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In what some are calling more proof of the revival of Jewish life in Germany, Shlomo Afanasev and Moshe Baumel of the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin were ordained this week at the historic synagogue of Leipzig.

They are the second batch of rabbis trained at the school, a program of the U.S.-based Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. The first ordination was held in June 2009 in Munich.

Asanev was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he studied financial management and accounting. He will be working for the Jewish communities in the German state of Brandenburg.

Baumel’s family immigrated to Germany from Lithuania in 1991. He will be rabbi and director of Jewish studies at the Zwi-Peres-Chajes School of the Jewish Community of Vienna. In addition to pursuing ordination, Baumel has studied art history and antiquities.

The seminary describes itself as a successor to the institution founded by Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer in 1873 in Berlin and shut down by the Nazis in 1938. — jta