Major New Chabad House to Open in Berlin

BERLIN, Germany — The first privately funded Jewish community and educational centre in Germany since the Holocaust will open this week in Berlin as a symbol of the rebirth of Jewish life in the country.

The centre’s director, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, offered Monday reporters a tour around the complex in west Berlin which includes a synagogue, a library, a kosher restaurant, a tourist information centre and a lecture hall.

“Everyone is welcome to come in and learn about Jewish life. Knowledge breeds tolerance,” Teichtal said.

“We want to send a message that Jewish life is here and thriving.”

The Szloma Albam House, which is located on Münstersche Strasse in Berlin’s Charlottenburg neighbourhood, has been under construction for three years. But its synagogue is already open for worship.

The building will feature the first replica of Jerusalem’s Western Wall in the world.

“This is a symbolic part of making Berlin a central hub of Jewish life again,” the center’s director, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal said.

The project began when a team from the New York-based Chabad Lubavitch traveled to Jerusalem to photograph a section of the Western Wall.

Almost 19 tons of “Jerusalem Gold” sandstone quarried in the region arrived in Berlin on July 11 and has since been chiseled and installed to match the photographs.

The complete replica, located in the center’s entryway, will also include identical plants sprouting from the cracks.

Fast growing community

The Jewish community in Germany is one of the fastest growing in the world with some 120,000 members in comparison with only 20,000 before 1989.

The political changes that resulted from the Berlin wall’s fall led to an influx of Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union. This increased Germany’s Jewish population by almost 500% in only 15 years.

Before the Holocaust, 560.000 Jews lived in Germany.

The 5 million euros centre, which like nearly all Jewish institutions in Germany will have round-the-clock police protection, is run by the Chasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

As the Jewish community has become more visible six decades after World War II, Jewish memorials and cemeteries have faced frequent vandalisation in Germany, where political support for the extreme-right has grown in recent years.

Teichtal, a 34-year-old New York native, said the funding for the Berlin centre had come largely from donations, 70 percent of which were small contributions by individuals.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the ambassadors of the United States, Britain and Russia and some 30 rabbis from across Europe and Israel are expected to join the opening ceremony on Sunday.

A street fair and an open-air concert is to follow in the afternoon.