Studying with a scholarship: Finding out what it means to be Jewish

A A-levels can help, but other qualities often count: Anyone aiming for a scholarship should take a close look at the profiles of the various funding organizations.

In this series we present scholarship holders from various foundations.

When the lecture period is over, the university libraries are full of stressed students.

They go through textbooks until they can recite the material by heart.

Subjects such as law require a particularly high level of discipline, and every lost study day has to be made up for.

Michael Ackermann knows this all too well.

The student has now passed all the exam phases of his studies at the University of Frankfurt and is preparing for his state exam in winter.

The Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (ELES) has been supporting him with a scholarship since the second semester.

The Studienwerk supports around 339 particularly talented and committed Jewish students and doctoral candidates and, in exceptional cases, those whose research deals with Jewish topics.

ELES is one of the denominational foundations, just like the Cusanuswerk, Villigst and Avicenna.

All four are characterized not only by ideal support but also by spiritual offerings.

There is something special in everyone

In line with the exam phase, the conversation with Ackermann takes place in a library on the Westend campus.

He smiles as he surveys the students spread out on the withered lawns this late afternoon.

“All lawyers.” The fact that the twenty-three-year-old is now studying for his state exam has to do with the pandemic.

And with the support of ELES.

Shortly before graduating from high school in 2017, Ackermann applied for the scholarship for the first time and was rejected.

"I was still too much of a child in my head," he says today.

At the time, he was unable to understand the privilege of being a scholarship holder.

He had the commitment required for an application as a former student representative and board member of the district and state student representation and as a co-founder of the youth forum in his hometown.

After a second attempt, ELES Ackermann started in April 2018.

By this time he had completed his first semester at university.

"It was difficult for me to start my studies," the student recalls.

Ackermann was diagnosed with ADHD as a child.

Creating a fixed structure like in school, especially in his department, which requires a lot of concentration and self-discipline, presented him with major hurdles.

"Of course, the problems are not just limited to that, but there are even more difficulties, including health problems." For fear of stigmatization and of "disqualifying himself in a certain way", he kept his situation secret from the Studienwerk for a long time.

An unfounded concern, as it eventually turned out.

"I think that's something that a lot of people don't really realize: how much the Studienwerke actually help you," says Ackermann.

Shared history connects

Due to the lockdowns during the pandemic and the associated calm, he managed to catch up on many exams.

"It gave me a lot of strength to know that those at ELES believe in me, and it's okay if I have problems." Ultimately, the Studienwerk not only accepts people with perfect grades, but those who have see it as something special.

Maybe even something they couldn't see for themselves at the time.

This special feature includes different points of view, origins and religious currents within the scholarship holders.

ELES writes in its mission statement that its scholarship holders should get to know and experience all facets of a plural, self-confident and inclusive Judaism.

By dealing with religious and secular issues, they could develop their own positions and carry them into the Jewish communities and society.

"Being a Jew also means belonging to a group, a people," says Ackermann.

"The common traditions, the common history form the bond that connects the Jews with each other beyond religion." He himself is one of many of the scholarship holders whose biography cannot be pigeonholed.

The son of Soviet quota refugees, he was born in Germany, grew up in the Offenbach district and speaks Russian as his second native language.

His grandfather spent his childhood in a shtetl in Eastern Europe.

He was very religious, says Ackermann.

He learned a lot about Jewish traditions from him.

His parents, on the other hand, had no close connection to religion because of the laws in the USSR, which largely prohibited the practice of religion.

As a teenager he attended religious school in the synagogue.

In elementary school, he went to one of the holiday camps of the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany for the first time.

"These experiences shaped me a lot in terms of what being Jewish means to me," says Ackermann.

He always felt somehow torn between the different parts of his identity.

Was he German or Jew?

And where did the Soviet part of his origins fit in?

Only a year abroad during school brought him a kind of peace of mind.

"During this time I got clarity for myself: I don't have to decide against any part of myself, they all belong together and are not a contradiction in terms." Being Jewish in particular is an important part of him that he wants to cultivate.

Also through the support of ELES and the people he gets to know there.

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