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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Goering relative 'plans to convert to Judaism' |
| 2006-05-17 |
| Probably lots of "issues" here. Nice irony of History, though, and much, much better than theses stories of neonazis logically becoming ROPers, another "winning group", but with a vastly different purpose. GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - A relative of Nazi Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering is considering converting to Judaism, according to an article published on the Spiegel Online website Wednesday. Matthias Goering, a 49-year-old physiotherapist working near the Swiss city of Zurich, already wears a skull-cap, sticks to Jewish rules for preparing and eating food, observes the Jewish Sabbath and is learning Hebrew, the English-language website of Germany's leading news magazine reported. Matthias Goering, whose great-great-uncle was Hermann's great- uncle, has been to Israel and is also considering moving there, the report said. Referring to his family's past and the Nazi Holocaust led in part by Hermann, Matthias Goering was quoted as saying: "I don't feel any guilt, myself ... There is a spiritual guilt in our family, guilt in the German nation and it is our responsibility to declare it openly. I think God is taking this opportunity to use my name to change something in the hearts of others." Matthias Goering said he grew up surrounded by hatred for the Jews as his affluent family lost all their wealth after the Second World War. "Our parents would always say to us, 'You can't have that, because all our money's gone to the Jews,'" he was quoted as saying. "They became a symbol of everything we couldn't have." He said he and his siblings were also "bullied mercilessly" at school because of their Nazi history. In 2000, when he became suicidal after losing his physiotherapy practice and his wife and son leaving him, Matthias Goering said he received two signs from God that led him to Judaism: one was an almost immediate job offer after praying for help and the other was God telling him in a dream, "I want you to guard the gates of Jerusalem." The Spiegel Online quoted a Cambridge scientist as saying guilt could play a part in Matthias Goering's conversion, but also a desire of an outsider to belong to a "winning group" like the Jews in Israel. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #4 Matthias Goering, whose great-great-uncle was Hermann's great- uncle... Not really much of a relative. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2006-05-17 16:50 |
| #3 interesting kerfuffle going on in the Orthodox world on conversions The Israeli rabbinute is only automatically accepting the conversion documents of about 40-50 American Rabbis (anyone else, including people who converted with several hundred other American orthodox rabbis - including some black hatters, has to either reconvert or persuade the presiding Israeli rabbi). The issue was observance and it was possibly trigger by a big increase in the number of conversions performed by the IDF (from about 50 4 years ago to about 1000 last year). The rabbanut hasn't decided which IDF conversions to automatically accept. A blogging orthodox rabbi who is following this (and who is ticked off about it) is at: http://adderabbi.blogspot.com/ |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-05-17 16:41 |
| #2 There are actually quite a few stories like this, have been for decades. Not so much a desire to join the "winners", as that Cambridge ass suggested (how hard did the reporter have to look to find him, I wonder? And how revealing that he describes Jews and Israel in such terms), as to reject the evil they saw in their relatives and cleave to the Good. And as such families are inveritably described as faithful Churchgoers, Christianity is poisoned for them. They tend to marry and have large families, unlike the majority of Germans and unlike most European Jews, and believe passionately in the necessity of Israel. Like most of the converts to Judaism that I have met, and for some reason the congregation I belong to is chock full of them, they are an asset to the faith they have chosen -- three I know of personally having gone on to become rabbis. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-05-17 12:36 |
| #1 Dang, p. 3 please. My bad. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-05-17 11:29 |