Old Synagogue Erfurt

The Old Synagogue in Erfurt occupies a building whose oldest masonry dates to around 1094, making it one of the oldest synagogue structures still standing in Europe. It served Erfurt's medieval Jewish community until the pogrom of March 1349, during which much of the community was killed or expelled and the building's religious use ended; it was subsequently repurposed over the centuries as a warehouse, dance hall, and even a bowling alley, a series of conversions that inadvertently preserved its walls while erasing its original interior fittings. Restoration and archaeological investigation beginning in the 1990s uncovered the building's medieval core, including Romanesque and Gothic architectural elements, and the site now houses the Erfurt Treasure, a hoard of over 3,000 silver coins, jewelry, and a rare 14th-century Jewish wedding ring with a Hebrew inscription, buried around 1349 and rediscovered during construction work in 1998. The museum's exhibition is organized thematically around medieval Jewish life in Erfurt, combining the treasure display with information on the nearby medieval mikveh (ritual bath), discovered on the bank of the Gera river, and on the broader history of Ashkenazi settlement in the city, which was among the most important Jewish communities in central Germany before 1349. Interpretive panels and reconstructed models help visitors read the building's layered architecture, since little of the original synagogue interior survives beyond the structural shell and a few carved fragments. The building, the nearby medieval mikveh, and the site of the former Jewish quarter together form Erfurt's principal testimony to medieval Ashkenazi life in Thuringia, a community whose scholars and merchants were prominent in the region before the 1349 pogrom. The building today functions purely as a museum rather than an active synagogue.