The Jewish community of Dresden is installing its first hometown rabbi since 1938.
Alexander Nachama, 29, was to be formally inaugurated last week as rabbi of the new synagogue in Dresden, which is in eastern Germany. Dresden’s Semper-Synagogue was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938. The new synagogue was dedicated at the original site in 2001.
Nachama, who also is a cantor, was ordained earlier this month in Erfurt after completing his rabbinical studies at the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam. His late paternal grandfather, Estrongo Nachama, survived Auschwitz and became chief cantor for Berlin’s Jewish community. The rabbi’s father, Andreas Nachama, is also a rabbi and serves as spiritual leader of Berlin’s Hüttenweg synagogue.
Dresden’s prewar Jewish community numbered more than 5,000; only 41 Jews lived there in the immediate postwar years. With the influx of Russian-speaking Jews since 1990, the Jewish community in Dresden has grown to 720 from 61 in 1990. — jta