A religious Zionist youth movement is officially reopening in Germany 79 years after being shut down under the National Socialist regime.
Bnei Akiva Deutschland is one of several Zionist organisations to return to Germany in recent years.
Its status as a charitable organisation was granted in Dusseldorf last month to the German branch of the Jerusalem-based World Bnei Akiva, which already has emissaries in more than seven cities in Germany. It will now intensify its activities.
“Another Jewish organisation resurrected in Germany is another little victory over the Nazis and the new antisemites,” the movement’s director for Germany, Eliyos Paz, said in a statement.
Several years ago, the secular Zionist Hashomer Hatzair World Movement returned to Germany with youth activities.
World Bnei Akiva has emissaries in 23 countries and it also sponsors Jewish programming especially for Jews from the former Soviet Union, according to the group’s website. More than 90 percent of the current Jewish population of some 200,000 has roots in the former Soviet Union and came to Germany since 1990. Only about half that number are participating members of Jewish communities.
World Bnei Akiva was established in 1910. In 1927, the activities of several Orthodox Zionist groups were united under the Torah and Avodah Fund, which oversaw related youth movements and their activities, such as camps and conferences.
Activities in Germany came to an abrupt end in 1938 when the Nazi regime outlawed most Jewish institutions.
