Jewish culture in Germany is being given a boost with an extensive makeover of the Old Synagogue in the industrial Ruhr region city of Essen. More than seven million euros ($10 million) are being pumped into the refurbishment of the 95-year-old building so it can be ready by 2010 when Essen becomes Europe’s capital of culture.

The building was gutted by fire during Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, when the Nazis looted and destroyed Jewish property.

The city of Essen purchased the synagogue in the late 1950s and allowed it to be used as an exhibition centre for industrial design before it was turned into a memorial in 1980.

More restoration work has just been announced for another synagogue destroyed during the Nazi pogrom in Darmstadt, not far from the banking centre of Frankfurt.

A memorial is to be erected amid the ruins of the former Liberal Synagogue, after liturgical artefacts and parts of its walls were uncovered during excavation work for a new city clinic.

Work was halted after the discovery in 2003 while a new concept was worked out to integrate the remains of the old walls in the new building in the form of a memorial.The first rabbis to be ordained in Germany since the end of the war took their vows at the main synagogue in the city of Dresden in September 2006.

(Source: Thai Indian)