Germany gets 1st military rabbi in over a century

BERLIN (AP) — The German military has gotten its first rabbi in over a century with the inauguration of Hungarian-born Zsolt Balla at a synagogue in Leipzig. The German government in 2019 approved a proposal by the Central Council of Jews to restore religious counseling for Jews serving in the armed forces. During World War I, many Jews fought for Germany and dozens of rabbis are known to have performed pastoral work in the military. But when Adolf Hitler’s Nazis came to power in 1933, they excluded Jews from all spheres of public life, later murdering millions in the Holocaust. Balla was ordained in 2009.