Synagogue, Münster

Judaism in Münster looks back on more than 800 years of eventful history, making it one of the oldest in northwest Germany.

As early as the 12th century, Münster was home to a Jewish community with its own prayer house, but this was destroyed by pogroms in 1350. From 1536 Jews settled again, under the protection of the bishop, but after his death in 1553 they could not escape expulsion. Until the 19th century there was no Jewish community in Münster. From 1616, however, there was a pass system that precisely regulated the entry regulations for Jews. In 1662, the prince-bishop issued the Münster Jewish Ordinance. Since then, a so-called court Jew was active in Münster, who represented the interests of the minority in the Münster High Diocese, but - himself an instrument of absolutism - was unable to enforce a permanent right of residence in the cathedral city.

It was not until 1810 that Jewish citizens began to resettle, fighting for their legal emancipation in Prussia during the 19th century. An important spokesman for Reform Judaism, Alexander Haindorf, worked in Münster and founded the Jewish-Humanist School of the Marks-Haindorf Foundation there. During the period of the Empire and the Weimar Republic, Jewish personalities had a significant impact on the city's public life, before the synagogue first went up in flames in 1938 during the National Socialist era and Münster's Jewish population was subsequently persecuted and murdered in the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, after the Second World War and the collapse of the Nazi regime, the Jewish community was able to revive and a new synagogue was consecrated as early as 1961. In 2018, the community has 589 members and is once again part of the city's image. It is a member of the State Association of Jewish Communities of Westphalia-Lippe.