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Meeting A Young Jew
Who Has Chutzpah
RUTH ROVNER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHOTO BY RUTH ROVNER
H
e's a third year student at
the University of Frank-
furt, and like most college
students, Filipp Gold-
scheider carries a bookbag
bulging with college texts.
But he has something else in
his bookbag that's not related to
his studies, although it's been as
much a challenge as any college
assignment.
It's a 35 page magazine called
Chuzpe (the German spelling for
the familiar word meaning gut-
sy). It's an appropriate title for
this feisty new publication — and
also for a small group of Jews in
Frankfurt who had the cutzpah
to start a new magazine geared
to the interests of young Jews in
Germany.
Mr. Goldscheider tells me all
about it as we sit having coffee in
a cafe near the Main River and
Old Frankfurt. Even though I
will do no sightseeing this morn-
ing, the chance to get acquainted
with this committed young Jew
living in Germany is travel ad-
venture which is just as valuable.
"Our aim is to get young peo-
ple interested in Judaism," says
Mr. Goldscheider, 24, one of the
founders of Chuzpe who also has
written some of the major arti-
cles. "Many young Jews in ger-
many don't care about Jewish
life. We wanted to reach them in
a style that would be appealing
and with topics that would be
current and interesting."
That's why the lead story in
the current issue is titled, simply,
"Sex." Written by Mr. Goldschei-
der, it gives a Jewish perspective
on the topic: He even includes ref-
erences to rabbinic literature and
chasidic concepts.
Then, too, there's an article
about drugs, also with Jewish fo-
cus. (A sidebar is titled "Mari-
juana, the Jewish Alcohol"). "It
covers drugs in general aid how
it affects young people," says Mr.
Goldscheider.
The other articles run a wide
gamut. There's an interview with
Henry Faktor, a successful
Frankfurt businessman, who dis-
cusses careers for students; an-
other with Rabbi Menahchem
Klein, the Israeli rabbi who is
now a rabbi in Frankfurt; a book
review of Shabbat Shalom by
Swiss author Pinchas Peli; and
articles about student life in Is-
rael and the effort to organize a
liberal Jewish community in
Frankfurt.
To put all this together, the
Chuzpe staf— a grand total of six
volunteers — work virtually
round the clock before each issue
Filipp Goldscheider
of the quarterly is in print.
They've put out three issues so
far, and are already talking about
expanding to a 40 page magazine.
"We do everything ourselves,"
says Mr. Goldscheider. That in-
cludes writing the articles, get-
ting ads, doing the layout,
checking with the printer.
Once it's ready, Chuzpe is dis-
tributed to members of the Jew-
ish students Union in Frankfurt,
and it's also available for sale (for
a modest 2 Deutschmarks) at the
Jewish Community Center. It's
also passed around informally
from one friend to another.
The interest is strong because
this is a unique publication in
Germany. Although students
publish a newsletter in Berlin,
Chuzpe is the only full-scale mag-
azine for young Jews in Ger-
many.
Now in its third issue, it's
reaching an increasing number
of readers. And its supporters in-
clude Jews and non-Jews. Sev-
eral full page ads in the current
issue were bought by non-Jewish
businesses, including one pur-
chased by Walter Steiger, owner
of an exclusive men's shoe store,
who took the ad mainly to sup-
port Chuzpe.
"He knows that students aren't
able to buy those shoes," says Mr.
Goldscheider, who also notes that
50 percent of the ads now come
from non-Jewish businesses.
The mail that Mr. Goldschei-
der receives also shows the wide-
ranging interest in Chuzpe. He's
just picked up a new batch of
mail, and the letters are from all
over Germany. For instance, he
opens a letter from the Jewish
community in Aachen, which is
in northern Germany.
CHUTZPAH page 166