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31st October, 2006
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Rabbi Willy Wolff, friend of Sion, received an honorary Doctorate for Jewish Christians Relations
Sr Margaret Shepherd spent several years studying at the Leo Baeck College in London, a centre for the training of rabbis and teachers. One of Margaret's colleagues there was Rabbi Willy Wolff .
Willy has recently received an honorary Doctorate for his work in Jewish Christian Relations. Here is an email we received from his friend and colleague Rabbi Alexandra Wright.......
WILLY'S HONORARY DOCTORATE
I thought you would like to know that Willy Wolff received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at the 7th oldest university in Germany, the University of Greifswald. This is a rare honour - the last honorary doctorate was conferred five years ago and the two recipients this year were chosen specifically because it was the 550th anniversary of the founding of the university - Willy's doctorate honoured the indefatigable work he has done on reconciliation in Germany between Jews and Christians, while the other recipient received his doctorate for the rebuilding of bridges between Poles and Germans after the war.
I flew out to Berlin and met Willy there and we took the train to Greifswald where he gave an address on Moses the theologian and was duly honoured and where the professor of theology and former dean paid tribute to him.
It was lovely to see the prayer hall where Willy leads services, the larger hall where his congregants (all Russians) share a meal at festivals and on Friday evenings. In the garden behind the Jewish community building is a simple stone marking the place where the original synagogue (built in 1819) stood until Kristallnacht 1938. Apparently, the Nazis didn't want to set fire to the synagogue in case any of the surrounding buildings caught fire. Instead they forced the Jewish community itself to demolish the synagogue stone by stone, brick by brick the following day. After the war, there was no one left but in the late eighties and nineties the influx of Russian Jews (all living on faceless Stalinist estates just outside Schwerin) has made the community viable and lively once again. A remarkable story. And to see Willy returning to the country of his birth sixty years after he left it to do this work both in Mecklenberg and throughout Germany of creating these remarkable relationships with German Christians.