The Jews Are Back

Yitzchak Mendel Wagner is the first rabbi in Krefeld since the Holocaust. The community’s roots go back to Napoleon’s time he says when the kehillah was founded under the leadership of Rabbi Yehudah Leib Karlburg. For reasons of his own Napoleon wanted to unite all the Jews under his rule and a plan to restore the Sanhedrin was part of his agenda. Rabbi Karlburg was one of those selected for the honor of serving but it was an honor he preferred to do without. He was suffering from a problem with his eye and using that as a pretext he begged to be excused.

After Rabbi Karlburg the next few rabbis were “doktor rabbiners” who took a more modern and integrative approach. Eventually the kehillah shifted over to Reform. So in a sense Rabbi Wagner is the first shtarker rav in Krefeld since Napoleon’s time.

Rabbi Wagner is a tall man with a clear-eyed look and an open youthful expression. His direct manner and disarming frankness are modified by a veneer of typically German reserve. With barely detectable irony he tells the story of how he became the rav of Krefeld beginning with the day he “found a way to learn Torah and get the German government to pay for it.”

Wagner was born in Krefeld and never dreamed of becoming a rabbi there until it happened. In his teenage years he became interested in Judaism and a yearning for Torah began to stir in his soul. He longed to study in Eretz Yisrael but needed a learning program and financial backing. Opportunity came at age 18 when the German government’s social services launched a program sponsoring young volunteers who would work with disabled people in Israel through an umbrella organization called Shekel (Community Services for the Disabled). Wagner was accepted into the program and traveled to Jerusalem. While he found a certain satisfaction in working work with physically and mentally disadvantaged Israelis he felt a stronger pull toward people who could teach him Torah.