In the Midst of Rubble

The reestablishment of the Jewish community of Berlin, the largest in prewar and postwar Germany, is examined across the city’s four sectors, focusing on the role music played in religious service, social life, and concert. Between 1945 and 1949, musical practices adhered to prewar models that largely relied on cantors, organists, and singers who had been active in the community before 1945, among them Leo Gollanin and Arthur Zepke. At times, the cultural interests and outlets of the community intersected with that of the Displaced Persons and the occupying forces, such as in charity concerts.

Facing Cultural Stagnation

Covering the years 1972 to 1975, the musical life of the Jewish communities in East Germany is examined. Werner Sander’s death left a lacuna for the Jewish communities, both in their sacred services and cultural lives. Smaller communities were already used to the absence of cantors, a reality that had plagued them for decades. They filled positions temporarily with personnel from abroad or laypeople, or used recorded music for certain festivities, such as on Hanukkah and for other cultural events. The small synagogue choir Sander had established in Leipzig, continued its work under the leadership of a non-Jew. The communities clearly valued music and proudly published and reprinted reviews as well as feature articles in their newsletter. With Helmut Klotz becoming the director of the Leipziger Synagogalchor, the choir’s role began to transition to becoming a proxy for a functional and even thriving Jewish presence at the onset of the community’s decline.

Projecting Utopia

By the mid-1980s, the Leipziger Synagogalchor fulfilled its function as Chor des Verbandes and also traveled abroad as part of GDR’s diplomatic visits strategy. Instrumentalized in foreign politics, in actuality Jewish culture became a metaphor for absence. The Karl-Marx-Stadt community counted no more than a dozen members and it is surprising that services took place at all, even if occasionally. Magdeburg and Halle began to jointly celebrate Passover. To counteract their desolate situation, communities relied on established outsiders for special events. The Leipziger Synagogalchor’s political exploitation became ever more transparent when in January 1987 the Leipzig office of Foreign Information developed a concept for a ten-minute film feature of the choir for export to non-socialist countries.

The Politics of Commemoration and Reorientation

The year 1988 saw the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht and 1989 the fall of the Wall. During these years the Leipziger Synagogalchor’s national and international performances and exposure reached an all-time peak. But these years also marked other turning points. The year 1988 was the last year the choir officially functioned as Chor des Verbandes, though as representative of Jewish culture it continued to cater to the GDR’s increasing fixation with foreign politics. Indeed, the choir traveled westward multiple times, with tours to the other Germany in 1988 and 1989. It thus aided the state’s attempts to transmit the image of an antifascist society with a vibrant Jewish culture. In reality, the choir’s ever more dominant presence paralleled a steep decline of the Jewish communities, a situation the state was fully aware of.

“Making Antifascist Politics Visible”

In the course of the 1970s, membership of the Jewish communities dwindled further, yet Jewish music continued to strive due to the presence of the Leipziger Synagogalchor, which kept prewar repertoires alive and exposed an ever-wider audience to them. As such, Jewish music slowly entered the mainstream and moved “out of the ghetto,” as Werner Sander had expressly called for in his very first programs. But this course was also turning into a Jewish heritage music, a mode of cultural production in the present with recourse to the past, singled out for protection, nourishment, and even enshrinement. Financially supported by the state, the Leipziger Synagogalchor also became a musical embodiment of the “success” of the GDR’s antifascist course. In reality, the choir, which consisted of non-Jewish singers, represented the presence of absence, a substitute for a culturally striving Jewish life.

Jewish Culture in Public Diplomacy, Memory Politics, and the Curious Case of Halle

As East German foreign politics became ever more intertwined with Jewish culture and uniquely tied to East–West relations, Jewish music’s potential as the GDR’s diplomatic agent was being discovered. For these purposes, the Leipziger Synagogalchor transitioned to becoming a respected semi-professional ensemble linked with the Jewish communities. The communities, in turn, faced a dearth, not only of cultural programs, but also of worship music, which had declined. In order to maintain service music, the communities relied largely on lay people; and both Leipzig and Dresden could count on a small female chorus that consisted of non-Jews, which became firmly known as the Dresdner Synagogenchor. The Halle community held high hopes for its own cantor, which turned out to be an unfortunate episode that left the community stranded.

Toward a New Communal Future

The changing musical practices of the Jewish community in West Berlin are traced through the later 1980s, only to look again at Berlin at large and its two communities side-by-side. In spite of ideological differences, the East and West Berlin communities came closer, and generally music and culture mirrored the political rapprochement. In the final years of Divided Germany, a Jewish-music festival culture emerged on either side of the curtain, which reveals commonalities and differences between the Berlin communities. If the image of the Iron Curtain suggests a strict East–West separation, the Wall as its physical manifestation had begun to crumble with contacts between the Jewish communities across borders. Indeed, small parts of the Wall fell long before the significant date in history in a slow process that began in the early 1980s and reached a pivotal point in 1989.

The Anniversary Year of 1971 and the Dawn of Détente

In 1971 the Jewish communities of East and West Berlin celebrated their three-hundredth anniversary. The anniversary year coincided with a juncture during which the two halves of the divided city sought greater proximity and thus was framed by noteworthy political and cultural events. East Berlin’s anniversary celebrations were intertwined with two commemorations. These publicly and very visibly perpetuated the image of Jews as victims of fascism. In parallel, East Berlin saw the premiere of the long-awaited local production of Fiddler on the Roof. On the other side of the Wall, the Jewish community had reached a comfortable and high plateau with regular cultural events in its community center. It offered an ever-expanding cultural program, with a broad variety of concerts and recitals. In clear contrast to East Berlin, the West Berlin community offered a rich array of anniversary events that displayed the community’s alliance with Israel, the United States, and West Germany.

The Establishment of the Jüdische Gemeinde von Groß-Berlin

In the aftermath of the purges of 1952/1953, the Jewish community in Berlin was divided into East and West constituencies. This chapter traces the trajectory of the East Berlin community from this division until 1971. Against all odds and in the midst of turmoil, communal life in East Berlin continued, centered around its only synagogue, which was rededicated in 1953 as Friedenstempel. Rykestraße Synagogue became a cultural hub. It instigated a series of synagogue concerts and opened its doors for the annual commemorations of the November pogroms. Given the dearth of cantors, the community also maintained contacts with West Berlin, which regularly freed its cantors from their duties so that they could assist, especially for funerals at the Weißensee cemetery and for special events. The continual presence of cantors from West Berlin was most significant. It gave way to a mobility of musical practices both in Kultus and concerts.

The Leipziger Synagogalchor in the Service of State Propaganda

Having received solid funding from the state, the Leipziger Synagogalchor began to adopt a new image to conform to the GDR’s cultural policies. By the early 1980s, its representation of Jewishness became ever more opaque. The choir maintained loose connections to the Jewish communities, while also entering deeper into the political web of the Democratic Republic through the state’s award system and through negotiations allowing travel to represent antifascist values. The choir found itself in additional contexts, in which aspects of Jewish culture intersected in other ways with GDR politics. At the same time interfaith efforts increased throughout East Germany, providing another performance context for the choir. Discussions about the Leipziger Synagogalchor are juxtaposed with the declining musical life of the Jewish communities.