German hospital opens synagogue

The new initiative is unique in Germany. In the eastern state of Thuringia, the Waldkliniken Eisenberg hospital will inaugurate its own synagogue space on Sunday.

The hospital has also expanded its kitchen and menu to provide kosher care for patients under rabbinical supervision.

The building also has a "Shabbat elevator" that runs completely automatically on the Jewish holiday, and can thus be used by religious Jewish patients.

The guest list for the inauguration by Orthodox Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg from Berlin gives an idea of how unusual the event is. Thuringia's State Premier Bodo Ramelow intends to be there, as does the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, as well as the Thuringian State Rabbi Andreas Nachama and various other rabbis. They will all touch the mezuzah, the traditional scriptural capsule at the entrance to the synagogue.

The project was not initiated by any government agency, nor was it conceived as part of this year's celebrations of 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany. The building already has a prayer room for all religions and denominations.

International cooperation

The 53-year-old Thies told DW, that he found that no clinic in Europe offered kosher cuisine, although it is important that sick people feel they are in good hands. Thies went a step further and decided to include a synagogue —  and looked for partners. "The Jewish community in Thuringia was delighted," Thies said and put him in touch with people who could help with the project.

Thies then met Charlotte Knobloch by chance during his training as a nurse in Munich and talked to her about what Jewish patients expected. "I had no idea about that at all," he said today. "That encounter was more of a personal experience. It stuck in my memory."

The 254-bed clinic is now home to the German Center for Orthopedics. It is housed in a building designed by the Italian architect and designer Matteo Thun and is more reminiscent of an elegant hotel than a clinic.

Berlin's Rabbi Ehrenberg called the plan for the synagogue "unique, very, very beautiful and positive." He will personally carry the Torah scroll, which is about 80 years old, into the room on the second floor on Sunday and solemnly say and sing the prayers. The "Torah ark" that encases the scroll was specially made in Israel, and the inscription on the outside is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Shoah.

The furnishings for the room with its 16 seats also come from Israel, from a kibbutz settlement that has already furnished well over 5,000 synagogues in Israel and worldwide. According to the clinic, all of this was financed by its sponsoring association, private donations, and funding from state lotteries.

If needed, there will be services and prayers in the wards in the future, not just on Shabbat, Ehrenberg explains.  The rabbi, born in Jerusalem in 1950, says he has been involved in the kosher kitchen project from the start. A "proper kosher kitchen" is so important for Jewish patients, he says.

A business model

A week after the synagogue's dedication, Knobloch, Thies, and the rabbi will meet again. That's when the plenary session of the European Conference of Rabbis (CER), with hundreds of Orthodox rabbis, meets in Munich. Ehrenberg is a member of the conference's Standing Committee. During the CER meeting, Thies will present his clinic's new synagogue and kosher kitchen.

Ehrenberg, more explicitly than Thies, definitely sees a market: "This can bring a profit for the hospital if you advertise accordingly. Yes, it can become known beyond Germany."

This article was originally written in German.

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