Thuringian hospital opens synagogue and kosher kitchen

In the eastern state of Thuringia, the Waldkliniken Eisenberg hospital will inaugurate its own synagogue space.

The hospital has also expanded its kitchen and menu to provide kosher care for patients under rabbinical supervision.

The building also has a “Shabbat elevator” that runs completely automatically on the Jewish holiday, and can thus be used by religious Jewish patients.

The project was not initiated by any government agency, nor was it conceived as part of this year’s celebrations of 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany. The building already has a prayer room for all religions and denominations.

Managing director David-Ruben Thies said that he found that no clinic in Europe offered kosher cuisine. Therefore, Thies went a step further and decided to include a synagogue.

“The Jewish community in Thuringia was delighted” according to Thies.

The 254-bed clinic is now home to the German Center for Orthopedics. It is housed in a building designed by the Italian architect and designer Matteo Thun and is more reminiscent of an elegant hotel than a clinic.

Berlin’s Rabbi Ehrenberg called the plan for the synagogue “unique, very, very beautiful and positive.”

The furnishings for the room with its 16 seats also come from Israel, from a kibbutz settlement that has already furnished well over 5,000 synagogues in Israel and worldwide.

According to the clinic, all of this was financed by its sponsoring association, private donations, and funding from state lotteries.

If needed, there will be services and prayers in the wards in the future, not just on Shabbat, Ehrenberg explains. The rabbi, born in Jerusalem in 1950, says he has been involved in the kosher kitchen project from the start. A “proper kosher kitchen” is so important for Jewish patients, he says.

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