Germany's largest synagogue

Rykestrasse Synagogue is Germany´s largest synagogue (was designed for 2,000; after renovation for 1,200 persons). Today, the rite is liberal-conservative.

Built in 1903/4 it is located in the eastern part of Berlin, in the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood. Due to it's location in a large block of houses, the Nazis did not put fire on the synagogue during the 1938 November Pogrom, they "merely" vandalised it. It was one of the few little-destroyed ones in Berlin. Rabbis and other male congregants were arrested and brought to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The Jewish community of Berlin mended the building, reopened it on the eve of Pessach 1939 and held services there till 12 April 1940. The Jewish school in the front building was forced to close in 1941.

Rykestrasse was the only synagogue in eastern Berlin which survived the Shoah and war. After the war, the first shabbat ceremony was held on Friday, 13 July 1945, also attended by Soviet City Commander. The first Jewish wedding was celebrated on 29 July 1945 by Rabbi Martin Riesenburger. The first post-war president of the Jewish community of Berlin, Erich Nehlhans, who survived the Shoah living underground, was murdered in a Soviet Gulag in 1950. Rykestrasse was officially re-consecrated in 30. August 1953.

During the anti-Semitic campaigns in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe led to a renewed exodus from East Berlin and East Germany. After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 the number of members of the Jewish community in the eastern sector of Berlin amounted to about 3,000 persons.

After the fall of the Wall, the small Jewish Community of Berlin (East) and the much bigger Jewish Community of Berlin (West) reunited on 1 January 1991.