History of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt

We are the oldest municipal Jewish Museum in Germany. On November 9, 1988, Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl opened the museum on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the November Pogrom. The history of the museum, however, extends much further back.

Today’s Jewish Museum is not the first of its kind in Frankfurt. In 1922, the Museum Jüdischer Altertümer (Museum of Jewish Antiquities) was opened. It, in turn, had developed out of the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung jüdischer Kunstdenkmäler (Society for the Study of Jewish Art Monuments), founded by the Frankfurt patron Charles Hallgarten in 1897. That museum mainly exhibited valuable ritual objects. It was housed in the former bank building of the Rothschild family on Fahrgasse. Unlike today, the Jewish Community ran the museum at that time. Its administrative offices were also on Fahrgasse.

On the Reichspogromnacht 1938, the museum was looted by men from the SA and SS and a large part of its collection destroyed. About 1,000 remaining objects were incorporated into Frankfurt’s History Museum, some turned up on the local art market, and others were melted down. Part of our Judaica Collection is from that museum's holdings.

After World War II, Jewish citizens who had been expelled from Frankfurt suggested collecting and publishing material on the city's Jewish history. The project was supported by the city of Frankfurt. In 1961, a special commission was set up to research the history of the Frankfurt Jews. That commission included, among others, Max Horkheimer, Rabbi Kurt Wilhelm, and Rabbi Georg Salzberger as well as many other renowned personalities.

In 1979, a plan was drawn up to once again establish a Jewish Museum in Frankfurt. It was to be a municipal museum and part of what was called the new Museum Bank (Museumsufer), promoted since 1977 by Hilmar Hoffmann, the Frankfurt city councillor in charge of cultural affairs at the time. The historical Rothschild Palais on Untermainkai along with its neighboring building, came under consideration. In 1985, the first museum director was Georg Heuberger. By choosing November 9, 1988, the 50th anniversary of the November Pogrom, as the official opening date, those responsible underscored the museum’s political focus on commemoration.

In 1987, during construction works on Börneplatz in Frankfurt, the foundations of 19 houses from the former Judengasse came to light – a unique archaeological find. The former Jewish ghetto, or Judengasse, had been built in 1462 along the city walls, which dated from late medieval times. Over the course of the centuries, it developed into one of the most important Jewish centers in Europe. Up to 3,000 people lived there under the most confined conditions.

The archaeological finds gave rise to the so-called Börneplatz Conflict. The problem concerned what was to happen to these testimonies to Frankfurt's Jewish history. The City wanted to have an administrative building constructed on the site, the demonstrators, by contrast, demanded that the foundations be preserved. The conflict inflamed passions around the whole country. In the end, a compromise was found: five of the excavated house foundations were first removed and then reconstructed at the original site, now the basement of the administration building. Today they make up the core of the Museum Judengasse, opened in 1992 as a branch of the Jewish Museum.

In 2016, the Museum Judengasse installed a new permanent exhibition. It presents the history of the Judengasse and Jewish life in Frankfurt up until the years after 1800, when Jews were also permitted to settle outside the Judengasse. Beside the Museum Judengasse are the Old Jewish Cemetery on Battonnstraße and the New Börneplatz Commemoration Site.

The new Jewish Museum has been under construction on Untermainkai since 2015. The new museum complex includes a spacious extension building designed by Staab Architects. The Rothschild Palais and its neighboring building habe been refurbished and renovated for the new permanent exhibition. The re-opening was celebrated in October 2020.