New Synagogue (Darmstadt)

Inaugurated on in 1988, the synagogue was built as part of a citizens’ initiative to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht.^[7] Known also as the ‘Holocaust Memorial Synagogue’, the architectural complex was designed to fulfil the needs of the city's Jewish population, who had been without a place of worship since the 1938 pogrom when Darmstadt's three synagogues were destroyed.^[8] The religious and cultural complex is located on the site of the city's former Gestapo headquarters.^[9]

The cultural complex is the site of the local museum of Jewish history and culture, Museum der Jüdischen Gemeinde Darmstadt.

The synagogue is egalitarian and has a number of members who are LGBTQ Jews, converts, or who are in interfaith marriages. Under the leadership of Rabbi Gesa Ederberg, the synagogue's mechitza was removed.^[10]

The building was designed by Alfred Jacoby in the Postmodernist style, and features stained glass windows designed by British architectural artist Brian Clarke.^[1] Clarke designed five windows on the north and south walls respectively, two windows flanking the Torah shrine on the east wall, and a glass dome above the shrine. The colour scheme carries a symbolic meaning: blue on the south side represented hope; red on the north, suffering; and green on the east, a balancing forces.^[11]

The first "newly constructed synagogue in the postwar period to recall the traditional form of a central, domed building", the design marked the start of Jacoby's development of a distinct modern Jewish religious architectural vernacular.^[12]

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  The north wall of the New Synagogue, with stained glass by Brian Clarke

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