By COLlive reporter
When asked, Rabbi Schneur Trebnik can’t fully describe his new role as a chaplain for the police department of Baden-Württemberg, a state in southwest Germany bordering France and Switzerland.
“We need to see for ourselves how this works out,” the Chabad Shliach told local media outlet SWR this week upon the announcement of his appointment.
So far, he was told that his tasks range from pastoral care to information in the framework of police training to interfaith and intercultural conversations.
But his joining the police force – the first in the country to do so – is already being lauded as a positive step in combatting a growing number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany.
“We are setting another exclamation mark for more tolerance and pluralism,” says Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU).
The appointment is an expression of trust and appreciation between the country and the Jewish communities, according to the Israelite religious community of Württemberg.
Rabbi Trebnik considers his new role as police rabbi to be timely. Especially nowadays, the police have to deal with anti-Semitism and security issues in the Jewish communities. It is important to speak to Jewish citizens as well.
The officials are supposed to be role models in anti-Semitism prevention.
In recent months, for example, internal police chat groups in Baden-Württemberg made headlines in which right-wing extremist statements and images were shared.
“I think that was one of the incentives why there will be a police rabbi in Baden-Württemberg to avoid something like that,” says Rabbi Trebnik. “He wanted to tackle things in advance and not wait until it becomes a burning issue.”
VIDEO:
Dovid Efune of the Algemeiner speaks about growing Anti-Semitism in Germany
Thanks
This is an amazing step in fighting Antisemitism. Nobody understands it better than our very own who have the full comprehension of what it means to be a Jew and look like a Jew. When I was the only frum Jew (and maybe a handful of other Jews) present at President Obama’s CVE summit in the White House, I heard chilling testimony about what goes on in Germany. May you be a gutte shaliach for Klal Yisroel.