Berlin the centre of Jewish life in Germany

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1 Berlin the centre of Jewish life in Germany Jewish history and memorials in Berlin Berlin, May 2016 The history of Germany s capital city is closely linked to that of its Jewish community, which has existed since Berlin, which was home to more than 160,000 Jews before 1933, is once again regarded as the centre of Jewish life in Germany, but no other city is as closely associated with the crimes committed against the Jewish people. There are many places of interest in the city that reflect this chequered history: places which remind us of how a flourishing Jewish community was destroyed, such as the memorials at the House of the Wannsee Conference, Platform 17 at Grunewald station and Große Hamburger Straße, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe at the Brandenburg Gate and the Topography of Terror exhibition, as well as manifestations of active Jewish life both past and present. The Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin Centrum Judaicum in Oranienburger Straße, more than ten synagogues, including those on Rykestraße, Pestalozzistraße and Fraenkelufer, the Jewish cemeteries in Mitte, Weißensee and Charlottenburg, the community centre on Fasanenstraße, the schools, the Jewish Museum Berlin in Lindenstraße in Kreuzberg, the Israeli embassy in Wilmersdorf and the Touro College Berlin are just a few examples. The renaissance of Jewish life in Berlin Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many different cultural events, exhibitions, symposia and lectures, along with the establishment of memorials and the work of the Jewish community, laid the groundwork for a revival of Jewish life in Berlin. One of the pioneers and initiators of dialogue between Germans of Jewish and non- Jewish heritage was Heinz Galinski, who was chairman of the Jewish congregation in Berlin from 1949 to The opening of the Topography of Terror museum in 1987, the Days of Jewish Culture, the dedication of the memorial at the House of the Wannsee Conference and the Jüdische Lebenswelten exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau aroused worldwide interest. On Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg, the first Stolperstein pavement memorials were laid in 1996 in memory of the deported residents. A hidden existence in the east of the city Compared to West Berlin, Jewish life in the eastern part of the city developed relatively inconspicuously. In 1953 the congregations in the east and west were officially separated. The Scheunenviertel and Spandauer Vorstadt were neglected for decades by the East German authorities. Places of Jewish heritage were deliberately left to decay. By 1990 the congregation had fallen below 200 members. In 1988, in the final months of the Honecker regime, restoration of the Central Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße presse@ press. blog.

2 began and the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin Centrum Judaicum was founded. Just around the corner, the Orthodox congregation Adass Jisroel was established. Jewish Berlin today The Spandauer Vorstadt a melting pot in the middle of town Today, the Spandauer Vorstadt is one of the centres of Jewish life in Berlin, and a good place to start for anyone interested in Jewish Berlin. As well as restaurants and cafés, the Anne Frank Centre opened on Rosenthaler Straße in The centre is a partner organisation of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and is committed to working with young people. A Jewish gallery and the Beth-Café of the Adass Jisroel Orthodox congregation have restored some of the area s original character. Centrum Judaicum / New Synagogue The area is dominated by the New Synagogue s golden dome, which was restored in The synagogue, which was built in the Moorish style and inaugurated in 1866, survived the November pogroms of 1938 without serious harm thanks to the courage of local police, but was severely damaged in an air raid in With 3200 seats, it was the biggest synagogue in Germany. Partial restoration began in 1988, and the synagogue opened in May 1995 as the Centrum Judaicum museum and event venue. On Große Hamburger Straße there is a memorial stone to Berlin s murdered Jews. The first Jewish old people s home, which opened here in 1828, had been turned by the Nazis into a holding camp for Jewish inhabitants of Berlin. Next to it is the site of the city s oldest Jewish cemetery, which was opened in the mid-17th century and destroyed by the Gestapo. Today, a symbolic gravestone for Moses Mendelssohn acts as a memorial to the cemetery. The Jewish High School has been teaching pupils directly nearby since The Jewish Museum Berlin The foundation stone for Daniel Libeskind s metal-clad building was laid in November 1992, and it was finished in The diaspora is the inspiration for Libeskind s design: a zigzag layout based on the Star of David crosses the main building and also symbolises the void created by the expulsion and murder of the Jews in Europe. The permanent exhibition gives an overview of past and present German-Jewish history. With around 720,000 visitors a year, the Jewish Museum is one of the most popular museums in Berlin. The organisers originally expected 300,000 visitors annually. The Liebermann Villa at Wannsee In the villa at Lake Wannsee, the summer residence of the honorary Berlin citizen and impressionist painter Max Liebermann, the exhibition has information on the history of the house and the family on the ground floor. On the upper floor there are garden presse@ press. blog.

3 paintings, pastels and drawings by Liebermann. The artist produced more than 400 paintings, pastels and drawings in the garden of the villa a significant part of his later work. Weißensee Cemetery The 42-hectare cemetery of the Jewish congregation was dedicated on 9 September 1880, along with its imposing buildings and architecturally remarkable mourning hall. With more than 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe and an exceptional cultural and historical monument. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Political parties spent several years discussing the establishment of a central memorial site for the victims of National Socialism in the former ministerial gardens close to the Brandenburg Gate. Finally, a jury led by former chancellor Helmut Kohl chose the design by the American Peter Eisenmann. On the 19,000 square metre site, 2711 concrete slabs of differing height, each 2.38 metres wide and 95 centimetres deep, merge to give the impression of a single field. The initiators of the memorial, the journalist Lea Rosh and the historian Eberhard Jäckel, persuaded the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem to release for the first time the 3.2 million names held there to be used for the memorial in Berlin. The names and short biographies of Jewish victims of the Holocaust are continually read out loud in the Room of Names, located underground in the Place of Information. Topography of Terror The Topography of Terror memorial is one of Berlin s most important places of remembrance, because it is located right at the centre of the city, where it recalls the entirety of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime. It was established in the mideighties as a project for facing up to Germany s Nazi past. The uncovered basement walls of the former Gestapo headquarters on what is now Niederkirchnerstraße hold the permanent open air exhibition entitled Berlin Between Propaganda and Terror. Rykestraße Synagogue Germany s largest synagogue was officially rededicated after three years building work when the Torah scrolls were brought in on 31 August The synagogue was built in 1904 on Rykestraße in Prenzlauer Berg, and escaped destruction during Kristallnacht in 1938 because the Nazis did not want to damage the houses around it. From 1953 onwards it served as a prayer room for Jews in East Berlin. Extensive renovation has returned the synagogue to its former glory, restoring it as faithfully as possible to the original. Large stained-glass windows and magnificent ornamentation decorate the Neo- presse@ press. blog.

4 Romanesque interior, where there is space for up to 2000 people at prayers and events. Pestalozzistraße Synagogue This synagogue was built in a courtyard on Pestalozzistraße in 1911/12 with space for 1400 worshippers, and was severely damaged in November It too has been restored in recent years and was reopened with a ceremony in Every autumn it hosts the Louis Lewandowski Festival for synagogal music, named after the reformer of the Jewish liturgy, whose works can be heard in their original form only on every Shabbat and holiday at the Pestalozzistraße Synagogue. Berlin and Potsdam Jewish Film Festival The two-week festival presents films about Jewish life in Germany and around the world. Established in 1995, it is one of the oldest events of its kind in Europe. Chabad Jewish Educational and Family Centre The first privately financed Jewish cultural centre in Berlin, the centre run by the Orthodox organisation Chabad-Lubavitch offers among other things a library and a kosher restaurant. The organisation, which is active worldwide, opened the centre on Münstersche Straße in 2007 and has since set up several branches, as well as a kindergarten and a school. Literaturhandlung Jewish literature in Berlin This Jewish bookshop on Joachimsthaler Straße offers a wide range of dedicated literature: it includes books on Judaism, works by Jewish authors, CDs and audio books, greeting cards and even antiques and ritual items. It also regularly hosts events such as readings. The Israeli embassy Israel regards the embassy building in Wilmersdorf, designed by the architect Orit Willenberg-Giladi, as its most important and architecturally impressive representation around the world. Important Jewish institutions in Berlin The American Jewish Committee The office of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in the Mosse-Palais on Leipziger Platz overlooks the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag exactly where east meets west, between an old East German sentry tower and the remains of Hitler s bunker. The office of the AJC, which was founded in 1906 and was the first to be established outside the United States. Touro College in Berlin In October 2003, the Touro College, which was founded in New York in 1970, began teaching at its subsidiary institution the Touro College Berlin. The Haus am Rupenhorn, presse@ press. blog.

5 home of the Touro College Berlin, is a building complex on the outskirts of Charlottenburg. The remarkable story of the building also reflects the fate of Berlin s Jews. Built by Jewish Berliners in the Weimar Republic, from 1935 to 1941 it was the residence of Hanns Kerrl, Hitler s minister of Church Affairs. After the war, the house was taken over by Berlin s Department for Youth. For half a century the villa was a place for developing methods for working with young people and promoting international meetings. As well as degrees in Economics and Psychology, the Touro College also offers Master s courses in Holocaust Studies. touroberlin.com Rabbinical seminaries Founded on 17 August 1999, the Abraham Geiger College was the first rabbinical seminary to be set up in central Europe since the Shoah. The institution is supported by public and private funds and its purpose is to train liberal rabbis and cantors for Jewish congregations in central and eastern Europe. Together with the Zacharias Frankel College (Masorti/conservative) and the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary (orthodox), Berlin now has three rabbinical colleges. Restaurants and shops Berlin now has a small selection of kosher shops and restaurants. Café Bleibergs on Nürnberger Straße is regarded as an institution, where you are sure to meet members of the community and find out what s new. As well as this, many Israelis have settled in Berlin and run both small and large restaurants and snack bars, hummus bars and luxury restaurants. One incomparable place with a flair, which is as reminiscent of Tel Aviv as it is of the Naschmarkt in Vienna, is the restaurant Neni including one of the finest rooftop terraces in Berlin and a spectacular view of the zoo. In Prenzlauer Berg, an Israeli and a Palestinian got together and opened the restaurant Kanaan on Kopenhagener Straße, where they offer a wide range of kosher dishes. Kanaan is open at lunchtimes from Monday to Friday and at weekends in the evening too. In 1993 the restaurant Hummus & Friends was opened in Jerusalem s Old City and has since become a franchise, including a branch in Berlin. The dishes are home-made, vegetarian and kosher, and based on chickpeas from the Galilee region. The restaurant on Oranienburger Straße is a convivial place where you eat with your hands. hummusand-friends.com Close by Germany s largest synagogue on Rykestraße is the restaurant Pasternak, which offers Russian and Jewish dishes, where the food and drink are accompanied by piano music in the evenings. restaurant-pasternak.de For more information go to visitberlin.com ( characters) presse@ press. blog.