Jewish community of Frankfurt

The Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main has been a public corporation and a member association of the Central Council of Jews in Germany since 1949.

The Frankfurt Jewish Community is one of the largest unified Jewish communities in Germany with an institutionalized administrative organization that is not associated with any particular Jewish movement.

Its community center is located in Frankfurt's Westend district, and includes the Westend Synagogue and the Baumweg Synagogue, as well as several smaller synagogues and prayer rooms. The community also operates, among other things, the I.E. Lichtigfeld School at the Philanthropin, a senior citizens' home, and two kindergartens.

The 17-member elected community council elects the five-member community board. The members of the community council and board determine the work and direction of the community and represent it externally. The chairman is Salomon Korn, the rabbi of the community has been Rabbi Julien Chaim Soussan since 2013, and Rabbi Avichai Apel joined in 2016 as a second rabbi.

At the end of 2019, the community had 6,316 members.

History until 1945
The first evidence of a Jewish settlement in Frankfurt dates back to 1150. As early as 1241 and 1349 there were the first persecutions, the so-called "Judenschlachten" (Jew-killings). Since 1360, with a short interruption during the Fettmilch Uprising (1614–1616), the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main remained in existence for almost six hundred years until its dissolution by the Nazis. It was not until 1864 that Frankfurt's Jewish residents gained full political and economic equality. In 1933, about 28,000 Jews lived in the city.

The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 marked, like everywhere in Germany, a deep cut in this development. Of the four large synagogues, only the Westend Synagogue on Freiherr-vom-Stein-Strasse was spared from the November 1938 Kristallnacht. More than 10,000 Jews were deported from Frankfurt to the concentration and extermination camps, while others were able to emigrate.

Leopold Neuhaus was the last rabbi of Frankfurt before World War II, serving until 1938. When the residents of the Jewish old people's home on Gagernstrasse in Frankfurt's Ostend district were deported in February 1942, he saw it as his duty to accompany them.

The Provisional New Beginning
After Frankfurt's liberation from the Nazis by the Allies, there were still about a hundred Jews remaining in Frankfurt, and another 300 returned from the concentration camps. In May 1945, on orders from the Frankfurt city administration, a small group of returnees from the Theresienstadt concentration camp were brought back to their hometown by bus. Among them were the re-founders of the Jewish Community in Frankfurt after the war: Rabbi Leopold Neuhaus and the merchant Max Meyer. Immediately after his return in 1945, Neuhaus opened a provisional care center for surviving Jews with Max Meyer at Friedrichstrasse 29. The first service took place eight days after the return from Theresienstadt in today's synagogue at Baumweg 5–7, which had housed a Jewish kindergarten before being confiscated by the Nazis. Regular services took place there from November 1945 onwards. In the same month, the "New" old people's home was established at Gagernstrasse 36, where there was also a service starting on Hanukkah in early December 1945. Religious instruction for children also resumed in November 1945. A month earlier, Rabbi Neuhaus had begun publishing a newsletter of the Jewish communities and care centers.

In the westernmost Frankfurt district of Zeilsheim, there was a DP camp. Between 1945 and 1949, an average of 3,500 Jews, predominantly from Poland, waited there for their entry permits. They wanted to emigarate to Palestine/Israel, the US and other overseas countries. All across Germany, approximate 200,000 Jewish refugees waited in DP camps between 1945 and 1950 to be able to move on. The Jews in Zeilsheim were organized in the Committee of Liberated Jews in Frankfurt. After the formal recognition of the Jewish Community as a public corporation, this committee merged with the Jewish Community on 27 April 1949. This united the two Frankfurt community organizations.

Rabbi Leopold Neuhaus emigrated to the US as early as 1946, and his successor Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg left the Frankfurt community in 1951. In his farewell sermon, he also mentioned the circumstances for his departure: "At the same time, however, it is a duty to say that even those among us who believed or wanted to believe in a change of thinking of the German people are gradually losing this belief. For even the politically blind gradually notice that those figures are once again haunting the German lands who worked for the smooth implementation of the brown order and the Nazi world conquest campaign, this time disguising their martial faces with the mien of injured innocence, but tomorrow showing their true face unveiled."

The Reconstruction of Community Life
In 1947, work began to convert the rooms in Baumweg into a synagogue, which was consecrated in the fall of 1948. In September 1950, the Westend Synagogue was also restored to its intended purpose. The two-year reconstruction had been financed by the State of Hesse, since the former community assets had not yet been returned. During these transitional years, there were several rabbis in Frankfurt. After Rabbi Neuhaus emigrated in 1946, there was a period without a rabbi until Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg took office in June 1949. However, from 1947 to 1951, Uri Bluth, who had received his Semicha in Kraków, spent two years in Siberia and four years in Bukhara, served as rabbi in the Orthodox prayer room at Röderbergweg 29, the former Jewish adult education center. Rabbi Leon Thorn (1906–1978) was rabbi in Frankfurt from 1946 to 1948 and during this time editor of the journal Jeschurun. He is credited with establishing a Jewish soup kitchen, a Jewish afternoon school, the reopening of the Samson Raphael Hirsch School, and the founding of a charity fund.

The Community Center
With the construction of the community center at Savignystrasse 66, the provisional character of the post-war Jewish community in Frankfurt came to an end. The older generation was now definitely no longer sitting on packed suitcases. "Whoever builds a house wants to stay, and whoever wants to stay hopes for security," said Salomon Korn in his speech at the opening on 14 September 1986. With this community center as an administrative building without a synagogue, a secular concept was realized; the synagogue no longer formed the center of community life. Nevertheless, symbols of Judaism were chosen as design elements. A narrow stone replica of the Mosaic Tablets of the Law next to the main entrance is intersected by long and deep cracks, intended to hint at the fragility in the relationship between Jews and non-Jews. A list with the names of about 11,000 Frankfurt Jews deported to concentration camps by the Nazis was placed in the foundation stone beneath them. Facing the Tablets of the Law above the main entrance are three stylized seven-branched candelabra, symbols of light as a sign of a still uncertain hope for the future.

Budget
In the "Frankfurt Agreement" of 1990, the city of Frankfurt committed itself to supporting the Jewish Community, whose budget had been running a deficit for a long time. Strengthening Jewish life is a political goal of the city of Frankfurt. The increase in this financial aid to 2.4 million euros in 2007 takes into account the community's growth and increased expenditures. From 1989 to 2007, the number of members rose from around 4,500 to 7,100, with the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union contributing significantly to this growth. This led to increased efforts for integrating the immigrants. The founding of the Philanthropin secondary school, whose student numbers are growing rapidly, also created additional financial burdens. Furthermore, the costs for security measures have increased significantly because the threat of attacks by right-wing extremists and Islamists has increased.

On the basis of the state treaty signed by the State Association of Jewish Communities in Hesse and the Federal State of Hesse on 11 November 1986, and due to a cooperation agreement between the State Association of Jewish Communities in Hesse and the Jewish Community of Frankfurt, the Jewish Community of Frankfurt receives 70 percent of the state contractual state benefits. From 2008 onwards, the State of Hesse increased its contributions to the State Association of Jewish Communities in Hesse to 3.7 million euros, of which the Frankfurt community, as the largest community in the state, receives 70 percent because it performs central functions for the other communities.

Furthermore, based on a special agreement of 10 November 2000 between the State of Hesse, the City of Frankfurt and the Jewish Community of Frankfurt, the State of Hesse provides a debt relief contribution for the Jewish Community of Frankfurt amounting to 1,277,100 euros. Nevertheless, Hesse then ranks among the lowest in terms of benefits provided, according to a survey of the states.