The Jewish Academy in Frankfurt am Main is taking shape: the Central Council of Jews in Germany plans to start construction at the beginning of September. The academy was the first supraregional Jewish institution of its kind to be established in Germany after the Shoah, announced the Central Council in Berlin on Tuesday. At the groundbreaking ceremony on September 2, the President of the Central Council, Josef Schuster, is expecting Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and Hesse’s Prime Minister Volker Bouffier.
“With the academy, Jewish intellectual life is given a new focus,” says Josef Schuster: “We want to offer the Jewish community in its plurality a platform and, against the background of German-Jewish history, have an impact on society as a whole and foster interreligious dialogue . Enduring differences and strengthening similarities – this is what this modern place of Jewish thought should achieve. “
In the tradition of the Jewish Lehrhaus, which was closed during the Nazi regime
The Jewish Academy is in the tradition of the Free Jewish Teaching House, an institution for adult education founded in the 1920s, which was headed in Frankfurt by the historian and philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. In 1938 it was closed by the National Socialists.
In the Jewish Academy, important public discourses are now to be taken up and enriched with the Jewish perspective. In this way, the Academy wants to contribute to increasing the acceptance of religious and cultural plurality in Germany, according to the Central Council. Frankfurt’s mayor Uwe Becker had already called the academy an “exclamation mark” for an active Jewish life in June. The academy is to be jointly managed by Sabena Donath and Doron Kiesel, the head and scientific director of the education department of the Central Council of Jews.
The new building, which will be integrated into a former professor’s villa, is to be built in the Senckenberganlage. The building was designed by the Frankfurt architect Zvonko Turkali. According to the Central Council, the total cost of the project is 34.5 million euros, 16 million of which are borne by the federal government, seven by the State of Hesse, 6.5 million by the Central Council and five by the city of Frankfurt. Completion of the building is planned for the end of 2023, and the Jewish Academy is scheduled to start operations in 2024.
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