Martin Cohen's “A ramble through the large German congregations of Hamburg“, Israelitisches Familienblatt 32 (1930), No. 47, November 20,1930
author: Martin Cohen
source date: November 20, 1930
language: eng
availability: This work is protected by copyright and may only be reproduced and published with the consent of the rights holder. It may be downloaded for scholarly or private use.

A ramble through the large German congregations of Hamburg

“He came through the Steintor”, the Hamburg Jew once said, referring to his fellow believer from Berlin or “Hinter-Berlin”. The Steintor and all the other gates in the city, now only street names remind us of, have long since disappeared. It is no longer so easy to guess where the traveler is coming from. The main railway station, a destination of international lines, is today the gateway of Hamburg from the mainland. Nearby is the Steintor, which evokes yet another memory in the the Jewish traveler. The former city gates were located in the city wall, which was of particular significance for the Hamburg Jews, because it represented the Eruw, the symbolic enclosure of a Jewish city, that made it possible to carry on the Sabbath. The actual Jewish city was much smaller than the district enclosed by the city wall. There was never a ghetto in Hamburg, but only one part of the city was left to the Jews to settle in, the so-called Neustadt. The first Jews to settle in Hamburg around 1580 were Spanish and Portuguese refugees who, as Catholics (Marranos), also had opportunities to settle in other parts of the city.

To get from the main railway station to the old Jewish center from the main station, you go through the Mönckebergstraße via the Rathausmarkt to the Mönkedamm. Already on this route you will find Jewish reminiscenes that deserve to be mentioned. We see the old Johanneum building on Speersort (formerly a school for scholars, now a humanist secondary school), which houses the state and university library. This library contains a very rich collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts. It owes its origin to the father of Jewish librarianship, the Christian professor Joh. Chr. Wolf (1683 - 1739, teacher of Oriental languages and rector of the Johanneum in )Hamburg. The collection was enlarged and received a valuable addition through the incorporation of the library of the Hamburg Jewish book collector Dr. H. B. Levy (1900). The manuscripts, catalogued by the famous bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider (Hamburg 1878), as well as the valuable book collections serve the science of Judaism well.

On our way to the former Jewish center we find to the right of the Mönckebergstraße the Raboisen, where from 1793 to 1808 the Würtzer's school for poor Jewish boys was located. It was founded by the Freemasons' Lodge, which imposed on itself the task of providing enlightenment among the Jews. We walk across the Rathausmarkt, past the stock exchange, where, like Heinrich Heine says, "our fathers as honestly as possible traded and walked" and where "Banco's spirit spooked".

Then we come to the Mönkedamm, where around 1610, the wealthy Portuguese Jews owned several houses. However, the houses were mostly registered in the names of Christian citizens. The well-known doctor and scholar Rodrigo de Castro was exceptionally allowed, because of "the many years of faithful service and courtesy to this city and the community", to register his house, built by himself on Neuen Wall in his own name. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Portuguese lived at Rödingsmarkt, Mühlenbrücke, Bohnenstraße and in front of the Dammtor and Bleichen, but Jews were later restricted from settling in these streets.

Around the middle of the 17th century the first German Jews settled in Hamburg, initially as "servants of the Jews of the Portuguese nation", who imposed strict supervision on the settlement of the new arrivals from Central Germany, Poland and Lithuania. Now the residential area of the Jews extended over the streets of Alterwall, Neuer Steinweg, Elbstraße[^1], Hütten, Mühlenstraße[^2], Kohlhöfen. Due to the fire in Hamburg in 1842, entire streets were razed to the ground, as a result of this, many of the historic sites were lost. Of the patrician houses of a Texeira, a de Castro, Abensur and many others we only have known through land registers. Entire street names have disappeared, especially the historic Dreckwall, one could not find a street with a more attractive name for the Jewish immigrants. As badly as Hamburg was affected by the catastrophic fire, it brought for the cityscape a change for the better. The narrow and unhealthy neighborhoods were replaced by beautiful and wide streets, the spaciousness that is characteristic of today's cityscape. One victim of the fire were the first synagogues. These houses of worship were not large because the fanatical clergy forced the Jews to pray in small prayer rooms, so that, as "Glückel von Hameln" said "one had to crawl into these shuls".

[^1: today's Neanderstraße]

[^2: today's Gerstäckerstraße]

If we walk through this area now, we find only sparse remnants of the Jewish life that once flourished here. What the fire had spared, was victim of the lack of understanding of the 19th century towards cultural and historical monuments. Above all, the magnificent synagogue of the German Jews in the Elbstraße[^3] which was built in 1788 by Sonnin, the builder of St. Michaelis Church. The German Jews in Hamburg formed three congregations in Hamburg due to complicated political circumstances, one in Hamburg, one in Altona and one in Wandsbek. The synagogue in the Elbstraße[^4] was the largest within of the 3 congregations and was called “Altonaer Schul”. The cart trade, which still exists today in Elbstraße[^5] is all that remains of a small Jewish trade, which was popularly known as “the Judenbörse” that once flourished here. From more recent times, namely from the 19th century, are the three existing places of worship in this area: the synagogue at Kohlhöfen, built in 1859, belongs to the German-Israelitic Congregation. In the Marcusstraße there is the synagogue of the Portuguese Jewish congregation, built in 1855, which, due to its oriental character in style and color blossoms like an oriental plant on occidental soil. Of historical significance is the church of the Israelite Temple Association, built in 1843, the only synagogue in Hamburg with an organ. The temple is characterized by the men who worked in it, as well as through the the movement it evoked, a landmark in the history of modern Judaism.

[^3: today's Neanderstraße]

[^4: today's Neanderstraße]

[^5: today's Neanderstraße]

On the Neuer Steinweg we find, hidden behind houses, a cemetery that was buried during the occupation of Hamburg by the French in 1814, with the stipulation that after the occupation, the bodies were to be moved to the cemetery in Altona, where the cemeteries of the Portuguese and German Jews were located. However, this planned exhumation never took place. In the houses adjacent to the cemetery on the Neuer Steinweg there was the oldest synagogue of German Jews, which was built in 1654.

Characteristic of the cityscape of Hamburg, especially the Jewish Hamburg, are the numerous residential homes of which around 17 are of Jewish origin. Leaving the former Jewish centre in the direction of St. Pauli, we find on the Großneumarkt, Schlachterstraße[^6] and at the Neuen Steinweg four houses inscribed with Jewish names as donors of free flats. We come to the Zeughausmarkt, where the former“Israelite Free School” was located since 1832. A foundation of the Temple circles, which through the later leader Dr. Anton Rée, flourished greatly. As the “Foundation School of 1815”, this institution, which was originally intended as nondenominational school, carried on existing, but gradually lost its Jewish character. The fight for equal rights suffered a fiasco, where it was a matter of cultural egalitarianism. More reasonable would be, located below the Bismarckmonument at the harbor gate, the “Foundation for the the equal rights of the Israelites of 1876”which was dedicated to the social rapprochement of the religions.

[^6: today's Großneumarkt]

The St. Pauli district remained closed to Jewish settlements until the 19th century, in contrast to the St. Georg district, which was open to them but was never inhabited by them in large numbers. The Salomon Heine Foundation, a foundation of the uncle of the poet Heinrich Heine, belongs to a better time, the hospital of the German-Israelitic Congregation in the Eckernförderstraße[^7]. The Heinestraße, today´s[^8] leads to it named after the generous benefactor. The Hamburg Jews had to make do with very inadequate infirmaries, called “Hekdisch” in the Jewish vernacular (from the Hebr. kodausch = holy). These homes were so poor that the word “Hekdish” was broken down into: “Dalfonim (poor people) can die here.” Heinrich Heine took up this folk joke in his witty poem entitled “The new Israelite hospital in Hamburg”. Salomon Heine “did what what was possible”, as his nephew says. After its erection Heine's hospital was the most beautiful and modern of the time and still enjoys great popularity among Jews and Christians. The doctors working at the hospital enjoy a great scientific reputation.

[^7: today´s Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße]

[^8: heute Hamburger Berg]

A less pleasant impression provides the medievallooking establishment of a house for “Mission to the Jews” in Eimsbüttelerstraße. The money that slave traders once offered on their deathbeds to buy their freedom in the afterlife, probably found better use in the 20th century.

The route from St. Pauli to the new Jewish center leads via the Holstentor through the Carolinenstraße , where the girls' school of the German Jewish Congregation, which has recently received the authorization for a secondary school, is located. On Rentzelstraße lies the so-called “Grindel-Cemetery”. This is the resting place of one of Hamburg's most famous Jews of the 19th century, Gabriel Riesser. Of the well-known personalities, who found their final resting place here the following should be mentioned as well: Chacham Isaak Bernays, a fervent advocate of orthodox Judaism in the fight against the Reform movement, the poet and Bible translator Chacham Isaak Bernays, the patron of the arts and bibliophile Heiman Josef Michael whose library was sold to Oxford, the poet and satirist Moses Mendelssohn-Frankfurter and Betty Heine, the mother of Heinrich Heines. The focal point of the new Jewish center is the synagogue of the German-Israelitic Congregation on Bornplatz. An imposing building that was built in the synagogue style that was common at the beginning of the century. It is adjoined by the beautiful building of the Talmud-Thora-Real schule, the oldest Jewish secondary school in Germany. The expansion of this institution into a senior secondary school will be completed in a short time.

The oldest synagogue in the area is in Heinrich Barthstraße, which was built before the Jewish center was transferred away from the city center. The Neue Dammtor Synagogue in Beneckestraße has inherited the legacy of a synagogue formerly located on Jungfernstieg, the reason for which was the desire for uplifting and captivating sermons. Whilst strolling through the city we also come across the “Alte und Neue Klaus” and the “Jeschiwa”. Institutions, where Torah knowledge is disseminated in the traditional way.

The congregation also provided a special synagogue for the large east jewish population in the Kielortallee, which is known as the “third. congregational synagogue”, and functions as the religiously prescribed replacement for the Kohlhöfen synagogue, which was scheduled for demolition. Further prayer houses are located in Hoheluftchaussee, Isestraße (the so-called Mendelssohn-Schul), as well as in Barmbeck (Gluckstraße), which is affiliated to the synagogue association, and on Steindamm. Only recently the foundation stone was laid for the construction of a new temple in Oberstraße In the service of Judaism there are also two private Jewish schools. The Israel. girls' secondary school in the Bieberstraße and the secondary school of the deceased, deserving pedagogue and witty poet Jakob Löwenberg. The congregation´s center in Johnsallee, is dedicated to the youth, and houses a kindergarten, a daycare center and meeting rooms for youth clubs. This is also the location of the valuable library of the German-Israelitic Congregation, which was built up in a short time. The socio-political life of the German Jewish Congregation is concentrated in the community house on Rothenbaumchaussee, where office and meeting rooms of the congregation´s administration are accommodated.

Despite the numerous Jewish associations, separate Jewish meeting houses are quite rare. One such building is owned by the Mekor Chajim on Grindelhof in the immediate vicinity of the Bornplatz synagogue. The representative home of the lodges in Hartungstraße was sold in this year, and for the time being the three Independent Order B´nai B´rith lodges located here are content with a rented flat as a meeting place.

A number of charitable organizations and foundation houses of the congregation are still located near today's Jewish center, the Grindelallee. These include the nursing home in Sedanstraße, the care home in Schäferkampsallee the Daniel-Wormser-Haus in Westerstraße, the orphanage on Papendamm,[^9] the girls' orphanage (Paulinenstift) at Laufgraben, the Oppenheimer and the Hertz foundations.The congregation also maintains an exemplary established children recreation home “Wilhelminenhöhe” situated idyllically at the beach village of Blankenese.

[^9: today's Martin-Luther-King-Platz]

The new cemetery of the congregation is located outside the city in Ohlsdorf, adjacent to to the huge Hamburg cemetery grounds. It has a dignified hall building. Particularly noteworthy is the cemetery of honor for the Jewish soldiers killed in the World War with a memorial. Another cemetery, which is used for religious reasons by the followers of a certain orthodox movement is located outside of the Hamburg territory in Langenfelde.

Hamburg´s landmark is its harbor. As in the period before the war, a stream of Jewish emigrants poured into Germany, who had America as their destination, a large number of them embarked in Hamburg. The Hamburg Jews organized a comprehensive aid service. The emigration halls and the Daniel-Wormser-Haus served the Aid Organization of German Jews to supply its fellow Jews. Since this heavy Jewish traffic across the ocean many of the ocean liners of the shipping companies have kosher kitchens on board. After a hopefully soon recovery of the world economy and the expected lifting of all immigration restrictions, Hamburg's Jews will once again be able to show their brotherly love to many Jewish people.

In its overseas home on the "Veddel", the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft also maintains a Jewish department for Jewish emigrants, equipped with ritual dining facilities and a synagogue; this serves emigrants who were forced by American legislation to interrupt emigration for years on end.

Martin Cohen