Frankfurt city walk: Out of the ghetto

The Goldener Apfel house was built in the second half of the 16th century and was located at the northern end of Judengasse. Over the centuries, families lived in the building who were listed in the surviving visitation lists as grocers and peddlers, clothes merchants or sellers of canvas. During the bombardment of Frankfurt by French artillery in 1796, the northern part of the Judengasse was badly damaged, including the Goldener Apfel. Joseph Moses Rindskopf acquired the property in 1809 and built a prestigious stone house extending over five plots. The cellars had largely been preserved and were integrated into the new building. Traces of the builder can still be found there today. A building inscription, a so-called keystone, gives his initials and the year of construction "IMR 1809". In 1860, the antiquarian bookseller Isaac Kauffmann acquired the building and ran a Hebrew bookshop here from 1861. After Kauffmann's death in 1884, his son Ignatz Kauffmann and later his grandson Felix Kauffmann continued to run the bookshop and publishing house. In 1900/01, the book printing company M. Lehrberger & Co. was added, which was also owned by Ignatz Kauffmann. The Kauffmann book publishing house became one of the largest and best-known in its field in the German Reich. Joseph Rindskopf and his sons, as well as Isaac and Ignatz Kauffmann, had to fight to be recognized as equal citizens in Frankfurt. After the victory over the French revolutionary troops and the subsequent reaction after 1815, the city of Frankfurt took away rights that had already been granted to Jews. It was not until 1864 and 1871 that legal equality came into force. Since 2024, the basement of the Goldener Apfel (An der Staufenmauer 11) has been home to an exhibition on the history of the building, its owners and the struggle of Frankfurt's Jews for emancipation in the 19th century. For opening hours, please visit the Jewish Museum's website at https://www.juedischesmuseum.de/besuch/goldener-apfel/.

Even before the main synagogue was inaugurated in 1860, the synagogues of the Jewish community were located on this site. The oldest synagogue in the Judengasse area had been destroyed in a major fire in 1711. A new synagogue complex was built within a few months under the direction of master mason Daniel Kayser. The baroque building with flat pitched roofs and arched windows housed the large prayer hall, a yeshiva, a women's synagogue and a meeting room for the master builders (i.e. the community council). The synagogue was demolished in 1854. The community had a modern and voluminous new building erected on the same site, designed by Frankfurt architect Johann Georg Kayser in Moorish-Byzantine style. The hall had seating for almost 600 men and the galleries had 500 seats for women. The largest and most magnificent synagogue in the city at the time was also a symbol of the dominance of Reform Judaism in Frankfurt. Prayers were held in German. Rabbi Leopold Stein had also introduced an organ and choir. At the inauguration ceremony on March 23, 1860, there was a scandal when Rabbi Stein demanded the demolition of the "abominable Judengasse". The long-standing conflicts between the community council and the rabbi ended with Stein's resignation in 1862, when he was succeeded by Abraham Geiger. Today, a granite plaque commemorates the main synagogue, which was set on fire by SA men and their followers on the night of November 9-10, 1938. The burnt-out ruins were demolished the following year. A memorial plaque was installed in 1946 on the initiative of the US military government. Since 2024, picture and text plaques in the passageway between Kurt-Schumacher-Straße and An der Staufenmauer have commemorated the main synagogue.

Frankfurt's Judengasse was once one of the most important centers of Jewish life in Europe. The permanent exhibition at the Museum Judengasse presents its history and focuses on everyday Jewish life in the early modern period. At the heart of the museum are archaeological remains from five houses in Frankfurt's Judengasse. In 1460, the Frankfurt City Council decided to resettle the Jewish population from the Old Town in the area south of the cathedral into a new ghetto. Until 1462, Frankfurt's Jews had to move to the Judengasse, which was separated from the rest of the city by walls and gates that could be locked from the outside. There they governed themselves; honorary community leaders regulated their coexistence. There were synagogues, ritual baths, prayer schools and other facilities for religious life. Charitable associations supported poorer residents. Frankfurt's rabbis were respected far beyond the city limits for their erudition. The residents of the Judengasse spoke Yiddish and lived and worked according to Jewish traditions and the Jewish calendar. Jewish life was characterized by close interaction with the Christian urban society, from which anti-Jewish resentment and even pogroms regularly emanated. In the end, around 3,000 people lived here in a very small area. During the Revolutionary Wars, French troops destroyed the northern part of the ghetto in 1796; the Judengasse was demolished in the course of the 19th century. The foundations of the Steinernes Haus, Warmes Bad, Sperber, Roter Widder and Weißer Widder buildings are used to recreate the life and living conditions of the inhabitants. A special highlight is the historic mikvah in the cellar of the Stone House. The history of the museum's founding, which was accompanied by protests, is also part of the exhibition. In 1987, Jewish and non-Jewish activists fought with building site occupations and demonstrations to ensure that the foundations were preserved in their entirety and authenticity.

The cemetery on Battonnstraße is one of the oldest Jewish burial grounds in Europe. It has existed since the 13th century. The gravestones bear witness to the rich tradition of Jewish life in the city. The inscriptions almost never mention professions or secular activities, but they do mention scholarship and charity. Piety is considered the highest virtue. Over 2000 gravestones have been preserved. The vast majority were destroyed by the National Socialist city administration in the 1940s. The Judengasse Museum offers regular guided tours of the Old Jewish Cemetery. One highlight is the gravestone for Channa bat Alexander (= Channa, daughter of Alexander) with the date of death July 12, 1272. It is the oldest still legible gravestone in the cemetery. A few meters further on is the gravestone of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), the founder of the famous banking house. The simple design of the stone and the absence of any ornamentation are remarkable. The gate in the south-western section of the cemetery served as the main entrance until the Börneplatz Synagogue was built in 1881-82. "Beth HaChaim" (= House of Life) can be read in Hebrew on the two wings of the gate. This is a poetic paraphrase for "cemetery". Directly in front of the gate is the former outline of the Börneplatz synagogue, recognizable as part of the (Neuer) Börneplatz memorial by the dark flooring and the border. The synagogue existed from 1882 to 1938 and served as a place of worship for the Orthodox members of the community.

New Börneplatz on the corner of Battonnstrasse and Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse and the creation of a memorial on the southern Börneplatz on Rechneigrabenstrasse, which had lain fallow for decades. The competition held in 1988 to design the Neuer Börneplatz memorial was won by architecture students Andrea Wandel, Wolfgang Lorch and Nikolaus Hirsch. Today, 11,908 metal blocks bearing the names of Frankfurters persecuted and murdered as Jews during the Nazi era form the centerpiece of the concept. The name blocks run as a frieze along the outer wall of the Old Jewish Cemetery. The biographical information on the Frankfurt Jews murdered between 1933 and 1945, which had been researched over many years, could be accessed until 2022 via the non-public "Neuer Börneplatz Memorial Database". In 2022/23, the biographies were updated, supplemented and published on the website www.shoah-memorial-frankfurt.de. The sandstone cube in the middle of the square was assembled from the structural remains of the Judengasse. The floor plan of the former building, which is separated from the surrounding area by metal rails, is a reminder of the Börneplatz synagogue destroyed by the National Socialists. Five street signs on Rechneigrabenstraße recall the numerous renamings of the square. The memorial was opened to the public in 1996.

The name "Kippestub" goes back to the Hebrew word "Kuppa" and means "cash box". The purpose of this fund, which was founded in 1738, was to care for impecunious members of the community. In the course of the 18th century, another men's health insurance fund for wealthy circles was added. The Israelite Women's Sickness Fund was founded in 1761. The two men's health insurance funds were merged in the 1820s at the instigation of the authorized signatory and philanthropist Siegmund Geisenheimer. Finally, it was the von Rothschild family who provided the funds of 100,000 guilders for a modern hospital building. The new building on Rechneigrabenstrasse was opened in 1829. A plaque on the building commemorated the founding family: "The Barons Amschel, Salomon, Nathan, Carl and Jakob von Rothschild built this house in the spirit of their immortalized father; for the care of the sick, for the piety of the community, for the adornment of the home town; a monument to filial reverence and fraternal harmony." The magnificent interior of the Kippestub Synagogue soon made the building a Frankfurt landmark. From the early 1920s, the building on Rechneigrabenstraße was used as a retirement home for the Jewish community. In 1940 - more than 200 years after it was founded - the Israelite Health Insurance Fund was incorporated into the "Reich Association of Jews in Germany" and thus placed under the direct control of the Secret State Police. During the deportations of Frankfurt's Jews to concentration and extermination camps, the hospital building served as a collection camp. Several stumbling stones and a headstone on the sidewalk commemorate the deportations.

The Israelite Religious Society (IRG) secondary and high school for girls was opened in 1853 on the corner of Rechneigrabenstraße and Schützenstraße. The founding father of the school and its principal was Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), who followed the principle of "Torah in Derech Erez": According to this, the IRG strove to reconcile a law-abiding lifestyle with secular education. Or, as the teacher and historian Abraham Sulzbach put it, "Jewish knowledge hand in hand with contemporary education, both as equally important alongside and with each other". However, the proportion of religious instruction, Torah study and Hebrew never amounted to more than a third of the total number of lessons. While 29 female and 55 male pupils initially attended the school when it opened on April 1, 1853, ten years later there were already 259 pupils. The school soon had to be expanded; in 1863, the building at Rechneigrabenstraße 3 was purchased and furnished accordingly. After the annexation of Frankfurt by Prussia in 1866, the school was placed under the control of the Provincial School Board and the Prussian curriculum was introduced. In 1877, Rabbi and principal Samson Raphael Hirsch retired and his son Mendel Hirsch took over as headmaster. Due to the constant increase in the number of pupils, it was finally decided to build a new school building. Thanks to a generous donation from Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild, a building site at the Tiergarten, today's zoo, was acquired and built on. The new and spacious school building was officially opened on December 21, 1881. The newly founded Israelite elementary school temporarily moved into the former location on Rechneigraben, which mainly accepted children of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

One of the first official acts of Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), who was appointed rabbi by the Israelite Religious Society (IRG) in 1851, was to build a synagogue. After years of conflict with the reformers, orthodox members of the community were no longer willing to attend the services of the liberal rabbi Leopold Stein in the main synagogue. The foundation stone for the new synagogue in Schützenstraße was laid in September 1852. The sacral building designed by architect J. W. Renk was designed in the Arabic-Byzantine style and offered seating for 250 men and 200 women. Amschel Meyer and Wilhelm von Rothschild contributed two thirds of the costs. The synagogue was consecrated on September 29, 1853 in the presence of the town's dignitaries. The sermons were held in German. There had to be absolute silence during the service and singing with the cantor was not permitted. The mikvah was located in the adjacent building, which also housed the IRG school. Rabbi Hirsch's neo-orthodox congregation grew rapidly, so that the synagogue had to be extended in 1872/73. When the congregation moved to the synagogue on Friedberger Anlage, which was consecrated in 1907, the old place of worship lost its function. In the 1920s, the IRG sold the synagogue on Schützenstraße to an art dealer who used the interior for exhibitions and auctions. The building was destroyed in air raids between 1942 and 1944. The burnt-out ruins were demolished in 1953.