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Origin and history

The former synagogue of Bouxwiller, built in 1842 in the Lower Rhine (Great East), replaces an 18th-century building destroyed by the Nazis. It was used as a cardboard factory during the Second World War, then looted and sacked at the Liberation. Only a small oratory was reorganized in the 1950s for religious services.

In 1983, threatened with demolition to give way to a parking lot, the synagogue was saved by the Association of Friends of the Judeo-Alsatian Museum of Bouxwiller (AMJAB), founded by Gilbert Weil. After 15 years of fighting, the place reopens in 1998 as a museum, tracing a millennium of Jewish life in Alsace. The building, registered with the Historical Monuments in 1984, illustrates the sober architecture of the Alsatian rural synagogues.

The museum showcases Judeo-Alsatian culture through exhibitions, research and heritage conservation activities. Among other things, the AMJAB saved other rural synagogues (such as Pfaffenhoffen) and documented necropolises or Hebrew graffiti. The Alsatian saying "Lewe un Lewe lonn" ("Living and Let Live"), displayed at the entrance, symbolizes the historical tolerance between Jews and Christians in Alsace.

The synagogue, rectangular with a rumped roof, features bays in the middle of the hanger and a front door. Its interior, completely redesigned after German destruction, offers a modern scenography. The museum also houses liturgical objects and archives on the 267 synagogues built in France after the Revolution, 184 of them in Alsace-Moselle.

Property of the city since 1986, the site is managed by the AMJAB, winner of the Prix Patrimoine Vivant of the Fondation de France. His actions extend to the translation of archives, conferences and publications, to perpetuate the memory of the rural Jews of Alsace, who disappeared after the Shoah.

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