Source Description
National Library of Sweden, Dagens Nyheter November 10th, 1958
The board next to the Torah shrine states that this week’s text is
taken from the first book of Moses and covers the passage where Isaac marries Rebekah. The
bowl-shaped lamp in front of the shrine contains the eternal flame. Below the wall panel, several more flames burn to commemorate
the dead.
Survivors from Ravensbrück and
wealthy American tourists in the
Jeschurun prayer
room, walkingup two sets of
dilapidated stairs in the ramshackle house at
and
as a synonym for the Orthodox
Mosaic creed. Here lies
the
only synagogue rescued from
on
terrible night exactly twenty years
ago
when 267 synagogues were set on fire
or blown up.
The synagogue was located on
by German bureaucracy during the
persecutions.
the
"spontaneous" pogroms, when 267
synagogues were destroyed, pointed out
that
"adjacent houses inhabited by Aryans"
must not be damaged. And
because the
synagogue was located in an apartment
building on
five apartments, it
was not immediately set on fire.
Before he was seized by the Nazisto finally face his fate in
Dr.
a letter to a Mosaic supporter in
the bristle
manufacturer
Another memory of
will get the entire synagogue if you can arrange for
its transport.” And in
an unusual load of wood was
unloaded in
chairs, prayer benches, the Torah
shrine and the rest
of the synagogue's
furnishings had been badly damaged by
German dock
workers, who had broken much and
carved swastikas into many pieces.
Once again without a
homeAfter thorough repair work – one can still see how the
benches were
patched together piece by piece –
the prayer room was
rebuilt at
When the house had to be demolished,
it was possible to find accommodation
in another building scheduled for demolition,
and since the move in
synagogue had to remain at
for fifteen
unsafe years. About one hundred
uprooted Orthodox Jews from about ten
countries meet here. The women have their
own section, separated from the men
by
white net curtains. Now this house is also to
be demolished and the
group is looking for a
new home for their unique syna-
gogue.
At present Yeschurun has no
rabbi.
Their
long-time
cobson
heim
a successor. Yet the
Jews who walk
through the gate between a confectionery
and a flower shop
in the morning and
evening and climb the dilapidated stairs
nowread the
text from the five holy hand-
written Torah rolls in the Torah shrine
themselves. Their dark red velvet cloak
bears an inscription in gold writing
stating
that the cloth was given in memory of
of
the world (that is
our calendar).
Torah scroll from
SiberiaOne of the Torah scrolls in its mag- magnificent original
decoration from
Barth-Straße
congregation,
–
I was deported to
a Polish Jew, he reports, and
bought it during
my internment in
to
the
A board listing prayer times still contains the German
texts. "
it reads for
the morning prayer.