking to reporters.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who is participating in the talks, said on Friday that US officials want to ensure stability in the US-China relationship.
“We want to make sure that we continue to get the rare earths we need for our manufacturing base, that they keep buying the kinds of things they should be buying from us, and that the leaders have a chance to get together and make sure that the relationship is going the way we want it to go,” Greer told CNBC before departing for Paris.
The talks between Bessent, He, Greer and China trade negotiator Li Chenggang follow a string of their meetings in European cities last year to ease trade tensions that threatened a near collapse of trade between the world’s two largest economies.
US-China trade analysts said that with little time to prepare and Washington’s attention focused on the US-Israeli war on Iran, prospects for a major trade breakthrough are limited, in Paris or at the Beijing summit.
“Both sides, I think have a minimum goal of having a meeting, which sort of keeps things together and avoids a rupture and re-escalation of tensions,” said Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Trump may want to come away from Beijing with major Chinese commitments to order new Boeing aircraft and buy more US liquefied natural gas and soybeans, but to get that he may need to offer some concession on US export controls, Kennedy added.
Trump and Xi could potentially meet three other times this year, including at a China-hosted APEC summit in November and a US-hosted G20 summit in December that could yield more tangible progress.
IRAN WAR OIL CONCERNS
The Iran war will likely come up at the Paris talks, especially in reference to the spike in oil prices and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which China gets 45 percent of its oil. Bessent on Thursday announced a 30-day waiver of sanctions to allow the sale of Russian oil stranded at sea in tankers, a move to raise supplies.
On Saturday, Trump urged other nations to help protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, after Washington bombed military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island oil loading hub and Iran threatened to retaliate.
“Meaningful” progress in Sino‑US economic cooperation could restore confidence to an increasingly fragile global economy, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary on Sunday.
TRADE TRUCE REVIEW
The two sides are expected to review their progress in meeting commitments under the October 2025 trade truce declared by Trump and Xi in Busan, South Korea. The deal forestalled a major flare-up in tensions, trimmed US tariffs on Chinese imports, and paused for a year China’s draconian export controls on rare earths. It also paused the expansion of a US blacklist of Chinese companies banned from buying high-technology US goods such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
China also agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of US soybeans during the 2025 marketing year and 25 million tons in the 2026 season, which will start with the autumn harvest.
US officials, including Bessent, have said China has so far met its commitments under the Busan deal, citing soybean purchases that met initial goals.
But while some industries are receiving rare earth exports from China, which dominates global production, US aerospace and semiconductor companies are not and are facing worsening shortages of key materials, including yttrium, used in heat-resistant coatings for jet engines.
“US priorities will likely be about agricultural purchases by China and greater access to Chinese rare earths in the short term” at the Paris talks, said William Chou, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.
NEW TRADE PROBES
Greer and Bessent also bring a new irritant to the Paris talks, a “Section 301” investigation into unfair trade practices targeting China and 15 other major trading partners over alleged excess industrial capacity that could lead to a new round of tariffs within months. Greer also launched a similar probe into alleged forced labor practices in 60 countries, including China, that could ban certain imports into the US.
The probes aim to rebuild tariff pressure on trading partners after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs under an emergency law as illegal. The ruling effectively reduced Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods by 20 percentage points, but he immediately imposed a 10 percent global tariff under another trade law.
China on Friday denounced the probes and said it reserved the right to take countermeasures. An editorial by state-run China Daily added that the probes were representative of unilateral actions that complicate negotiations.
“The new round of talks is both an opportunity and a test,” Xinhua said.
“Whether the upcoming talks can achieve progress will largely depend on the U.S. side. Washington needs to approach the negotiations with a rational and pragmatic mindset and act in line with the principles that underpin stable China-US economic relations.”