The East European Alexander K. was amazed at the payment demand by the Jewish Community of Hanover. The doctor, who had immigrated from Russia, should pay a tax for membership of the religious community. K. refused to pay. "Why should I pay to an organisation to which I do not belong?"

What Alexander K. didn't know: As a 'Contingent Refugee' he was, like thousands of other Jewish emigrés from the FSU, automatically regstered as a member of one of the 86 Jewish communities in Germany. These have between them, according to the Zentralrat der Juden, currently around 100,000 members - and all are liable to pay the tax.

Whoever has an income pays a so-called Religion tax, similar to the Church tax, 6% of the tax liability. Those on low incomes are nevertheless assessed a payment of 30 Euros by the communities. When people refuse to pay, the Finance Office normally picks up the tab. How much money is paid in this way is therefore impossible to find out, even for the experts of the Federal Office of Statistics or the Association of Taxpayers.

Nevertheless the presumed official number of 100,000 is enough to provide a substantial power base, when it comes to the distribution of State assistance - and these state subsidies currently amount to about 42 Million Euros.

The financial monopoly of the Orthodox is based mainly in the immigrants from the FSU, who already comprise, according to the Zentralrat figures, 60 to 70 % of the membership. In their Russian passports, under the heading 'Nationality', stands the word 'Jew'. That is, for example, enough in Lower Saxony for them to become automatically members of the Jewish communities.

However, the Liberal Jewish communities are now arguing against this definition - these are communities which are not automatically allocated any new immigrants, and which can therefore only field 3,000 members, when it comes to finance. From the 980,000 Euro paid annually for the Jewish communities in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, and which is not allocated specifically, the Liberals see "not a single cent", they say. The number of actual religiously active Jews in the Hansestadt is estimated by the Liberals as being only "a tenth" of the officially-registerd 4,865 members. last year the Reformers submitted a petition to the State Parliament in Kiel to form their own "Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts".

Time presses, because at issue is not just the current financial assistance, which the Federal Republic established by State Treaty in 2003 with the Central Council. In 2007 a review is planned, and relevant then will be "the number of members represented by the Zentralrat".

A clause which was originally to be included and which had been agreed, formally laying down that the Liberal Jews were also to be considered in the distribution of these funds, was cut out of the text by the Chancellor's office - against the protests of the Interior Ministry under Otto Schily.

Officially the Federal Government wants to keep out of the problematic struggle. The 'crisis taslks' in the Chancellor's Office between the Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Interior Minister Schily and Paul Spiegel, President of the Zentralrat, were therefore 'without result' - the Conflict over Distribution is "an internal Jewish matter" said a Government spokesman.

The Orthodox feel themselves strengthened by such official restraint. The Executive Secretary of the Zentralrat, Stephan Kramer, doesn't want to hear any more of the agreement that the Zentralrat will join in 'new discussions' with the Reformers. Following the failure of the Chancellor's mediation efforts, he sees "no specific need". Due to "prior commitments" he does not envisage a meeting with the Liberals soon.

This protective wall of obstinacy and avoidance will hardly be able to last for much longer - the reality looks different, as also the legal situation.

Many of the members upon whom the Zentralrat bases its claims, are, says Jan Mühlstein (54) critically, "just Jews on paper". And Rabbi Walter Homolka, Principal of the Abraham Geiger College for rabbinic training in Berlin, comments even more harshly "Card-carrying corpses".

Indeed, many of the new community members have little interest in the community life. "We expected Jews, and Russians came" said the leader of a Jewish youth organisation. Many speak neither German nor Hebrew - the basic requirements for joining in the services in the Synagogue. In the synagogue in Hanover, only 15% of the approx. 4,000 members take part in the religious life of the community. In Frankfurt services must be cancelled, because the religiously-required minimum of ten persons cannot be gathered.

"Whoever comes from a Jewish mother, is Jewish for life" says Michael Klaus Kune, President of the Jewish community in Hanover, "he cannot ever drop out:"

But neither can he be forcibly recruited, as the 11th. Senate of the Finance Court in Cologne decided back in 2002. It found for a Jewish petitioner from Eastern Europe, that "Jewish origins" alone are not enough grounds for "membership of and payment of 'Jewish Religion Tax' to a Jewish community." In any case, on payment of 25 Euros at the Registry one can formally leave Judaism, just as one can leave the Christian religion.

The threatened split is countered by the Zentralrat with a very subtle response: Further Jewish organisations are simply not necessary, since the Einheitsgemeinden offer place enough for Orthodox, Conservative and even Liberal Jews. For the Zentralrat Executive Member Salomon Korn, the Zentralrat is "a roof, under which there are so many rooms that everyone can feel happy."

And Spiegel claims in ringing tones the Zentralrat's independence in these matters: Neither the German Parliament nor the German Federal Government, neither the judiciary nor an individual Member of Parliament, have anything to do with the issue of what is a Jewish community and how Jewish Pluralism is to be defined".

But here, also, the reality looks different. In Lower Saxony it has already been established that around 10% of the State subsidy has to be passed on to the Liberal communities. The Federal Administrative Court in Halle in 2002 ruled that "ALL Jewish communities are to be considered". Should the Zentralrat resist acting on this with the Federal funds it receives, then Mühlstein will "use all available judicial channels". The Liberals, supported by an Expert Opinion from Axel von Campenhausen, an expert in Church Law, are preparing a legal case in the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

Perhaps, however, a minor aspect of the conflict will prove to be more influential in creating a change of tone. The closer one looks at the finances, the clearer it becomes that the Zentralrat has not exactly dealt cleanly with the money it has received.

Thus, "substantial sums" disappeared after "significant irregularities" (Zentralrat) in the accounts of the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg in the years 1997 to 2000. Around 400,000 Euros were deposited in a 'shadow account' (State Prosecutor). The State Prosecutor in Heidelberg has begun a case against the then Rector, a staff member and Michael Fürst, the President of the Hochschule Board, for Fraud. Taxpayers' money was "illegally misused in order to improve the image of the Hochschule"; It is true that "no personal financial gains" were made, but nevertheless the sponsors of the money were "tricked". Fürst, a lawyer and also a member of the Directorate of the Zentralrat, considers his signature under the falsified receipts to be "a mere formality".