Munich's Ohel Jakob main synagogue opens on 1938 pogrom anniversary

On 9 November 2006, Munich's Jewish community inaugurated the new Ohel Jakob synagogue ("Tent of Jacob") at St.-Jakobs-Platz in the city centre. The date was chosen deliberately: it was the anniversary of the 1938 November pogrom, when Nazi mobs burned synagogues and attacked Jewish people and property across Germany.

Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor who then led the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria and also served as president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, was the central figure of the ceremony. The building was part of a new Jewish centre that also includes a community hall and a Jewish museum.

The synagogue mattered as a visible sign of Jewish life returning to the heart of a city that had been a early centre of Nazi power. Its design, a stone base resembling the Western Wall in Jerusalem topped by a glass structure evoking a tent, made it a landmark. It also reflected the growth of Munich's community, which had expanded after Jews arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.