Alumni tour of the Ohel-Jakob Synagogue

"The Jew­ish Communi­ty of Mu­nich and Upper Ba­varia opens the doors of the Ohel-Jakob Syna­gogue for us on 12 May 2022" - This was our date an­nouncement for the first alum­ni event after a two-year break due to the pan­dem­ic. The Mis­take in this an­nouncement quickly be­came ap­parent when Ellen Presser, the direc­tor of the Cul­tural Cen­ter of the Jew­ish Communi­ty, re­ceived the group in front of the syna­gogue. Af­ter all, the doors of the syna­gogue only open ex­tremely rarely - when Ange­la Mer­kel came to visit, for ex­am­ple, or when a wed­ding takes place. In­stead, the usual ac­cess to the syna­gogue is un­der­ground via the Walk of Re­mem­brance, which con­nects the com­muni­ty center with the syna­gogue. This leads both sym­boli­cally and quite liter­ally from the dark­ness into the light of the syna­gogue, which is remi­nis­cent of a lan­tern thanks to its glass top.

Thanks to Ms. Presser's knowledge­able and enter­taining lec­ture, the group gained an im­pres­sive in­sight into both Jew­ish life in Ba­varia and the think­ing be­hind the archi­tec­ture of the Jew­ish Cen­ter on Jak­ob­splatz. This con­sists of a syna­gogue, com­muni­ty center and mu­seum. Its lan­guage of de­sign plays, for ex­am­ple, with the ele­ment of the Star of David and the field of ten­sion be­tween the visi­ble and the con­cealed.

After the tour, the mild May even­ing of­fered the op­por­tunity for an in­for­mal get-together in the courtyard of the Stadtcafé across the street. Over cool drinks, a stim­ulat­ing ex­change took place with­in the di­verse group, among oth­er things about the vari­ous paths that the alum­ni have taken after their active mem­ber­ship in the elite net­work.

Text: Coordination Office of the Elite Network of Bavaria