The White Stork Synagogue in Wrocław, Poland - the former Breslau, Germany - was inaugurated in 1829. It followed first a liberal rite till 1872, then a conservative rite till 1941 and then for all denominations till 1943.
The architect Carl Ferdinand Langhans was one of Germany’s foremost theatre designers, which is clearly visible in the Synagogue's neoclassic design. The main prayer hall is surrounded on three sides with women's galleries, which are on two levels.
During the November 1038 pogrom, the synagogue was desecrated and the interior destroyed, but the building was not torched and burned because of it's vicinity to buildings nearby. Its only synagogue to survive the Holocaust. The community restored the synagogue afterwards and it was used till 1943 by all denominations.
After the war, it was used by the Jewish community till 1968 when all religious services ceased after Communist-sponsored anti-Semitic campaigns. In 1974 it was expropriated by the Polish state and handed over to the University of Wrocław, which used it as a library. The Jewish community reclaimed it eventually in 1996. Renovations finished in 2010 and the synagogue was rededicated. Together with a small prayer room, the synagogue serves the Jewish community and as a cultural centre.
Four reform rabbis and three cantors, who graduated from the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, were ordained at a ceremony in the White Stork synagogue in 2014, the 160th anniversary of the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary. The latter was once one of the foremost institutions in Germany for the training of rabbis, but the seminary was closed in 1938.
