Rabbi Walter Homolka is a sizeable role in Germany’s liberal Jewish communities and one of the most notable leaders in German Jewry. He is a whole professor at the University of Potsdam and the founding rector of the Avraham Geiger University of Jewish Reports. He gets to be the chairman of the Leo Beck Foundation and a member of the World Association for Progressive Judaism’s board of directors.

The Di Walt posted a amount of allegations of sexual misbehavior towards Homolka and his companion, Hartmut Boomhof, a lecturer at Abraham Geiger Higher education, previously this month. Homolka was obliged to declare a short-term retirement from his full occupation adhering to the disclosure of the evidence, which integrated improper sexual action supposed against faculty students.

It is unclear when Homolka and Bumhoff commenced their nefarious things to do. Two commissions of inquiry are at present seeking into this subject, 1 constituted by the Committee of Jewish Communities and the other by the University of Potsdam. “We should conduct a entire, independent, and impartial investigation into the rates, particularly in favor of the alleged victims,” claimed Josef Schuster, president of the German Jewish Central Council.

A., a the latest college graduate, statements to have been the initial to complain about Homolka’s companion. “In 2019, I had a Fb interaction with a lecturer at Geiger Faculty, Homolka’s wife or husband, and the topic abruptly turned into a terrifying and individual dialogue, in the course of which he emailed me a stimulated male genitalia, possibly his organ,” he advised N12. pleasantness. “I ducked, tried out to lower him off, and explained to him to halt.” He was a lecturer at each my college or university and the University of Potsdam, where by I analyzed. “I was rather uneasy.”

A. stored silent at first, preserving the bizarre incident to himself. “I was terrified,” he confessed, “since he was ‘the partner of’ and in a posture of authority.” The come across, having said that, did not go away A.’s thoughts. He commenced telling his classmates about the encounter and soon found he was not the only one. He then decided to file a law enforcement report as very well as a grievance with the college or university. According to him, the law enforcement summoned him for an interview, all through which he was knowledgeable that an inquiry into the situation would be launched.

“I anticipated the typical would be greater due to the fact this is a college that specials with Judaism,” suggests A. “They did a sort of commission of inquiry at the university, but absolutely everyone who was there was an worker of Homolka, his associate.” It was an very terrible knowledge. The outcome and technique ended up both equally harmful. “It seemed obvious to me that very little would appear of it.”

According to A., a college committee sent an electronic mail to learners inquiring if any of them experienced been sexually harassed or raped. “Of course, no a person responded,” he suggests, “so I produced the difficulty with a perception of unfairness.” He claims he spoke with other pupils who said Boomhoff had harassed them. “I spoke with a few pupils who experienced gotten sexual proposals from him, these types of as joining a sauna or other equivalent provides. “A rabbinical prospect who acquired sexual communications from him, for case in point, was terrified and postponed his reports,” he recalled.

“Too a great deal terror in Homolka’s and his pals’ community”

Nevertheless, in 2021, a substantial prevalence transpired: grievances of harassment and potentially inappropriate conduct commenced to occur not only from Homolka’s husband or wife, but also from Homolka himself. As a consequence, information and facts arrived at the media, and the scandal erupted in entrance of the overall community.

“There is much too significantly dread in the group from Homolka and his pals,” Alan Poisner, the journalist who disclosed the scandal, reported of the incident’s affect on liberal Judaism in Germany. Several people today from all above Europe have known as me, some of them well-regarded, to tell me awful tales about Homolka and then say, “But really don't cite me!” But that is not how it will work in this nation. I am prohibited by German push legislation from publishing nameless condemnations. He will be capable to sue me and my colleagues for exposing his functions thanks of the community’s cowardice.

“Sexual harassment has under no circumstances been the topic of a prison inquiry, which, by the way, has been stopped,” the regulation business defending the partner instructed Jewish news web site JTA. Nonetheless, the media stories do not stop there. Yet another pupil claimed that he been given a text information inviting him to share a lodge area with him on a vacation. In accordance to an additional story, a college student was hesitant to notify Homolka that he was taking into consideration transferring to an additional seminary in buy to prevent being close to Homolka’s boyfriend. Extra proof of alleged occurrences of sharing photos and keeping talks that ought to not take location involving pupils and personnel has surfaced in Germany.

Homolka did not react to statements of sexual harassment leveled versus him or his companion. He did, nonetheless, notify the German press that he would no lengthier be engaged in the Jewish neighborhood or at the College of Potsdam. “I’d like to express my particular disappointment in gentle of the prices revealed in the news. In accordance to the German Badr Spiegel, Homolka remarked in a assertion, “It hurts to read through this kind of text.”

“This scandal is unquestionably a stain on Germany’s liberal Jewish society,” argues A. “However, it is because it occurred, not because it has been released.” The basic tragedy is that college students in a rabbinical and cantorial faculty are abused. I know 4 persons who have been harassed or assaulted, but there are hundreds more.”