New Synagogue (Elmshorn)

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The synagogue at Flamweg 4–6 in Elmshorn , a town in the Pinneberg district in Schleswig-Holstein , has existed since 2012. It is the second synagogue of the Jewish community of Elmshorn, which perished during the Nazi era, and its legal successor, the Jewish community founded in 2003. Of the eight Jewish communities currently in existence in Schleswig-Holstein, Elmshorn is the second smallest.

history

The first Jews probably settled in Elmshorn in the 17th century. The first Jewish community is said to have been founded in Elmshorn in 1688. At first they used a private prayer room. In 1845 the community began building its own synagogue . This was on Flamweg. The inauguration took place on January 21, 1846 by Jakob Ettlinger , the chief rabbi from Altona. In 1838, 204 people of the Jewish faith lived in Elmshorn. They make up a little less than a tenth of the total population. After that, their number steadily decreased. In 1924 there were 100 Jews living in the city, in 1932 there were 80 and in 1933 the community had only 56 members.

Foundation walls of the destroyed synagogue in Elmshorn (1938)

During the Reichspogromnacht , the synagogue was largely destroyed by arson. During the Second World War, its ruin was used as an air raid shelter. The Jewish community no longer existed. In 1940 eight Jews were still living in the city. In 1943 the city announced that it was " free of Jews ".

The former Jewish resident Kobi Oppenheim returned to Elmshorn after the war. There he found the remains of a Torah scroll in the ruins of the synagogue and buried them in the Jewish cemetery according to Halacha . In the years after 1945 the last remains of the synagogue were removed. After that, and even after the end of the war, there was hardly any Jewish life in the region until around 1990. The few Jewish people living in Elmshorn were members of the Hamburg community . Since 2010, a memorial at the site of the destroyed synagogue has been commemorating the house of God and the fate of the Jewish community during the Nazi era .

With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the subsequent immigration of Eastern European Jews to Germany, Jewish life in Elmshorn strengthened again. On November 8, 2003, the church was reorganized. Like many municipalities in the country, 80 to 90 percent of the population is made up of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The city provided them with rooms in a building at Holstenstrasse 19, in which the congregation set up a prayer room in 2006. The lease there expired in 2012. The municipality had therefore been looking for a replacement for a long time and had looked at around 25 properties.

Finally, she was able to rent rooms in the bel étage of a house from 1890 at Flamweg 4–6, diagonally across from the synagogue that was destroyed in 1938. This apartment was inhabited by Jews almost continuously until 1941. One room was probably used as a prayer room by the former residents. This is indicated by the arrangement of the ceiling and ornaments such as the Star of David and the lion's head in an east-facing bay window, which were discovered during the tour. The community set up the synagogue in the historic prayer room. The bay window serves as a niche for the Torah shrine ( Aron ha-Qodesch ). The benches were donated by the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Torah cabinet is a gift from a Viennese community. The pictures with Hanukkah lights on the walls were painted in an Elmshorn workshop for the disabled. In the other rooms of the apartment, the community set up a kitchen, a room for the cantor, an office with a classroom and a kiddush room. This is used, among other things, for the Sabbath celebration on Friday evening. After the renovation and expansion, the community inaugurated the synagogue in the presence of the Schleswig-Holstein state rabbi Walter Rothschild on October 28, 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Daniel Kummetz: New Synagogue in Elmshorn: Return for a time . In: The daily newspaper: taz . December 3, 2012, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed February 20, 2020]).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f The city of Elmshorn has a synagogue again - Pinneberg - Hamburger Abendblatt. April 8, 2016, accessed February 20, 2020 .
  3. ^ The synagogue in Elmshorn (Pinneberg district). Retrieved February 20, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Heike Linde-Lembke: A synagogue for Elmshorn. October 16, 2012, accessed February 20, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Heike Linde-Lembke: A synagogue for Elmshorn. October 16, 2012, accessed February 20, 2020 .

Web links

Commons : Synagoge (Elmshorn)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 45 ′ 12.1 ″  N , 9 ° 39 ′ 0.9 ″  E