Germany's first Jewish Academy opens in Frankfurt

The first academy of its kind in Germany

A Jewish Academy has opened in Frankfurt — the first institution of its kind in Germany, reports Deutsche Welle. The choice of city is no accident: Frankfurt has historically been a center of Jewish intellectual life and remains one of the country's main centers of Jewish life alongside Berlin, Munich and Düsseldorf. The Academy is located less than a ten-minute walk from the city's largest synagogue and within sight of the historic festival hall on the fairgrounds, where in 1938 the Nazis gathered Jewish men for deportation to concentration camps.

Continuity with Rosenzweig's Lehrhaus

The new academy sees itself in the tradition of the Jewish Lehrhaus ('house of learning') founded in Frankfurt in 1920 and associated with the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929); the Nazis closed it in 1938. The city's Jewish community also took part in founding Goethe University in 1914, and in 1950 it was in Frankfurt that the Central Council of Jews in Germany was established, whose headquarters are today in Berlin. The project grew out of an initiative by former head of the Central Council Dieter Graumann, who in 2012 proposed creating an educational division; its work was shaped by the institution's current directors.

Opening and politicians' reactions

At the opening ceremony on Monday, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, declared: 'We must fight hatred with education, education and once more education.' In his words, the institute is a 'milestone' reflecting 'the determination of the Jewish community to consider Germany its home,' but he also emphasized that 'Jewish life in Germany is under greater threat than at any time since the crime against humanity — the Shoah.' Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for rejecting antisemitism unconditionally and also fighting it politically, noting that the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust was also directed against the Jewish world of knowledge. He separately honored Rosenzweig's legacy.

Program and the everyday reality of security

The Academy combines the features of a century-old villa with a four-story modern building. Co-directors Sabena Donat and Doron Kiesel describe it as 'a bridge between the academic world and the general public' and 'a home for scholars and a home for those who ask questions.' At the heart of the program are the philosophy of religion, ethics and current discussions about contemporary Jewish life; Kiesel stressed that it is important to show the diversity of Jewish life and that 'it is completely wrong to speak of the protection of Jewish schools and synagogues. Construction cost about €40 million — roughly half was covered by the Central Council of Jews, half by the federal and state governments; the sum turned out to be noticeably higher than estimates at the time of the groundbreaking in 2021, partly due to structural security measures.