Old Synagogue Dresden

The Dresden Synagogue or Semper Synagogue, today also called Old Synagogue was the synagogue of the Jewish community in Dresden, inaugurated in 1840 and destroyed in the November pogrom in 1938. The neo-Romanesque building designed by Gottfried Semper was the first modern synagogue to be uniformly designed inside in orientalizing style and served mainly Edwin Oppler as a model for numerous other synagogue buildings. The synagogue had 300 seats for men and 200 for women and could accommodate a total of 1000 people. At the time of its completion, it was the largest synagogue in Germany.

A firefighter saved a Star of David in 1938, preserved it, and returned it to the Jewish Community in 1945. Last use: Jewish community center + synagogue