Germany's largest synagogue reopens in central Berlin

Aug 31, 2007, 8:29 GMT

Berlin - Germany's largest synagogue reopened in Berlin Friday after being restored to its original glory over the past year at a cost of some 5 million euros (7 million dollars).

The Ryke Street synagogue in central Berlin suffered serious damage in the 1938 pogrom called the Night of Broken Glass, but was not burned down, apparently because the Nazis feared causing damage to the surrounding buildings.

Built in 1904 in the neo-romanesque style, the synagogue was home primarily to Berlin's orthodox Jews, even though most Jews at that time in the German capital belonged to reform synagogues.

Wrecked during the pogrom of November 9, 1938, and its congregation largely shipped to concentration camps, the building was put to other than religious purposes.

When Berlin was divided after World War II, the synagogue was in the eastern, Russian sector of the city, which later became the capital of communist East Germany.

After the end of the war in 1945, Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in eastern Europe were for a time housed there, and the synagogue was later home to the East Berlin Jewish community.

Over the years after 1967, it was gradually renovated, and the most recent works have seen the restoration of the coloured-glass interior. The synagogue can accommodate some 1,200 worshippers.

Two days later on Sunday, a new cultural centre is being formally opened in the western part of Berlin for the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of orthodox Jews.

A feature of the centre, which cost 5 million euros, is a 30-metre replica of part of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, built with stone from around the city.