One of the most surprising consequences of the Wall coming down in Berlin 35 years ago this month is the resurgence of Jewish life in the German capital. The city’s huge Neue Synagogue, whose magnificently restored gilded dome once again dominates the skyline, may never have been fully rebuilt since wartime bombs intensified the destruction propagated on Kristallnacht, but there are more than a dozen other shuls serving one of the fastest growing communities in the world, thanks largely to an influx of Jewish immigrants from behind the former Iron Curtain.
Autumn is a great time to explore Europe’s most intriguing capital – and not just because of the fireworks and other festivities planned for the big day on November 9. Berlin may be awash in museums documenting the rise and fall of the Third Reich, the Cold War and the world of spies of which it is considered the capital, but this city of young entrepreneurs is bent on looking forward as well as back. Chefs, designers, artists and entertainers encouraged by low rents and empty spaces have created a revitalised east Berlin which is achingly cool, if a tad distressed compared to the green and gorgeous west, which positively oozes affluence.
A trio of fascinating new hotels provide another reason to visit. The Israeli-owned Precise Tale Berlin is one of many commercial buildings repurposed, like the former Stasi spy base which houses the nearby Chateau Royal, to offer high-priced hospitality - in the case of the former, its distinctly drab industrial corridors paying homage to the bad old days when this 14-storey edifice was likely an office building. At Precise Tale a wealth of warm, dark wood and a surprisingly elysian garden in the heart of the city have effected the transformation to lively, family-friendly hotel within a seven-minute stroll of the former no-man’s land, Potsdamer Platz, close to the Brandenburg Gate.
While star- architect David Chipperfield and a slew of artists have been harnessed to create the murky pre-war atmosphere at the Chateau Royal, Precise Tale is lent a dash of cinematic glamour by London-based Israeli interior designer Saar Zafrir, and is as much a gourmet as a sleeping destination, thanks to its association with Israeli superstar chef-patron Assaf Granit. Since expanding his empire from Machneyuda in Jerusalem by way of London and Paris, Granit has created one of Berlin’s most popular eateries in Berta, named for his grandmother, in a city which supports 17 Israeli restaurants and at least six kosher eateries.
Berlin also has more than its fair share of Michelin-starred dining rooms, but in this laid-back, highly eclectic city that accolade does not necessarily signify white tablecloths and stuffy service. Nobelhart & Schmutzig, in an unsigned building just a stone’s throw from Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse, is a thoroughly relaxed, speakeasy-style establishment not to be missed - advance booking is essential to secure a place at the huge, bare wood horseshoe-shaped counter which fills the room, and, if required, a vegan version of the six-course tasting menu.
Checkpoint Charlie is a must-see for first-time visitors - it’s a symbol of both the divided city and the reunified one, with more than one attraction telling the story. More haunting even than the Wall Museum is the Wall Panorama by artist Yadegar Assisi, who lived right up against the wrong side of the border and has recreated the experience of living the tough years within sight of the freedom and prosperity offered by a viewing platform looking across into the west.
Friedrichstrasse itself, the grimmest, greyest thoroughfare of East Berlin in the 70s and 80s, has been transformed into a boulevard of international designer boutiques, but also has a poignant museum embedded within its station, one of the most important in Berlin, and the arrival point for most visitors coming from Brandenburg Airport. Its Tranen-Palast, loosely translated as the “waiting room of tears”, is where divided families would wave off visitors from the free west, who would have brought them food parcels and perhaps a pair of forbidden Levi-Strauss jeans during the decades when even denim had to conform to government patterns. Now the horrors of those times are more than three decades past, it’s possible for residents who remember to recall the details with some humour, and nowhere better than at the darkly humorous DDR Museum, with its Trabant, recreated Communist-era living room and kitchen and drawers full of memorabilia.
One attraction which is truly unmissable is Daniel Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum, built to be deliberately disorienting with its sloping floors and slashed exterior, evoking the precarious experience of what it meant to be a Jew in Germany during the 20th century. Before Hitler appeared on the scene the community enjoyed so much prestige, prosperity and integration with its non-Jewish neighbours it’s not surprising that so many felt invulnerable and opted not to leave even as the first of dozens of antisemitic Nazi edicts were handed down in the mid-1930s. The museum contains thousands of objects documenting middle-class Jewish life throughout the country, as well as the oral histories of many families who enjoyed the good life in Berlin and beyond for centuries, before brutally focusing on the Holocaust and addressing the expanded diaspora which followed.
The fact a new core exhibition was created in 2020 is one reason for anyone whose first visit to the Jewish Museum was before Covid to go back and see its new face, with improved technology enhancing the interactive experience. Another is to discover ANOHA, the unique and thoroughly engaging children’s world which has been created across the street. While an offshoot of the Jewish Museum, it is not a place to leave small children while visiting its parent institution but to accompany them to experience the story of Noah’s Ark in the most creative way imaginable, harnessing 150 fantastical animal sculptures made entirely of found objects.
After Lindenstrasse, home to these two free museums where time-slots must be booked ahead, the most interesting street for Jewish visitors is Oranienburger Strasse, home of the Neue Synagogue, preserved as a museum even though its prayer hall was never rebuilt. The fact the shul was designed to accommodate 3000 worshippers and opened by no less than Count Otto von Bismarck in 1866 is a symbol of how well-established the Jewish community was in Berlin during the 19th century; concerts and even operas were performed there when the building was not required for services. All that changed in 1938, when the Torah scrolls were desecrated and furniture smashed and burned during Kristallnacht, but sympathetic police intervened to prevent total destruction, under cover of arguing that the building was a historic landmark. It continued to be used for services until 1940, and now a small, new upstairs prayer room is home to a Masorti congregation.
The synagogue is not the only star of Oranienburger Strasse, which leads to Hackescher Markt, a vibrant centre of pre-war Jewish life which has experienced the greatest revitalisation in all Berlin. Then, as now, courtyards were filled with handsome apartment buildings with shops on the ground floor arranged around a central garden, and the three which are linked to form the Hackescher Hofe contain some of the most eclectic boutiques in the city. A great base for this area is yet another repurposed hotel, the Telegraphenamt, an old post office bang opposite the synagogue which may be the most inventive hospitality conversion in the city. Its ancient bones have been preserved and its heritage told in old black and white photographs to a clientele too young and hip to have been alive while the city was experiencing its darkest decades. But that’s Berlin for you - the perfect playground for a party crowd happy to dip into the horrors of a past they never had to suffer, and that includes the thousands of young Israelis who have joined the party.
Rooms at Precise Tale(precisehotels.com) from €120,
Telegraphenamt from €278 and Chateau Royal(chateauroyalberlin.com) from €220.
Book admission slots to the Jewish Museum at jmberlin.de. More information on Berlin at www.germany.travel
