Hornburg synagogue
The Hornburg Synagogue was a baroque state synagogue in Hornburg that was inaugurated in 1766 . The interior has been preserved and is shown in the Jewish Museum of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum in the historical buildings behind Aegidien.
history
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The relatively poor Jewish community in Hornburg, which had existed since the middle of the 17th century, celebrated its services in private rooms before it was able to build its own synagogue. For this purpose, the dilapidated Behrensche house near the Dammtor was acquired in 1766 and converted. The synagogue was built in the back yard, the front building was used as a mikveh , school and teacher's apartment.
From 1882 the Hornburg congregation was too small to provide a minyan for worship. There was also a lack of funds to maintain the building, which fell into disrepair in the following years. Individual items from the synagogue inventory were sold to interested parties during this period. Even before the beginning of World War I, the first director of the Fatherland Museum, Karl Steinacker , tried to move the interior of the Hornburg synagogue to Braunschweig. When he found out about the planned demolition in 1922, Steinacker managed to postpone it until 1924. In a joint rescue operation by the Jewish community in Braunschweig , the Fatherland Museum in Braunschweig and the Technical University of Braunschweig, and with diverse support from individuals, including Ephraim Moses Lilien , the interior of the synagogue was transferred to Braunschweig.
Since 1924 the interior of the Hornburg synagogue, together with a Judaica collection, has been part of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum. Even in the years of the Nazi dictatorship it remained accessible almost until the end of the war, but reinterpreted in the sense of the anti-Semitic worldview as a “foreign body in German culture;” it was planned to include it in a “permanent exhibition of Jews” in the future.
The synagogue facility was damaged by the effects of the war and temporarily stored; the decades in which it remained in the magazine caused considerable further damage, in particular the ceiling painting was lost, except for the dome. After the end of the war, more than 40 years passed before the Hornburg Synagogue was presented to the public again in 1987 in a new museum concept. It is the only preserved historical interior of a synagogue in northern Germany.
architecture
The synagogue was located in the back yard of an older half-timbered building in the Renaissance style, which housed other facilities of the synagogue community. The Behrensche house was converted into a square half-timbered house with a mansard roof in baroque style in three years. The architectural model was the orthodox synagogue in Halberstadt , built in 1711. It also had an almost square main room, to which a small vestibule was added to the west as an entrance area. From here a staircase led to the barred women's gallery . The ground floor with the bima and Torah shrine was reserved for men.
The interior had a wooden mirror vault . The location of the bima was highlighted by a small dome. This was painted with a starry sky. The further painting of the ceiling showed cult objects from Israel's history: the Mishkan (west side, above the women's gallery), the Ark of the Covenant (east side, above the Torah shrine), the menorah and the showbread table .
The elongated, eaves front building at Dammstrasse 20 is a two-story half-timbered house. It was built as a pastorate as early as 1569. The Jewish community used the building from 1763 to 1810.
Interior decoration
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The wooden Torah shrine on the east wall is decorated with baroque carvings. In the middle is the actual, two-door shrine for the Torah scrolls , which is flanked by two columns ( jachin and boas ) with fruit and flower ornaments. At the top, two tablets of the law form the top of the shrine. The stairs that lead up to the Torah shrine have broad cheeks with metal pins on both sides. Here, parishioners could put on year-round lights to commemorate their deceased.
In the center of the room, under the painted dome, is the octagonal bima , which can be entered from the north and south sides. Several baroque chandeliers hang from the ceiling.
Two wooden prayer boards are hung on the side walls at the height of the gallery, one with the Hebrew prayer "al hakol", the other, in German and Hebrew, with the king's prayer for "Fridericus Rex."
The male parishioners sat on the benches set along the outer walls; the seats are separated from each other by armrests. There are also movable desks in different shapes that were used to hold books.
The inventory taken over from Hornburg in 1924 still included: a matzo box , a Hanukkah chandelier and two wooden floor lamps.
Furniture from Gandersheim
For the museum presentation of the Hornburg synagogue, the Vaterländisches Museum received a number of objects from the Gandersheim community from the Braunschweig Jewish community in 1924. She had celebrated her service in private rooms since the 1770s, but in 1911 she joined the Seesen synagogue community. The inventory of the Gandersheim prayer room that was no longer required was taken over by the Brunswick community; the ensemble comprised:
- three parochetim for the Torah shrine
- four torah cloaks
- a desk top and a (new) desk
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Derda : Evidence of History: The Hornburg Synagogue (Jewish History in the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum), undated
- Wulf Otte: The Hornburg Synagogue. On the ideologization of a museum object in the time of National Socialism ( PDF )
- Jens Hoppe: Jewish history and culture in museums. On the non-Jewish museology of the Jewish in Germany, Waxmann, Münster et al. 2002, pp. 91–111.
- Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum: Jewish Museum in the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum ( PDF )
Web links
- Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum: Interior of the Hornburg synagogue
- Atlas of the history of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area: Hornburg (Lower Saxony)