Berlin’s Jewish community marked 60 years since the reopening of the city’s liberal synagogue.
Three Berlin cantors took part in the special Chanukah ceremony, which was led by Rabbi Chaim Rozwaski in the Pestalozzistrasse Synagogue in former West Berlin.
The synagogue, which the Nazis did not burn for fear of setting neighboring buildings alight, was reopened in 1947. Cantor Estrongo Nachama, a survivor of Auschwitz from Greece who had been immersed in Sephardic traditions, learned the 19th century German liturgical melodies of Louis Lewandowski and served the Berlin congregation until his death in 2000.
