Rykestrasse Synagogue
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Rykestrasse Synagogue, Germany's largest synagogue, is located in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood in the Pankow borough of Berlin. Johann Hoeniger built the synagogue in 1903/1904. It was inaugurated on 4 September 1904, on time for the holidays of and around Rosh haShana. The synagogue stands off the street alignment and is reached by a thoroughfare in the pertaining front building. The front building served as an elementary school from 1904 on. In 1922 a private School Association opened a Jewish school there.
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[edit] The synagogue during the Nazi Reign
The synagogue was not set on fire during the November Pogrom, then euphemised as "Kristallnacht" (Night of Broken Glass) on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis attacked in well organised pogroms synagogues and Jewish businesses. Since it is located inside of a block of apartment buildings, the Nazis ordered - as in other comparable sites too[1] - a "mere" vandalisation and demolition of furnishings. Rabbis and other male congregants were arrested and brought to Sachsenhausen (concentration camp).
The Jewish community mended the synagogue, one of the few little destroyed ones in Berlin, so that regular Jewish ceremonies could be held until April 1940. Then the Wehrmacht confiscated the building and used it as a warehouse and horse barn. The Jewish school in the front building was forced to close in 1941.
After the liberation of Germany, Jewish displaced persons, who survived the Shoa and had stranded in Berlin, used to live in the front building. On 29 July 1945 Rabbi Martin Riesenburger could celebrate the first Jewish wedding at the synagogue since its confiscation.
[edit] In the Period of GDR
The synagogue, being the sole functioning synagogue in the eastern sector of Berlin, underwent an extensive renovation and Riesenburger re-inaugurated it on 30 August 1953, giving it the name "Temple of Peace" (German: Friedenstempel). But the new naming did not prevail. Further repairs followed in 1957, 1967 and 1978, but funds for houses of worship were in short supply from an atheistic government. After the erection of the Berlin Wall the number of members of the Jewish community in the eastern sector of Berlin amounted to ca. 3,000 persons. By 1990 the community counted a mere 200 members and had no rabbi anymore.
[edit] After Unification
Its interior, which now seats up to 1,074 people, originally sat 2,000. The synagogue was originally a liberal one, with mixed male and female seating, and a choir singing on the sabbath. After more than a year of work to restore its prewar splendor, it was rededicated on August 31, 2007, as a more right wing, Orthodox synagogue, with separate seating and an Orthodox Minyan. The inauguration saw rabbis bringing the Torah to the synagogue, in a ceremony witnessed by political leaders and Holocaust survivors from around the world.
"It is now the most beautiful synagogue in Germany," the cultural affairs director of the Berlin's Jewish community, Peter Sauerbaum, said.
Today, Berlin has the largest Jewish community in Germany, with 12,000 registered members and eight synagogues.
[edit] Visiting the Synagogue
Public tours through the Rykestrasse Synagogue are available on Thursdays between 14:00 and 18:00 and Sundays between 11:00 and 16:00. Tours are offered in German; an English tour starts at 16:00 on Thursdays. Entry is permitted until 17:30 pm and no entry is permitted at any other time.
Services are held on Friday nights and Saturday mornings.
The Synagogue can easily be accessed by public transport through the underground line U2 (stations Senefelderplatz and Eberswalder Strasse) and the tramway line M2 (stations Knaackstrasse and Marienburger Strasse).
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Synagoge Rykestraße |
- In pictures: Germany's biggest synagogue
- Germany's biggest synagogue reopening
- Germany's biggest synagogue reopens as symbol of Jewish rebirth
[edit] Notes
- ^ The synagogue in Berlin's Pestalozzistraße was not set on fire at the November Pogrom due to its location inside a block, the synagogue in Augsburg weathered it, because it neighboured a compound of kerosine tanks, the synagogue in Lübeck, because it stood almost wall to wall to the city's Museum of Art and Culture, etc.
Coordinates: 52°32′07″N 13°25′07″E / 52.53528°N 13.41861°E
