Synagoge Hohe Weide

Synagoge Hohe Weide stands at the corner of Hohe Weide and Heymannstraße in Hamburg, its east side turned to the junction. It was the first synagogue built in the city after the Second World War. Karl Heinz Wongel and Klaus May designed it, and it was inaugurated in 1960. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg provided the site in the mid-1950s. The foundation stone was laid on 9 November 1958, twenty years to the day after the November pogroms. It serves the city's Jewish population as a central place of worship and gathering.

White artificial stone slabs cover the pentagonal building, and a Star of David crowns its copper roof. It shares a courtyard with a community centre and the rabbi's residence. A foyer connects the synagogue and the community hall, and its metal entrance doors by Traute Beermann carry a verse from Psalm 122. Inside, the Torah ark stands on the eastern side, with the women's gallery on the opposite sides. The Bima holds the centre of the room, as the tradition of Ashkenazi Orthodox synagogues prescribes. Five tall windows on each side are the work of the painter Herbert Spangenberg. They show the Star of David, the Tablets of the Law, a Torah scroll, the Menorah and the spice box. A mikveh, an event hall and a smaller hall that can serve as its own prayer room complete the building.

Part of Hohe Weide itself is closed to motor vehicles because of the risk of attacks. Police protection has been in place since the early 1990s, and in October 2020 an attack near the synagogue underlined the danger. Since 1992 the community has kept the Chanukkia of the former Altona community, a Hanukkah lamp from the seventeenth century. It is roughly three centuries older than the building that shelters it.