Hamm

Residential - Hamm (Hamm Am Rhein), Rhineland-Palatinate

First Jewish presence: 1663; peak Jewish population: 145 in 1903; Jewish population in 1933: 70

Jews first settled in Hamm in 1663, but it was not until 1832 that a Jewish community was established there. Although we do not know when this community established its small synagogue and mikveh, records do tell us that in 1891, plans were drawn up for a larger house of worship. On the day of the new synagogue’s inauguration in 1894, the entire town festively marched the Torah scrolls from the old synagogue to the new one. On Pogrom Night, the synagogue was systematically destroyed. The Nazis first ravaged the interior by breaking all the furniture and tearing up the Torah scrolls and holy books, after which they demolished the exterior of the building and, finally, set it on fire. The destroyed building was torn down in 1945, and the site remained empty. In 1978, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Pogrom Night, a memorial was unveiled at the synagogue site. The memorial, an ironwork sculpture depicting a dome with flames around it, was enlarged in 2007 to include a sculpture of the synagogue.

Moshe Finkel

Copyright: Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany/ Germansynagogues.com

Notes

Sources: Alemannia Judaica, www.alemannia-judaica.de The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Shmuel Spector [Ed.], [publisher] Yad Vashem and the New York University Press, 2001., “und dies ist die Pforte des Himmels”: Synagogen Rheinland-Pfalz/Saarland, Will Schmid, Stefan Fischbach and Ingrid Westerhoff [Eds.], publication initiated by Joachim Glatz and Meier Schwarz, [publisher] Phillipp Von Zabern, 2005.

Details

Date Added	Apr 20, 2020
Category	Residential
Country	DE
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
City	Hamm (Hamm Am Rhein)
Exhibits	Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany

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Hamm

First Jewish presence: 1663; peak Jewish population: 145 in 1903; Jewish population in 1933: 70

Moshe Finkel

Copyright: Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany/ Germansynagogues.com

Notes

Details

Have additional information, photos, connections, or other resources to contribute?

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Executive Director

Jason Guberman-P., A social entrepreneur who specializes in building broad coalitions and melding intellectual and technical innovation, serves as founding Executive Director of Digital Heritage Mapping and is the coordinator of the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

Joshua Shamsi

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Joshua Shamsi, is Project Director for the Atlas of Jewish Life and Lead Photographer/Outreach Director for the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

Eddie Ashkenazie

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Eddie Ashkenazie, is a Yeshiva University PhD student focusing his studies on the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in the modern era.

Avital Hirsch

Avital Hirsch graduated Magna Cum Laude from Binghamton University with a BA in language and linguistics. She has studied in Rome at Istituto Lorenzo de Medici.

Glenn Dynner

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Glenn Dynner. Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College. BA, Brandeis University. MA, McGill University. PhD, Brandeis University. Scholar of East European Jewry with a focus on the social history of Hasidism and the Haskalah.

Chrystie Sherman

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Born in Chicago, Chrystie Sherman was educated at the University of Vermont, the University of Paris, and New York University Graduate School of Film and Television.

Gentian Xhaxiu

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Gentian Xhaxhiu, was born in Tirana, Albania, in April 1988. He has attained a Master Degree in “EU Business Law” and has successfully completed the Annual Programme of the School of Political Studies of the Council of Europe.