Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Muslim Pol And Jewish Leader Want To Rebuild Synagogue In Berlin

A Palestinian-German politician and the chairman of Berlin’s Jewish community are hatching a plan to rebuild a grand synagogue destroyed by Nazis and their supporters in 1938, the Washington Post reported.

The Fraenkelufer synagogue was largely destroyed during Kristallnacht, in 1938. Raed Saleh and Gideon Jaffe hope to raise enough money for a new synagogue — one that can be a community center for the whole neighborhood of Kreuzberg, which is now home to many immigrants from the Middle East.

“I wouldn’t be a good Muslim if I didn’t champion Jewish life in my home city, Berlin,” Saleh said. “And a Christian wouldn’t be a good Christian, either, if he didn’t intervene when a woman’s hijab is being torn from her head.”

Joffe said that the new synagogue is also meant to combat a sense of rising anti-Semitism in Berlin and Germany in general.

“Our members are afraid to show their Jewishness,” Joffe said. “They don’t wear the kippah,” or yarmulke. “They don’t wear the Star of David. They hide it. That’s why we think it’s really important to revive a building like this one.”

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.