New Synagogue Mainz
Here you will find information about the "New Synagogue" in Mainz and the Jewish community in the state capital.
New synagogue in Mainz
Mainz is one of the oldest and most traditional Jewish communities in Europe. In the Middle Ages, the city was a center of Jewish learning and religion. The main synagogue, built in 1912 at the intersection of Hindenburgstraße and Josefsstraße according to a design by Stuttgart architect Willy Graf, was looted and set on fire during the pogrom night of November 9-10, 1938.
The Jewish community in Mainz has since grown to around 1,000 members, mainly due to immigration from Eastern European countries. As the Jewish community's premises had become too small, it set itself the goal of building a new community center on the site of the former main synagogue on Hindenburgstraße. The plans for this were drawn up by Cologne architect Manuel Herz. The city of Mainz actively supported this project.
"Kedushah" is the Hebrew word for "sanctification" in a blessing, whose five letters give the new synagogue in Mainz its shape and structure. The architecture, with its unique design language and facade surfaces covered with green glazed ceramic profiles, deliberately departs from conventional building forms and materials. Manuel Herz bridges the gap between the Middle Ages and the present without direct reference to persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Rather, his architectural work is based on traditional texts from the Torah.
The fragments of the portico of the previous building standing on the forecourt also create a connection between the destroyed main synagogue of 1912 and today's synagogue.
Inauguration of the New Synagogue Mainz in 2010
The official opening ceremony took place on Friday, September 3, 2010. The chairwoman of the Jewish community, Stella Schindler-Siegreich, Minister President Kurt Beck, and Mainz Mayor Jens Beutel jointly hosted the event.
Numerous invited guests from Germany and abroad, former Mainz Jews, contemporary witnesses, and community members attended the ceremony, including German President Christian Wulff and Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ben Ze'ev. On the open house day in September 2010, hundreds of interested Mainz residents visited the new place of worship. The opening ceremony began with Rabbi Julian-Chaim Soussan affixing the mezuzah to the main entrance of the synagogue, followed by the procession with the Torah scrolls into the prayer room.
After Stella Schindler-Siegreich's welcoming speech, Federal President Wulff, Minister President Beck, Mayor Beutel, the Chairwoman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, and Dr. Fritz Weinschenk, a Jew born in Mainz in 1920 who had traveled from New York, all gave speeches. Ninety-eight years after the inauguration of the main synagogue in Mainz on September 3, 1912, and around 70 years after its destruction by the National Socialists, the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate once again has a visible symbol of a new, vibrant Judaism. The postal address of the new Jewish community center at this historic location was changed from Hindenburgstraße to "Synagogenplatz" (Synagogue Square).
