A church turned synagogue

The middle-aged man, his face contorted with anger, gestured to the white, plastered church a few steps behind him, its steeple gleaming as the sun broke through the dark gray clouds hanging ominously low over the eastern German city of Cottbus on Monday afternoon.

"We don't need more scum here", he spat: Cottbus certainly didn't need a synagogue, "not here." He shook his head and wandered off, muttering to himself as he headed down Cottbus' busy main shopping street.

He was referring to the fact that the former Lutheran Church, which dates back to 1714, was recently handed over to the city's small Jewish community, exclusively made up of Russian immigrants. The decision to turn the building into a synagogue just made sense, Ulrike Menzel, the Lutheran Churches' regional leader, said:

"The Jewish community needed a synagogue and, faced with an ever dwindling number of worshippers, the city's Schlosskirche, or Castle Church, "simply didn't have its own congregation any more." And, she added, given its plain, austere architecture, there was no need to make major changes to the building.

Church leader: "We welcome Jewish life"

But, more importantly, the city wanted to send a powerful message, Menzel, a petite, vivacious pastor said: "We wanted to make clear that we welcome Jewish life in our community and that it's not being marginalized."

After the Church made its decision public back in 2011, Menzel received hate mail, she said, some of it so vitriolic she didn't want to repeat any of the abuse. But, she said, shrugging away the xenophobia and anti-Semitism, the majority of people in Cottbus definitely supported the transformation, and, maybe contrary to its reputation, Cottbus was "definitely a liberal, open-minded city."

An elderly man, out to buy a shirt, agreed: He was happy, he said, that Cottbus finally had a new synagogue. "It's time we got used to the fact that there are people with other religions." His family, he added, were refugees, who fled from what is now Poland after the end of the Second World War. He was five at the time. He smiled: "So I know what it's like moving to a new country and how important it is to feel welcome."

In the city's serene graveyard, its tombs hidden away under bushes and leafy trees, an employee in a black suit relaxing outside the mortuary only grudgingly gave directions to the small Jewish cemetery, tucked away in a corner behind a plain fence. Two brown deer wandered around the mossy graves which spoke of a small, but thriving Jewish community that was all but annihilated during the Holocaust: The city's imposing synagogue was burnt to the ground in 1938 - and only 12 Jews survived the Nazi's reign of terror.

Jewish revival driven by Russian immigration

A few feet from an old, crumbling grave, fresh flowers lay on several rows of black granite tombstones, the names and recent dates inscribed in Hebrew and Latin evidence of the Jewish revival - driven by Russian Jewish immigrants, who moved to Germany after reunification.

There were many reasons, why Russians moved to Germany and not Israel, Max Solomonik said, "not least the weather." Solomonik, the burly, brusque spokesman of the Jewish-Russian community of some 460 people, which was founded in 1998, shrugged: He was sitting inside the plain, cold synagogue, still wrapped in his red winter coat. Light fell through the synagogue's stained glass windows, bouncing off the Star of David and the huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Solomonik, who teaches German to immigrants and concedes that some in the Russian community should try harder to learn the local language and integrate, moved to Cottbus in 2002. Without Russian immigration, he mused, there would be hardly any Jewish life in this part the country. "Particularly here in eastern Germany, almost all the Jews are from the former Soviet Union," he said.

Solomonik: "I feel safe"

He felt at home in Cottbus, he said, his teenage son speaks Russian with an accent, "this is my home." Although, he said, he did miss his friends back in Russia. He waved away recent appeals by Israeli politicians and ambassadors, urging Jews to migrate to Israel. Why on earth, he said, would he want to leave Germany? "We decided to move here, why would we want to leave now?"

Did he feel safe? He frowned: "I feel safe, yes. Of course, something might happen, that's always a possibility. Let's see."

Back in 2006, Solomonik said, someone smeared anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas onto the walls of the Jewish community center, a small space close to the synagogue, its walls plastered with bilingual posters and photos, framing a bookshelf full of colorful hand-made toys. Today, surveillance cameras monitor the entrance to the community center. "That was very bad", Solomonik said, shaking his head. "But the city reacted immediately and since then we haven't had any problems." He hoped, he said, that would stay that way.

Did he feel proud that Cottbus had a new synagogue, which was also the first in the state of Brandenburg? Solomonik pondered the question for a few seconds, then nodded. "It's a good thing, an important symbol." And yes, he did feel proud, " at least a little."

Later, as he carefully locked the church-turned-synagogue and tapped in the code into the alarm system, the sun had all but disappeared behind the clouds and raindrops began to fall, forcing the shoppers to seek shelter in the city's cafés and shops.