Jewish life has existed in Germany for 1,700 years. Eight encounters with Jewish cultural heritage in Bavaria: synagogues, exhibitions, cemeteries and museums.
8 Encounters with Jewish Culture in Bavaria
Jewish life has existed in Germany for 1,700 years. The earliest traces of Jewish life in Bavaria are found in Regensburg. They date back to the 6th century.
The first Jewish merchants travelled along the Danube to Bavarian lands on trading vessels from the Levant, carrying wine and salt on board. After the brutal expulsions of the 15th century, based on accusations of host desecration, well poisoning and ritual murder, Jewish communities did not re-establish themselves in Bavaria until the late 17th century. They have shaped Franconia in particular in many different ways.
Rabbi Meir ben Baruch, for example, studied in Würzburg and Paris and in 1236 founded a religious school in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the first so-called yeshiva, a Jewish religious academy, in Bavaria. There, students from all over Europe studied the Talmud and the Jewish legal system known as Halacha.
Baroque Jewel: Ansbach Synagogue
Behind an almost unassuming façade lies a high-calibre architectural monument: a Baroque synagogue. Completed in 1746, this small gem survived the years of the Nazi regime unscathed.
As there is no longer a Jewish community in Ansbach today, the building now serves as a museum space and can be visited. An exhibition in the neighbouring former servants’ house provides information about the history of the community and Judaism in general. The city walking tour “Court Jews, Traders and Hawkers” leads to further traces of the once rich Jewish life in Ansbach.
To date, 91 Stolpersteine (commemorative brass plaques set into the pavement) have been laid in the city in memory of Jewish citizens. An interactive map shows their locations and allows visitors to access the individual biographies.
synagoge-ansbach.de (only in German)
Here’s What Lachoudisch Sounds Like: Colmberg Family Stories
“Was schuckt die Bore?” – “What does the cow cost?” Jewish cattle traders used the “secret language” known as Lachoudisch, a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish and Franconian dialect. Audio samples can be heard at the Documentation Centre “Family Stories – Jewish Life in Colmberg.” Using many individual life stories, the small exhibition commemorates almost 300 years of coexistence between Jews and Christians in the village, where there was no ghetto.
The first family settled here in 1686 with a letter of protection issued by the Margrave of Ansbach. Over time, the community grew to include up to 80 families. (Among them were the ancestors of rock star Billy Joel. His grandfather Karl Joel founded a mail-order business in Nuremberg, which he was forced to sell to Josef Neckermann in 1938 at a knock-down price.) Admission is free, and guided tours can be booked through the municipality of Colmberg.
Colmberg is located around 15 kilometres from Ansbach.
colmberg.de (only in German)
Treasures from the Attic: Veitshöchheim
The density of Jewish heritage is particularly high in the Franconian Wine Country. Insights into village life in the 18th and 19th centuries are offered, for example, by the Jewish Cultural Museum Veitshöchheim. The museum is housed in a Baroque synagogue dating from 1730 and a residential building from 1738, both extensively restored.
Under the title “Village as a Stage,” the exhibition explores the lived reality of Jews in the village and the wider region. The objects on display come from the Genisa, a storage space in the synagogue attic. This is where worn or unusable Thora scrolls, liturgical writings and also secular texts such as history books, letters and invoices were kept.
The texts are written in Hebrew, Yiddish or German. These documents provide multifaceted insights into everyday Jewish life in times past.
veitshoechheim.de (only in German)
Sukkahs, Ritual Baths, Graves: Jewish Museum Franconia
The diversity of Franconian Jewish life is vividly illustrated at the three museum sites in Fürth, Schnaittach and Schwabach. All exhibitions are housed in buildings dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
They present collections of Judaica (Jewish ritual objects) and everyday items. They also feature walk-in sukkahs (temporary huts built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot) and mikvaot (ritual baths) that have been preserved to this day. The Schwabach sukkah in particular, with its late Baroque wall paintings, is a jewel of European Jewish cultural heritage. In Fürth, once the most important religious Jewish centre in southern Germany and known as the “Franconian Jerusalem,” the new exhibition “Bürgerwelten” explores the economic and social change experienced by Jews in the 19th century.
The Old Jewish Cemetery in Fürth is regarded as one of the oldest and most significant Jewish cemeteries in Germany. It can be visited as part of a guided tour.
juedisches-museum.org (only in German)
Monumental Blend of Styles: Augsburg Synagogue
The Jewish community in Augsburg and Bavarian Swabia looks back on a history spanning more than 800 years. The monumental synagogue in Augsburg’s city centre was built between 1913 and 1917. It is considered one of the most beautiful synagogues in Europe.
Art Nouveau elements, Byzantine and orientalising details, as well as references to the Jewish Renaissance, define its appearance. Particularly striking is the almost 30-metre-high reinforced concrete dome, whose interior is adorned with a green-and-gold mosaic. The adjoining museum presents religious, ritual and everyday objects from the destroyed Jewish communities of Swabia, including works by Augsburg silversmiths from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
The museum offers themed guided tours, including tours through the city of Augsburg. Temporary exhibitions and events take place at the museum annex Ehemalige Synagoge Kriegshaber (Former Kriegshaber Synagogue). This desacralised and restored house of worship is the oldest preserved synagogue in Bavarian Swabia.
jmaugsburg.de (only in German)
Jacob’s Tent: Jewish Centre Munich
The community centre of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München und Oberbayern, the largest Jewish community organisation in Bavaria, is located on Jakobsplatz Square in the heart of the city. It comprises a synagogue, a museum and a community building.
The Ohel Jakob Synagogue (“Jacob’s Tent”) bears the same name as the former Main Synagogue on Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse, which was destroyed in 1938. It was inaugurated in 2006 and is considered one of the most impressive newly built synagogues in Europe. The striking square stone base recalls the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Above it rises a glass structure enveloped by a bronze-coloured metal screen. From the community building, the underground “Path of Remembrance” leads to the synagogue. It bears the names of more than 4,500 Jewish residents of Munich who were murdered during the period of National Socialism.
Public guided tours are offered. The neighbouring museum houses a permanent exhibition on the Jewish history and present-day life of Munich, as well as temporary exhibitions.
Scholarly Stronghold: Regensburg
Bavaria’s oldest Jewish community existed in Regensburg. It was first documented in writing in the year 981. In the Middle Ages, Regensburg was a centre of Jewish scholarship, and its Talmud school was famous. Alongside Prague and Worms, the synagogue was one of the largest in Europe.
In the 15th century, religious persecution began. The ghetto and the synagogue were destroyed, and the Jewish population was expelled from the city. Only in the 18th century did Jews settle in Regensburg again – until the community was once more wiped out under National Socialism. At the end of the 20th century, the arrival of many Jews from Eastern Europe brought new Jewish life to the city.
Today, the community has more than a thousand members. Visitors can explore traces of Regensburg’s Jewish history using the city map “Rediscovering the Jewish Heritage,” which is also available online as a PDF. Organised guided city tours are offered by the initiative “Shalom in Regensburg.”
Famous for Books: The Sulzbach Community
From the mid-18th to the mid-19th century, a flourishing Jewish community existed in Sulzbach, located in the Upper Palatinate Jura region. The town was also home to the most important Hebrew printing press in Germany and Europe. For almost 200 years, editions of the Talmud, prayer books, devotional literature and more were produced there. It was only in the 19th century that Sulzbach’s printers relinquished their leading role to Frankfurt, Vienna and Krakow.
The Sulzbach Synagogue was rebuilt in classical style after a major town fire in 1822 and was considered one of the most beautiful synagogues in Bavaria. In 1936, after the community had dissolved, it was deconsecrated and sold to the town. It escaped the November pogroms of 1938. A comprehensive restoration was completed in 2013. During this process, the interior was reconstructed according to historical models, with whitewashed walls and grey marble-patterned columns.
A Torah scroll from Sulzbach dating from 1792/1793 was only recently rediscovered, restored and symbolically completed in 2021 during a ceremonial event at the German Bundestag. The synagogue and an exhibition can be visited.
synagoge-sulzbach.de (only in German)
