Reopening of a Jewish primary school

There are only nine Jewish primary schools in the whole of Germany. It is now planned to open a new Jewish primary school in Dortmund, in time for the 2022/23 school year at the latest, making this the third such school in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf. As the location for the new school, the city authorities and the Jewish Community have agreed on a former secondary school building, the “Hauptschule am Ostpark”. The two-stream school will therefore be situated in the immediate vicinity of Berswordt Primary School, which is already attended by many children from Jewish families. A joint school centre, which will also include Franziskus Primary School, is intended to promote inter-faith integration.

The re-opening of a Jewish school in Dortmund pays tribute to and constitutes the rebirth of an educational establishment, whose history began some 175 years ago and continued until forcefully ended through the crimes of the Nazis, who decreed that the 30th of June 1942 should be the last day on which Jewish pupils were allowed to be taught in Germany. The opening of a new Jewish school in Dortmund 80 years later is therefore a powerful symbol for the presence and future of Jewish life in the city.