History - Berlin - page 526

JEWISH BERLIN: MENDELSSOHN TO LIBESKIND
Since reunification, Berlin has had the fastest-growing Jewish community in the
world. Their backgrounds are diverse: most are Russian Jewish immigrants but there
are also Jews of German heritage, Israelis wishing to escape their war-torn homeland
and American expats lured by Berlin's low-cost living and limitless creativity. Today
there are about 13,000 active members of the Jewish community, including 1000 be-
longing to the Orthodox congregation Adass Yisroel. And since not all Jews choose to
be affiliated with a synagogue, the actual population is estimated to be at least twice
as high.
The community supports 10 synagogues, two mikveritual baths, several schools,
numerous cultural institutions and a handful of kosher restaurants and shops. The
golden-domed Neue Synagoge (New Synagogue) on Oranienburger Strasse is the
most visible beacon of Jewish revival, even though today it's not primarily a house of
worship but a community and exhibition space. In Kreuzberg, the Jüdisches Museum ,
a spectacular structure by Daniel Libeskind, tracks the ups and downs of Jewish life in
Germany for almost 2000 years. Another key Jewish site is the Alter Jüdischer Fried-
hof, Berlin's oldest Jewish cemetery and final resting home of Enlightenment philo-
sopher Moses Mendelssohn, who arrived in Berlin in 1743. His progressive thinking
and lobbying paved the way for the Emancipation Edict of 1812, which made Jews full
citizens of Prussia, with equal rights and duties.
By the end of the 19th century, many of Berlin's Jews, then numbering about 5% of
the population, had become thoroughly German in speech and identity. When a wave
of Hasidic Jews escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe arrived around the same
time, they found their way to today's Scheunenviertel, which at that time was an im-
migrant slum with cheap housing. By 1933 Berlin's Jewish population had grown to
around 160,000 and constituted one-third of all Jews living in Germany. The well-
known horrors of the Nazi years sent most into exile and left 55,000 dead. Only about
1000 to 2000 Jews are believed to have survived the war years in Berlin, often with
the help of their non-Jewish neighbours. Many memorials throughout the city com-
memorate the Nazi's victims. The most prominent is, of course, the Holocaust Me-
morial near the Brandenburg Gate.
Australian journalist Anna Funder documents the Stasi, East Germany's vast domestic
spy apparatus, by letting both victims and perpetrators tell their stories in her 2004 book
Stasiland.