Ignatz Bubis, chairman of the Central Council of Jews in
Germany since 1992, was buried in Israel in accordance with
his wishes after he passed away last Friday. He feared his
grave would be desecrated by neo-Nazis if buried in Germany,
as was the case with the gravesite of his predecessor, Heinz
Galinsky.
Bubis was eulogized by non-Jewish and Jewish leaders all
across Germany, as well as by Jewish leaders around the
world.
Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, president of the Conference of
European Rabbis, said, "Ignatz Bubis was one of the most
capable and influential Jewish communal leaders in the world
today." He noted that only a month ago he helped the
Conference in its efforts to establish a beis din in
Germany.
Johannes Rau, the president of Germany, attended the funeral
in Tel Aviv. He said that Bubis fought so that German history
should not cast its shadow over the future, and called him "a
German patriot."
Unlike his predecessor as head of the German community, Bubis
was seen not as an outsider who saw it as his task to
constantly remind the Germans of their past, but as a Jewish
German citizen. Nonetheless, he never hesitated to protect
and defend Jewish rights in Germany.
During the period he led the German Jewish community it
expanded considerably, mainly due to immigration from Eastern
Europe, growing from some 40,000 souls to nearly 100,000. The
German state has made it easier for Jews, especially those
from the former Soviet Union, to enter Germany and to settle
there. Few of the newcomers have any interest in anything
Jewish -- many are intermarried and/or of dubious religion --
but many do worry about antisemitism. They were happy with
Bubis' approach, since he fought against antisemitism without
demanding any Jewish identity. Religious Jews in Germany
sometimes complained that Bubis favored the Reform when there
were conflicts.
Ignatz Bubis was born in January, 1927 in Breslau, which was
then a German city. He was transferred to a Polish ghetto in
1941 and from there to a Nazi work camp. He lost his father
and two of his brothers in the Holocaust.
After the war he lived in various cities before settling in
Frankfurt where he dealt in diamonds and real estate. He
entered politics in 1969, and was a member of the Frankfurt
Jewish Community Council since 1983. With 6,000 Jews,
Frankfurt is the second largest Jewish community in Germany,
after Berlin.
Ironically, at the end of his funeral in Tel Aviv, his grave
was desecrated, as a 52 year old man poured black paint over
the fresh grave, hurling various accusations at the buried
deceased.
