Alina Treiger

Alina Treiger was born and raised in Poltava, Ukraine, in 1979, the daughter of a food technician and a Jewish supermarket worker. Since her father was prevented from studying due to his Jewish faith, he was forced to work in the empties department of a supermarket in Poltava under poor conditions.

In the Soviet Union at that time, religion or rather religiosity was rather frowned upon. Due to widespread anti-Semitism, many people were especially hostile to Judaism. Therefore, there were no Jewish communities in Poltava and the Jews living there kept their identity secret. Despite the circumstances at that time, Alina Treiger perceived her Jewish identity positively. It was only when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 that Jewish communities were re-established in Ukraine. That's how she met other Jewish children and founded a youth club together with them.

In post-Soviet Ukraine, there were many Jewish organizations that brokered ties with Israel. One of them is the Jewish Agency. The goal was to make Jewish people aware of their connection to Israel and to offer some the possibility of a Jewish education. Alina Treiger also took advantage of this offer. Therefore, she took part in a trip to Israel in 1994 and met progressive Jews. Through these contacts, she attended a summer camp in Ukraine. There she received the offer to study Progressive Judaism in Moscow, which she started just two weeks later.

After graduating, she returned to her hometown to establish a progressive Jewish community there. Due to her high profile in Poltava, she received widespread support and succeeded in registering and opening the Jewish community after just one month. She still maintains contact with this first congregation today. After the foundation she received an offer from the Union of Progressive Judaism to study "Rabbinical Studies" in Germany. She followed this offer as well and went to Potsdam two months later without any language skills. At the beginning she had doubts whether she would be able to meet the requirements of the studies and the profession. But she quickly realized that she could combine her personality and her outlook on life with the profession.

Finally, in 2010, she became the first woman in Germany to be ordained as a rabbi after the Shoa s death. While she still had to contend with many prejudices and hostilities as a prospective female rabbi during her studies, she was perceived very positively by the public after ordination.

In November 2010, Alina Treiger took office as rabbi in the Oldenburg and Delmenhorst communities. Although the Oldenburg Jewish Community is small, Treiger describes it as a very active community. In her work as rabbi, she attaches importance to communicating with community members at eye level and rejects authoritarian structures. Furthermore, she particularly enjoys youth work, which is not actually her primary area of responsibility. However, due to the manageable size of the congregation, she also takes on many tasks here and learns, for example, by working with children and young people, teaching them Jewish values. She is always supported in this by other volunteer members of the congregation. This area of work gives her strength for other difficult tasks such as funerals, pastoral care or visiting the sick. Likewise, she takes great pleasure in the church service, where she attaches great importance to quality.

In addition to her profession as a rabbi, Alina Treiger is also the wife of Rabbi Tobias Jona Simon and the mother of two sons. Even if her professional life takes up a lot of her time, and therefore often determines her family life, she still tries to spend a lot of time with her closest relatives and friends*. She also makes an effort to set aside time for cultural activities such as visits to the theater. She likes to enjoy short breaks in her favorite Oldenburg café "Kaffee und Kleid" in Kurwickstraße. There, she particularly likes the cozy atmosphere as well as the homemade cakes.