Nazis destroyed this Berlin synagogue. A Muslim politician and a Jewish leader want to rebuild it.
Along a narrow canal in one of Berlin’s largest Turkish and Muslim neighborhoods sits a synagogue’s ghost — the site of a worship hall that was largely destroyed by the Nazis on the November night in 1938 known as Kristallnacht.
Eighty years later, a Palestinian-born German politician and the leader of Berlin’s Jewish community stood together on a recent morning outside the vanished building’s single remaining wing and outlined a plan to give the ghost new life.
If they can raise the funds, the two hope to completely rebuild the Fraenkelufer synagogue as a house of worship and neighborhood meeting place for people of all faiths and none. The aim, they said, is to send a message of comity and reassurance at a time when rising Islamophobia and fears of a new wave of anti-Semitism in Germany are deepening social mistrust.
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“I wouldn’t be a good Muslim if I didn’t champion Jewish life in my home city, Berlin,” he said. “And a Christian wouldn’t be a good Christian, either, if he didn’t intervene when a woman’s hijab is being torn from her head.”
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