Born in 1955, Andreas Christoph Wankum discovered his Jewish roots when he was 13. Observing that his neighbors, the Wolfs, shut down their dry-cleaning business every Saturday, he asked his mother about this odd business practice.
The Wolfs, she said, were Jewish, and so were the Wankums, even though they’d concealed it during the war.
Wankum eventually made a lot of money real estate and gave a lot of money to Jewish charities.
In 1999, he was offered the presidency of the local branch of Keren Hayesod but he needed to be an official member of the Jewish community and to do that, he needed to prove that he was Jewish.
In December 1999, Rabbi Dov Levi Barzilai, Hamburg’s chief orthodox rabbi heard four witnesses, including Wankum’s brother and his wife’s uncle, and then signed a paper declaring, officially, that Wankum was a Jew.
In 2003, he became chairman of Hamburg’s Jewish community and Stefan Knauer, a journalist for Der Spiegel, became interested in him.
“We started to look in archives in villages around Hamburg where his family used to live,” Knauer said. “There were registration forms with religion identity and we found that Wankum’s mother was named Ruth Morgenstern and she was registered as Lutheran. But you can’t really know because many Jews hid their identity under the Third Reich.”
Ruben Herzberg was appointed the community’s chairman after Wankum’s term ended in 2007. He found that several community members, including Wankum had no documents certifying their Jewishness. All he had were the four witnesses and the only Jewish witness was the rabbi himself.
Herzberg called the central rabbinate in Netanya where Barzilai claimed to have gotten his rabbinic certification. The chief rabbi of Netanya wrote back, saying that the people who appointed Barzilai had no authority to do so.
Twenty people were missing documents. Sixteen brought in papers but four, including Wankum and his brother, never answered and were ousted from the community.
Herzberg fired Rabbi Barzilai and some people in the community wanted to move Wankum’s mother from the Jewish cemetery.
Stefan Kramer, the General Secretary of the Central Council for Jews in Germany claimed that, “What Herzberg and his friends are doing is Chillul Hashem (desecration of the holy). For me there are more important things in Judaism than whether you mother is Jewish or not. If you support Jewish issues and if you educated a daughter and live in Israel it is much more Jewish to me than people who want to drag your mother out of her grave."
Wankum eventually made a lot of money real estate and gave a lot of money to Jewish charities.
In 1999, he was offered the presidency of the local branch of Keren Hayesod but he needed to be an official member of the Jewish community and to do that, he needed to prove that he was Jewish.
In December 1999, Rabbi Dov Levi Barzilai, Hamburg’s chief orthodox rabbi heard four witnesses, including Wankum’s brother and his wife’s uncle, and then signed a paper declaring, officially, that Wankum was a Jew.
In 2003, he became chairman of Hamburg’s Jewish community and Stefan Knauer, a journalist for Der Spiegel, became interested in him.
“We started to look in archives in villages around Hamburg where his family used to live,” Knauer said. “There were registration forms with religion identity and we found that Wankum’s mother was named Ruth Morgenstern and she was registered as Lutheran. But you can’t really know because many Jews hid their identity under the Third Reich.”
Ruben Herzberg was appointed the community’s chairman after Wankum’s term ended in 2007. He found that several community members, including Wankum had no documents certifying their Jewishness. All he had were the four witnesses and the only Jewish witness was the rabbi himself.
Herzberg called the central rabbinate in Netanya where Barzilai claimed to have gotten his rabbinic certification. The chief rabbi of Netanya wrote back, saying that the people who appointed Barzilai had no authority to do so.
Twenty people were missing documents. Sixteen brought in papers but four, including Wankum and his brother, never answered and were ousted from the community.
Herzberg fired Rabbi Barzilai and some people in the community wanted to move Wankum’s mother from the Jewish cemetery.
Stefan Kramer, the General Secretary of the Central Council for Jews in Germany claimed that, “What Herzberg and his friends are doing is Chillul Hashem (desecration of the holy). For me there are more important things in Judaism than whether you mother is Jewish or not. If you support Jewish issues and if you educated a daughter and live in Israel it is much more Jewish to me than people who want to drag your mother out of her grave."
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