Jewish Community – Goettingen

On the website you will find information and pictures for the current religious, social, cultural and political life, history of the community, its buildings and its cemetery. Important events, holiday celebrations and interreligious and intercultural contacts are regularly reported. In the archive you can find publications and reports from the media on various topics, among others on the history of Jewish life in Göttingen.

The Corona Pandemic has drastically changed the community life and given new challenges. There was a need to change quickly to digital communications. Presently, the rabbis and the chazzan (Cantor) offer online religious services and Shiurim (lessons). Weather permitting, there are sometimes religious services and meetings in our beautiful garden.

Current events and Drashot (sermons) from the rabbis are given on this page. Older documents are kept in the archive.

The community

The Jewish Community of Göttingen e.V. was revived in 1994. Today the congregation has 150 members: 90 percent of them come from the former Soviet Union, the remaining 10 percent are Jews from Germany, Israel, the USA and other countries. Non-Jewish members can become members of the Beth Shalom, the community’s circle of friends. The divine services are celebrated according to the liberal rite. The Jewish community owns 2 buildings in Angerstrasse: the community center and the synagogue, which stands in a spacious garden, which is lovingly maintained by neighbors. The Municipal House has 3 floors. On the ground floor there is a kitchen and a large meeting room with a small stage, on the 1st floor office, social counseling and library are housed, on the 3rd floor there is a guest room, a children’s room and a music room. Here rehearses the “Goldquartett”, the “community band”, which gives many concerts inside and outside the community.

In the rooms religious celebrations, social counseling, German and Ivrit lessons, concerts, dance evenings, lectures and interreligious encounters take place. Some events are organized together with the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, with which the community has been friends for years. The community is open: encounters with other religions and world views are just as important as the opportunity to get to know the community and Judaism. Synagogue tours for school classes and other interested parties are offered. The municipality has its own cemetery next to the main municipal cemetery. Guided tours of the old part of the cemetery take place at regular intervals.

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