Centrum Judaicum

The New Synagogue is located in Berlin-Mitte and counts to the most beautiful buildings in Berlin with its golden dome.

It is a memorial and an important place of Jewish life in Berlin.

While the synagogue could still be protected during the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, it got destroyed to a great extend during World War II. The former biggest and most magnificent Jewish place of worship in Germany, that offered space for 3.000 believers, had been built according to schedules of Eduard Knoblauch from 1859 to 1866. The at the time very influential Berlin architect Friedrich August Stiller was as well involved in the construction.

The New Synagogue - Centrum Judaicum Foundation was established for the 50th anniversary of the Pogromnacht with the aim to rebuild the synagogue. In 1995, after the reunion of Germany, the modernized and repaired building opened its doors. But instead of a whole reconstruction only the facade and the dome were rebuilt, the whole size of the building is visible with stones embedded into the floor that show the actual former size of the synagogue.

Centrum Judaicum sees its task in processing the history of Jews in Berlin, archiving documents and publishing them as well as being a connection point between past and future. Changing temporary exhibitions and the completely renewed and modernized permanent exhibition, opening in May 2018, aim to illustrate history vividly and understandably.

The building has a praying room but it was not consecrated as a synagogue again. It is a central point of Jewish life in Berlin, a place of assembly, a space for teaching and learning with an archive and a big library for scientific research.