GUIDED TOURS ABOUT JEWISH HISTORY AND JEWISH LIFE
- TODAY IN BERLIN (Germany)
 UnterwegsJEWISH BERLIN TOURS

UNTERWEGS offers 22 tours in German and 8 in English on Jewish history in Berlin.

Today Berlin is the fastest growing Jewish community in the world and it has the widest range of Jewish activities in Germany.

FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO PRESENT-DAY JEWISH LIFE

Around the New Synagogue in Oranienburger Street we find different Jewish institutions from the past such as the first cemetery, an old-age people’s home which became a deportation center, the Jewish boys’ school, an orphanage, a hospital, an orthodox rabbinical seminary, the liberal academy for Judaism, all of which represent the variety of Jewish life before the Nazi Period. New beginnings such as a Jewish community center , a Jewish high school, egalitarian groups and plans by the orthodox community Adass Jisroel for a new synagogue show present Jewish life.

EAST EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS ON THEIR WAY TO AMERICA

From 1885 - 1925 many Jews from Eastern Europe flew from pogroms, discrimination and hunger to Berlin in search of a better life. Most of them wanted to emigrate to the US. (Many failed because of the quota introduced in the twenties.) Most of them started a new life in the Barn Quarter, where the poor lived. There, they had their own institutions (stiblech, mikva, political groups ...) and maintained a lifestyle which was rooted in their orthodox background and different from that of assimilated Jews who lived in the west of Berlin.

JEWISH LIFE IN SCHOENEBERG

At the turn of the century many upper middle-class Jews moved to Schoeneberg which was called "Jewish Switzerland": Scientists (Einstein), artists (Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, the Comedian Harmonists), poets and journalists (Gertrud Kolmar, Else Lasker-Schüler, Kurt Tucholsky, Alfred Kerr) and Rabbis (Naphtali Carlebach, Alexander Altmann, Leo Baeck, Naphtali Herz Tur-Sinai). Some years ago a memorial was set up, which consists of 80 plaques: the front shows a symbol (bread, musical instrument) and on the back is printed one of the Nazi laws. The plaques depict the discrimination and persecution of the Jewish population.

JEWISH LIFE IN CHARLOTTENBURG

From 1895 to 1910 the Jewish population of Charlottenburg increased from 4600 to 22,500. New institutions were set up (synagogues, schools, mikvah, social services). The Kurfuerstendamm with its famous cafés became the center of the avant-garde (writers, painters, musicians, critics...). After the Shoah many displaced persons came from Eastern Europe and started a Jewish life which was intended to be temporary. In 1959 the Jewish community center was inaugurated in West Berlin and so Charlottenburg became the center of the post war Jewish community in West Berlin. Today Berlin is - because of the Russian Jewish Immigration - the fastest growing Jewish community of the world.

WOMEN’S HISTORY
  • JEWISH WOMEN BETWEEN PERSECUTION AND RESISTANCE
  • JEWISH WOMEN AROUND THE FIRST WOMEN`S MOVEMENT
  • JEWISH SOCIAL WORK AND HEALTH SERVICES
  • REGINA JONAS - THE FIRST WOMAN RABBI OF THE WORLD

OTHER TOPICS

  • Sephardic Jews in Berlin
  • Changing Concepts of Jewish Teaching and Learning: Beth haMidrasch, Torah-Talmud-Classes, Rabbinic Seminary, Schools, Adult Education, Liberal Academy for Judaism and important teachers such as Moses Mendelssohn, Esriel Hildesheimer, Abraham Geiger, Leo Baeck
  • How Jews lived behind the Iron Curtain: The Jewish Community in the East of Berlin

German [UNTERWEGS]