Construction
The synagogue was built from 1910 on in a Neo-Romanesque style with distinctive Byzantine elements and was large enough to accommodate up to 1,720 worshippers. While older synagogues had usually been erected in backyards, the temple with its richly decorated frontage was meant as a built statement of the advanced Jewish emancipation in the German Empire. A scholar of Progressive Judaism rabbi Leo Baeck was one of its leaders. Its main cantor for many years was Magnus Davidsohn and Richard Altmann (who was blind) was its organist.
Emperor Wilhelm II presented the synagogue with a ceremonial marriage hall richly adorned with Maiolica tiles from his manufacture in Kadinen, dedicated to the Jews of Germany, and, as Magnus Davidsohn's daughter, Ilse Stanley, describes in her book The Unforgotten, visited the temple upon its opening. Kurt Tucholsky on this occasion criticized a voluntary assimilation of German Jews while the ruling class had nothing but contempt for them.
Read more about this topic: Fasanenstrasse Synagogue
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