Synagogue on Reichenbachstraße

During the 19th century, religious conflicts between liberal and orthodox Jews in the German Reich repeatedly led to conflicts and caused divisions within the Jewish communities. Was it more important to hold on to the religious traditions of their forefathers or to adapt their faith to modern requirements?

Antisemitic pogroms in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, especially in the Tsarist empire, caused many Jews to emigrate and find new homes in places such as Munich. They were more orthodox than the long-established Jewish community, some of whom were skeptical about the traditional religious practices of the ‘Eastern Jews’. Since the prayer room established in Reichenbachstraße in 1914 was no longer sufficient, the ‘Agudas Achim’ and ‘Linath Hazedek’ prayer associations pushed for the construction of a new orthodox synagogue as a religious center for the community of Eastern European Jews, which by now had grown to more than 2000.

Architect Gustav Meyerstein built the synagogue in the rear courtyard at Reichenbachstraße 27; consecrated in 1931, it had sufficient space for 550 worshippers. During the November Pogrom of 1938, SA men demolished and set fire to the synagogue on Reichenbachstraße, but the fire brigade extinguished the flames to prevent the fire from spreading to other houses. The synagogue was reopened in 1947 in the presence of members of the American military government.