The Neue Synagogue with its shimmering gilded dome standing gorgeously on Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin, Germany, was built as the main place of worship for the Jewish community of the city, replacing the Old Synagogue which the community outgrew and was inaugurated in 1866, in the presence of Count Otto von Bismarck, the then Minister President of Prussia.

Designed by the German architect Eduard Knoblauch and built between 1855 and 1866 in neo-Moorish style, resembling elements of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, it was the largest Synagogue in Germany in its time with the seating capacity of 3,000 people, a symbol of the thriving Jewish community and an important architectural monument in the country. Unfortunately, Knoblauch did not live long enough to complete the project and after his death in 1865, Friedrich August Stüler took the responsibility for the majority of its construction as well as for its interior arrangement and design. Today, along with the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust memorial, it is also one of most significant Jewish landmarks in the city of Berlin.

The Neue Synagogue is an exemplary monument of early iron construction and with its ingenious spatial design and the sophisticated steel structure of its galleries and the roof, it was an architectural wonder of its day. Iron was also a core component of the earlier floor structure of the main hall, which is now lost.

The front of the building, facing Oranienburger Strasse, is made of polychrome brickworks, wherein richly ornamented bricks of different colours are used to create decorative patterns, mostly Moorish in derivation, or to highlight architectural features in the walls, accented by coloured glazed bricks. The oriental motifs on the façade and the huge central dome of the edifice, adorned with gold-plated ribbed lattice and visible from miles around, were inspired by the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. The magnificent Moorish central dome is flanked by two towers, which are also topped with smaller gilded domes. While the large skylights lit the hall, the latest inventions for gas lighting and better ventilation were installed throughout.

Unfortunately, the magnificent building of the Neue Synagogue was badly damaged on the night of 9th November 1938, during Kristallnacht or the night of broken glass, when a Nazi mob broke into the Neue Synagogue, desecrated the Torah scrolls, smashed the furniture, piled up such contents as would burn in the synagogue interior and set fire to them. However, it was ultimately saved from destruction, when Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt, the police officer of the local police precinct on duty that night, arrived on the scene in the early morning of 10 November and ordered the arsonists to disperse, as the building was a protected historical landmark.

Even, he drew his pistol, clearly threatening that he would not hesitate to make use of it, if necessary, to uphold the law requiring its protection. After that, he allowed the fire brigade to enter and extinguish the fire before it could spread.

But the Neue Synagogue was heavily damaged during World War II and was completely gutted after Allied bombing during the Battle of Berlin, a series of British air raids lasting from 18 November 1943 until 25 March 1944. However, the building to the left of the New Synagogue and the second one to the right at Oranienburger Strasse 28, also belonging to the Jewish Community of Berlin, survived the war intact, and the surviving Jews of the city formally reconstituted the Jewish community in Berlin, the mainstream Jewish congregation of the city, in the latter building.

In 1958, the Jewish Community of East Berlin was prompted to demolish the ruined rear sections of the building, including the soot-blackened ruin of the main prayer hall, leaving only the less-destroyed front section. But reconstruction of the new building began much later, in 1988, which was completed in 1995. Today, from the outside, the building looks as it did when first built, including the splendid eye-catching dome, while the open space, located behind the restored facade of the building, was the spot which once contained the huge, main room of the former Synagogue.