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Full title: Die Neue Synagoge in Düsseldorf zur Einweihung am 7. September 1958.
A dedication booklet in honor of the new synagogue in Dusseldorf. Its beautiful white-stone synagogue has virtually no straight lines - everything, from facade, to pews, to chandeliers, to ark, is circular, curved or arched. |
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Dusseldorf, city in Germany, capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. Jews are first mentioned there in 1418; the cemetery of the community then served the whole region of Berg. They were expelled from Duesseldorf in 1438. In 1582 permission was granted to one Court Jew to settle there. The community numbered 14 families in 1750 and 24 in 1775. Of these the most distinguished was the wealthy Van Geldern family, one of whose members, the Court Jew Joseph (d. 1727) in the service of the duke of Juelich-Berg, was head (parnas u-manhig) of the Jewish community of the duchy. He donated a synagogue to the community in 1712, where services were held until 1772. Joseph van Geldern's son and grandson followed him in these communal offices. Under Napoleonic rule the status of the Jews in the duchy was defined in the spirit of Napoleon's "infamous decree" of 1808, which remained in force during the period of Prussian rule until 1847. During the 19th century Duesseldorf Jews achieved importance in trade and banking. The community increased from 315 in 1823 to 5,130 in 1925. A seminary for Jewish teachers functioned from 1867 to 1874. Leo Baeck served as district rabbi from 1907 to 1912.
The events of November 10, 1938, were particularly calamitous for the Duesseldorf community since the Nazi diplomat Vom Rath, who had been assassinated by Herschel Grynszpan a few days earlier, was a native of Duesseldorf. The main synagogue, built in 1905, and two Orthodox synagogues were burned down, three Jews killed, and about 70 injured. Of the 1,831 Jews remaining in Duesseldorf on May 17, 1939, 985 were deported; 489 on November 10, 1941, to Minsk, and 260 on July 22, 1942, to Theresienstadt. Only 25 Jews remained in Duesseldorf in 1946. The community was reconstituted after the war, and in 1951 the Central Council of Jews in Germany was established in Duesseldorf. |
