Regensburg Synagogue

The Regensburg Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Regensburg (also known as Ratisbon), in Bavaria, southern Germany. Synagogues were completed in 1227, 1841 and again in 1912; each destroyed; most recently by Nazis on November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht.

Regensburg Synagogue
Synagogue under construction, November 2018
Religion
Affiliation	Orthodox Judaism
Rite	Nusach Ashkenaz
Ecclesiastical or organisational status	Synagogue (1912–1938); (since 1945)
Status	Active
Location
Location	Regensburg, Bavaria
Country	Germany
Location of the former synagogue in Bavaria
Geographic coordinates	49°01′06″N 12°05′45″E
Architecture
Architect(s)	Volker Staab (2019)
Type	Synagogue architecture
Style	Modernist (2019)
Completed	1227; 1841; 1912; 2019
Construction cost	€9 million (2019)
Destroyed	1517; 1907; November 1938 (during Kristallnacht
Interior area	320 m2 (3,400 sq ft)

In 1945, the Ashkenazi congregation began to worship from a stone prayer hall, located at Am Brixener Hof 2, in Regensburg. In 2019, a new synagogue was opened, designed by Volker Staab in the Modernist style.

History

The earliest written record of Jewish life in Regensburg dates from 981 making it the oldest Jewish community in Bavaria.

First synagogue

The original synagogue was erected between 1210 and 1227, in the Old Romanesque style on the site of the former Jewish hospital, in the center of the ghetto, where the present Neue Pfarre stands. Two etchings made by Albrecht Altdorfer of the synagogue shortly before it was destroyed on February 22, 1519, provide the first portrait of an actual architectural monument in European printmaking. In 1519 following the death of Emperor Maximilian, who had long been a protector of the Jews in the imperial cities, extracting from them substantial taxes in exchange, the city of Regensburg, which blamed its economic troubles on its prosperous Jewish community, expelled the 500 Jews. The Jews themselves had demolished the interior of their venerable synagogue, on the site of which a chapel was built in honor of the Virgin. According to a chronicle the exiles settled, under the protection of the Duke of Bavaria, on the opposite bank of the Danube, in Stadt-am-Hof, and in villages in the vicinity; from these they were expelled in the course of the same century.

Second synagogue

In 1669 Jews were again permitted to reside in Regensburg but it was not until April 2, 1841 that the community was able to dedicate its new synagogue. In 1907 however, it was demolished for fear of collapse.

Third synagogue

Rebuilt in 1912 at a different place, when the town had a Jewish population of about 600, it was destroyed by the Nazis on November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht.

Gallery

• 
  The entrance hall of the Regensburg Synagogue, Albrecht Altdorfer, 1519
• 
  The double-naved interior with bimah between columns, 1519
• 
  Postcard of the former synagogue in c. 1915
• 
  Memorial created by Dani Karavan in 2005 that depicts the foundation of the synagogue.

See also

• History of the Jews in Regensburg
• List of synagogues in Germany (in German)

Sources

• Media related to Synagogue of Regensburg (1227–1519) at Wikimedia Commons
• Media related to Synagogue of Regensburg (1945 - 2019) at Wikimedia Commons
• The Jewish Encyclopedia: Ratisbon
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Ratisbon". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.