The new Jewish Community Centre in Munich is both a religious and cultural monument and a historic moment
MUNICH, WHOSE history has wildly oscillated between triumph and tragedy over the previous century, has a new landmark - the Jewish Community Centre.
The centre contains the largest synagogue to be built in Germany in more than 60 years, a museum, a kindergarten and a kosher restaurant. It was opened last November at a ceremony attended by German president Horst Koehler and Jewish community leader Charlotte Knobloch, a Munich native.
The four-month-old Ohel Jakob synagogue stands on a plot of land close to the site of a Jewish house of worship of the same name that was destroyed by the Nazis in 1938.
The cube-shaped synagogue is built with travertine marble and topped with a glass roof. The glass roof represents a tent symbolising Moses's 40-year-journey through the desert, the main portal features Hebrew letters depicting the 10 commandments, and the interior walls panelled with cedar are decorated with psalms. The synagogue can seat 550 worshippers. A network of paths and plazas allows visitors to wander through the complex as they would a college campus.
Ms Knobloch, who is president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the Jewish Centre was the largest Jewish construction project in Europe. It cost more than Euro70million (HK$717million) and has been welcomed as another powerful statement underlining Germany's determination to maintain a multicultural, multi-faith society that respected the human rights of believers of all faiths.