The Synagogue and Jewish Topography as a Field for Future Interdisciplinary Research: Examples from Germany

Undoubtedly, synagogues are central places within a Jewish community’s historical and geographic “topography”. The building, its structure, architecture, and urban context, is only one aspect of the “meaning” of a synagogue. At the same time, it is a symbol of self-representation, tradition, and memory, a place of exchange, transfer, and development, too. The paper will discuss the meaning(s) of synagogues regarding their relations to other places of Jewish life in non-Jewish societies: houses and markets, schools and hospitals, cemeteries and ritual baths – churches, town halls, city walls etc.. By examining and comparison of examples of Jewish topographies of German cities from the 18^th to 20^th centuries, it aims to describe distinct structures of their development and change.

E.g. in Halberstadt, a north German city with a Jewish community from the 17^th century until its destruction in the Holocaust, we can follow such developments in many details. During the 250 years of its existence, the main synagogue was the religious and the topographic center of the community, but many institutions came up and declined in its neighborhood. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, we have to realize Jews’ moves from their traditional quarter to other places in the city, but still staying in touch with the mental center.

Starting from the point of architectural history, the paper will ask how an interdisciplinary approach to “Jewish topographies” could result new insights into the history of Jewish culture, its material traces, its places and spaces.