Jewish Grindel District

Wallpainting by Cecilia Herrero on Campus of Hamburg University

Jewish Life at Grindel District

At Hamburg’s Grindelviertel near the train station Dammtor interested visitors will notice every now and then relics of a once vibrant Jewish life. In the 1920’s more than 50 % of Hamburg’s Jewish population lived at the neighbourhoods of Harvestehude and Rotherbaum. At cosher shops, bakeries and pastry shops, butcheries, synagogues, Jeshivoth (religious schools), at meetings of Eastern Jewish cultural foundations and at masonic lodges life was oscillating. At the end of the 19th century Jewish familes moved from Neustadt around the St. Michaelis Church to the Grindel. The trams, which once passed by the Dammtor via the Grindelallee, were called by Hamburg’s citizens “Jerusalem express”. Here at the Grindel it smelled of Lattkes, gefillte Fish, Mazza and goose liver. Even today, besides a few memorial sites, some houses of the Jewish community are still standing and can be visited around the campus of Hamburg University. Former community buildings, backyards with abandoned synagogues, housing projects for the poor and the lodges of Free Masons as well as the famous Talmud-Tora-School. It was reopened as the seat of the Jewish community in 200!These are the hot spots of our guided tour. Today we have a Jewish Revival at the Grindel!

STOLPERSTEINE (Stumbling Stones) at main entrance of Hamburg University remembering persecuted Jewish professors (1933-45)

ConTakt: info__at__mll-hamburg.de

Special offer: Coffee or Dinner at Jewish restaurant (extra charges at the Café)