Germans must be the biggest suckers in Europe. Say what you like about Scientologists and sun worshippers- at least they dont hve their snouts in the public trough

Actually, the Church of Scientology is tax-exempt in the United States and several other countries. So you're mistaken if you think "they don't have their snouts in the public trough" like just about every other organized religion.

The article is badly researched. Of course the German Government collects KirchenSteuer (religous tax) from Jews. Everyone gets a tax card, and Catholics pay the Catholic Kirchensteuer, Protestants the Evangelische Kirchensteuer, and Jews (at least those registered with their communities) pay the Jüdische Kirchensteuer. This has been around for more than a century. This way, your employer and your bank (capital income is also subject to Kirchensteuer) know about your affiliation. The main difference is to Muslims - Muslims do not pay a Kirchensteuer, Jews do. The only point is that

just need to figure out why they are not getting the same funding like the other Jewish organization.

German government brought in those approx 100,000 Jews on the expectation that at some point they will start earning serious money and generate good tax returns. Also, long term they want to encourage them to intermarry, and be less fussy about Jewish customs, holidays and so. Hence the support for the liberals rather than the orthodox stream

Germany collects the 'Kirchensteuer' (religious tax) only on behalf of the religious communities and doesn't keep the money for itself (only a bit). Furthermore the religious communities can decide by themselves wether they want their members to be taxed or not. Last but not least, only religions with a special status, so called "corporations under public law" are allowed to let their members be taxed. Christianity and Judaism have this special status, but Islam not. Muslims don't pay a religious tax because Islam is (from a juristical point of view) on a lower level.

Frank I think every country that allows people into it's boarders expects them to become productive citizens. As for intermarriage that is an issue in diaspora for Jews throughout our history, that's why it's Germany and not Israel. It's a problem for world Jewry, but it's our problem and we can't hold someone else responsible because Jews are deciding to marry non-Jews, that's just stupid. If a Jew marries someone who's not Jewish that's their choice and we as a community failed that person, we can't afford that, but you can't seriously blame the German government for it even if they are encouraging it, after all it's their country and they are doing what's best for them.

Fluffi, I didn't mean to imply that German government taxes Jews extra and then uses the proceeds for general expenditure to its non-Jewish citizens. What I wanted to make clear is that the article saying "the Government does not collect taxes from the Jews" is completely wrong. It does, and quite substantially. One can of course say that the Goverment grant income of Jewish communities is higher than tax income. However, a substantial part of community expenditure goes into security, to protect communities from deadly attacks originating with German and/or Muslim sources. The extent of the problem is considerably larger than in other European countries like UK or France. There is also substantial expenditure associated with the resettlement of Russian Jews. In the final analysis, one could argue that this is partial compensation for the confiscation of Jewish property between 1933-1945.