Obermayer German Jewish History Award

Johanna Rau

Kalbach, Hesse

Johanna Rau and the town synagogue were like two friends destined to meet. She, a Protestant pastor who had learned Hebrew, lived in Jerusalem and dedicated herself to Jewish studies. It, a dilapidated 19th century house of worship in the small Hesse town of Heubach which, after World War II, had served as a Rathaus (city hall), a temporary residence for families-and even as a motorcycle gang squat-before Rau's impassioned campaign saved it from decay and certain destruction.

Now, thanks to her efforts, the former Heubach synagogue has been reborn as a community center where Germans across the region are engaging in the rediscovery of Jewish history and heritage. Rau has led tours ranging from women's groups to school classes, and she has organized theater shows, concerts, readings and lectures exploring the local Jewish past. Indeed, rebuilding the synagogue was a personal dream for Rau, who created the pride of the region from an abandoned collapsing building. Driven to succeed in her task, she vigorously pursued her dream and spearheaded action at every stage until that dream became a reality. 

"Johanna Rau's boundless energy, intellectual curiosity and serious scholarship resulted in a resounding success for her twin goals: restoration of the physical symbol [of the synagogue] and ongoing education about Judaism," says Randee Kelley of Las Vegas, Nevada. Through her extensive genealogical research into the lives of Heubach's Jews as well, Rau "revived the spirit and the essence of Jewish life in that region, rescuing it from almost certain historical obscurity, unearthing a Jewish past in a community with no current Jewish experience for decades."

Today when you visit the renovated two-story former country synagogue of Heubach (Ehemalige Landsynagoge Heubach), as some 2,000 out-of-towners and nearly all 750 local residents have done since its doors reopened in 2006, the fresh-painted walls, new tile rooftop and well-tended lawn reveal little about the long, extraordinary history of the region's last standing rural synagogue.

The person who knows that story best is Rau, 43, a pastor and pastor's wife and a mother of three who first got interested in Jewish culture and religion while studying theology at Heidelberg University. There, she immersed herself in books by Elie Wiesel and Martin Buber, and discovered the photographs of Roman Vishniac. Following her growing passion, Rau studied Hebrew in Vienna before spending a year in Jerusalem where she formed relationships with Russian immigrants and dove into Talmudic studies. "I found someone who helped me study the Talmud and I loved it. I can't say I fully understood it-but I liked the way of thinking, the concept of learning."

It wasn't long after she and her husband came to work as pastors in Heubach that Rau got the idea, in 2002, to buy and renovate the abandoned synagogue. Built in 1843, the structure looked "really, really shabby," she remembers. The roof was rotted and leaking. The walls were broken and in some places missing altogether. Plywood covered up the window frames instead of glass. A once-flourishing Jewish community which at its high point in the 1890s numbered nearly 100, Heubach saw its Jews trickle off to cities like Würzburg and Frankfurt until they finally disappeared altogether in 1937, the year the city bought the synagogue. No effort had been made in Heubach to commemorate the building's past-nor the 40 former Heubach Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Rau knew the time was running out before the building collapsed or the authorities razed it, so she hurriedly formed a committee, researched renovation plans and drafted a series of funding proposals. Within months money started to pour in: 200,000 euros from the European Union's program to preserve rural cultural heritage sites; 200,000 from Hesse state; 100,000 from the Landsamt fur Denkmel Pflege (State Office for Memorial Preservation), and private donations from companies and individuals bringing the total to 780,000 euros, or more than $1 million. Enough, it turned out, to complete the task-and nowadays visitors can even see a mikvah ritual bath that Rau's team uncovered in the renovation.

"For people in the village I think it has to do with mending the collective memory. Before there was a lack-and now they can fill it," says Rau, who sees the building as "a sort of bridge" connecting rural Heubach to its Jewish past. "Whether it leads them to be more interested in their own personal history, I don't know. But at least the Jewish people who lived in Heubach have a place in the memory again."

Rau admits that the absence of Jews in Heubach today puts limits on people's understanding of Jewish culture and traditions. "We are beginners. We are passing on the knowledge we have, knowing that it is a non-Jewish point of view."

But, she adds, "At least we can say that Jewish life [in Germany] today exists." 

Indeed, says Joan David of Ardsley, NY, "It is this type of exposure to non-Jews that most helps to stem anti-Semitism." 

The visual and written story of the synagogue's restoration is online at www.synagoge-heubach.de, along with biographies Rau compiled of the Heubach Jews claimed in the Holocaust. But based on the thousands who have already flocked here in person to see it, Rau is confident that the restored Jewish landmark will only grow in importance to the community over time.

"It's something that's in the area, just around the corner," she says. "People just have to come and use it."