While we feel that there is overwhelming importance in recognizing Hebrew as essential to prayer and text, we are committed to including prayer in a language that we understand better, just as many of the rabbis of the past advocated. For this reason, some of our prayers and text passages are spoken in German. At the same time, we hope and expect that our members will acquire enough knowledge of Hebrew to be able to understand prayers and texts in their original language.

We reject the notion of defining a level of religious observance, which could be considered as right or wrong. We believe that this is an issue of one's personal conscience. But, we do believe that one should be familiar with the traditions in order to make an informed personal choice on matters of observance.

We concur with the great majority of members of the Progressive movement in Europe in recognizing the tradition of according formal Jewish status to those people whose mothers have formal Jewish status. All others must undergo conversion carried out by a Bet Din (a Jewish rabbinical court) before they can become members of the Congregation with full religious rights. However, we have experienced cases in which this prerequisite is not fulfilled. In cases where the background of a person's religious engagement and their family traditions have led to a very clear Jewish identity, the conversion process takes on the character of a formal acknowledgement of their identities and acts as a correction between rules and reality.

For practical reasons mainly, our congregation has a two-sided view of conversion. In principle, the congregation would like to be open to those who wish to convert and join the Jewish people, rejecting the negative attitude, which the traditional Jewish community has displayed towards conversion in the past. On the other hand, our congregation is still very small and many of our members are still finding their own ways in learning about the traditions and beliefs of their ancestors.

We are concerned that we might become overwhelmed, if we were to open our congregation to too many people who themselves are searching. For this reason, the Congregation has made it a practice not to be too open to conversion candidates, until we ourselves become more strong and secure.

We, the Congregation Gescher LaMassoret, of course do not know what the future holds for us. But the steps that we have taken so far, with the help of God are signs of hope that there is a future for us in Cologne. With the consecration of the cemetery, we have taken on the responsibility of guaranteeing our commitment to those who are buried there.

What our future will look like may not be clear, but that we have a future is no longer a question.