The Chassidic communities you refer to, have they always been there or are they from Chabad-originating kiruv efforts? I think they do predate the global expansion of Chabad, but I don't know.
Chabad made more Lubavitch communities; they don't make, for example, Satmar communities, to give an example that's easily visually distinguished from the Lubavitch.
Yeah, lots of Jews moved to Germany from the FSU, but I think the demographic effects you've noticed are exaggerated because there were so few western European Jews in Germany in the Communist era, for absolutely obvious reasons. I don't know if the absolute numbers who went to Germany are greater than the numbers who made aliyah (a million or so, I think?) and went to the USA.
There's something like 200,000 Soviet Jews in Germany; the numbers are smaller but not insignificant.
Miscellaneous. Eclectic. Random. Perhaps markedly literate, or at least suffering from the compulsion to read any text that presents itself, including cereal boxes.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-13 12:39 pm (UTC)Chabad made more Lubavitch communities; they don't make, for example, Satmar communities, to give an example that's easily visually distinguished from the Lubavitch.
Yeah, lots of Jews moved to Germany from the FSU, but I think the demographic effects you've noticed are exaggerated because there were so few western European Jews in Germany in the Communist era, for absolutely obvious reasons. I don't know if the absolute numbers who went to Germany are greater than the numbers who made aliyah (a million or so, I think?) and went to the USA.
There's something like 200,000 Soviet Jews in Germany; the numbers are smaller but not insignificant.