Reform 200: Judaism with a Future

We welcome you to the birthplace of Reform! In historical centres of Reform such as Seesen, Berlin and Hamburg, Milk & Honey Tours in cooperation with the Abraham Geiger College will offer a series of tours in 2010 to celebrate 200 years of Reform Judaism. 2010 marks the 200th year anniversary of the world’s first Reform Temple in Seesen, Germany (in the Harz Mountains, 2 hours south of Berlin). In 1810, Israel Jacobson, built a beautiful temple with an organ—another first. The Jacobson school welcomed children of all creeds. His religious innovations were egalitarian and based on concepts of the Haskalah following such great leaders as Moses Mendelssohn. In 1815, Jacobson moved to Berlin, opening his own house for worship. He worked ceaselessly to promote understanding between Jews and Christians until his death in 1828. He is buried in the Schönhauser Allee cemetery in Berlin.

Abraham Geiger (1810 - 1874), the founding father of the Reform movement called for a Jewish theological department at a German university. This vision was fulfilled in the College for the Science of Judaism (Berlin) which was later headed by Leo Baeck and graduated the world's first female rabbi, Regina Jonas, in 1935. In 1999 the first liberal rabbinical seminary on Continental Europe since the Shoah was opened at the University of Potsdam and is named in honour of this vision: The Abraham Geiger College. The first three graduates were ordained in a historic ceremony in the Dresden synagogue in 2006.