Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt

The Jewish Museum of Frankfurt is the oldest independent Jewish museum in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is aimed at preserving and recounting the 900 years of Jewish history and culture in the city. The Museum includes a permanent exhibition at two locations with site-specific references. The Judengasse Museum on Börneplatz deals with the history and culture of Jews in Frankfurt during the early modern period and includes the ruins of the former Frankfurt Judengasse and the second-oldest Jewish cemetery in Germany. The Jewish Museum in the Rothschild Palais is dedicated to Jewish history and culture since the Jewish emancipation.

At the end of the 1970s, the head of the municipal cultural department initiated the project for a museum bank. A Jewish museum in the Rothschild Palais and an adjoining building on Untermainkai were approved by the city council in 1980. In the following years, a commission of historians developed a concept for the museum that was to present the history of Frankfurt's Jews from the 12th century to 1945. Donations made it possible to create the basis for its own collection. The opening of the first Jewish Museum in the Federal Republic of Germany took place on November 9, 1988, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1938 pogrom, and was presided by Helmut Kohl.