TORONTO — Rabbi Erwin Schild has been a regular visitor to Germany for the past 27 years, speaking to Christian groups about Jewish theology and his personal history following an initial invitation in 1982.
Rev. Regina Doffing and Rabbi Erwin Schild [Frances Kraft photo]
Last month, Rev. Regina Doffing, a Protestant minister from Cologne-Junkersdorf, travelled to Toronto for the launch of the rabbi’s third book, And Miles to go Before I Sleep, which follows a 1992 collection of sermons and a 2001 memoir.
Rev. Doffing has heard the 89-year-old rabbi emeritus of Adath Israel Congregation lecture at her church several times since she first heard him in 1988.
Rabbi Schild’s new book – a compilation of sermons, eulogies and other writings – includes two sermons he gave as a “Sermon to the City” in Cologne, where he was born 89 years ago. In one, the rabbi, who was imprisoned briefly in Dachau in 1938, refers to himself as a “peculiar amalgam, a Canadian rabbi who was born here in Germany, who was banished, his parents, kin and friends murdered, yet he seeks understanding, not retribution, dialogue, not hate.”
The 334-page book, published by Adath Israel in co-operation with publisher Malcolm Lester, includes reflections on life, God, aging, prayer and Jewish history, as well as an index of subjects at the back of the book. A brief postscript describes the added perspective the rabbi gained after a fall on the ice last winter and his subsequent recovery from a broken hip and shoulder.
Rev. Doffing – the 51-year-old spiritual leader of Cologne’s Dietrich Bonhöfer Church, a 2,600-member congregation – recalls being inspired by one of the rabbi’s talks in particular, when he spoke for about 20 minutes without consulting any notes. After that, she said, “I always wanted to preach like him.”
The reverend, like Rabbi Schild, is German-born, and shares his interest in interfaith dialogue, for which he has received the Order of Canada and a similar honour from the German government.
Following Rev. Doffing’s university studies in Talmud, midrash, history, literature, and theology in Bonn and later Heidelberg and Berlin, she requested placement in a church where Jewish-Christian dialogue “wasn’t unknown,” she said.
Recently, she has started to become involved in Muslim-Christian interfaith efforts as well. “We have a lot to do,” she said, referring in part to the issue of Holocaust denial within the Muslim community.
In addition to her studies in Germany, she also took courses at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the early 1980s. With a background in biblical Hebrew, she studied in Hebrew following a six-week ulpan.
The reverend has always tried to teach her congregation that Judaism and Christianity share common roots and common ground, she said. It’s not uncommon, she added, for German Christians to believe that references to “Israel” in their psalms refer to the church, not to a people that still exists.
She said there is anti-Semitism in Germany, but ignorance is much more common.
On the other hand, noted Rabbi Schild, Jewish stereotypes still exist in Germany. If he were walking with the Chabad rabbi who is based in Cologne, local passersby would probably think they were seeing a Jew and a non-Jew, he said.
Rev. Doffing traces her interest in Judaism to a minister in her home congregation, about an hour outside of Frankfurt, who taught her when she was about 16 that Jesus was a Jew.
Her father, who owned a roofing company, accepted her interests, as did her mother, who objected to the Israel study component only out of fear for her safety when Israel invaded Lebanon, the reverend recalls.
She has been back to Israel twice, and plans to take a group of congregants there next year.
Because of Cologne’s Jewish population of about 5,000 people – including many from the former Soviet Union – and its few, small congregations, there is little in the way of Jewish life to share, Rev. Doffing said. Even in Berlin, with a larger Jewish community and more – although still limited – access to kosher food, “you won’t find a [large] synagogue like [Adath Israel].”
Her congregation was “really lucky to have [Rabbi Schild] in our community,” she said, adding that his visits have provided opportunities for learning and discussion.
