Jews living in Boppard were referenced as early as 1074 in a document from Heinrichs IV. A „Judenschule“ (Jewish school) was alluded to in the “Judengasse” (today’s “Eltzerhofstraße”) in 1356. An excavated site at the “Wasserstraße” on the Rhine gives evidence that the community had suffered repeated and various waves of pogroms (e.g. the Werner pogrom (1287) and the Armleder movement (1337)), in which the Jews from Boppard were murdered and expelled. The 16th Century saw a resettlement of the Jews and the establishment of small prayer rooms.

The community purchased an old house on the “Bingergasse” in 1862 and converted it to a synagogue that was officially inaugurated on the 6th of September 1867 with substantial public interest.

During the November pogroms of 1938, however, members of the SA and the SS desecrated the building and burnt the Torah scrolls along with the furnishings and other objects in the courtyard. On the 12th of November, the town’s Jews who had been taken into „Schutzhaft“ (protective custody) were forced to further demolish the synagogue and chop up the remaining wood. Nevertheless, the building wasn’t set on fire due to concerns for the surrounding buildings.

The former synagogue remained standing after 1945, but was used as an apartment building, a carpenter's workshop and, ultimately, served as a gallery and an optician's shop. At their own expense, the present owners carefully brought to light many reminders of the building’s original function, thereby helping to keep in remembrance Boppard’s erstwhile Jewish community.

Photo documentation: Photograph prior to 1938. H.-H. Thill/ Karl J. Burkard, “Unter den Juden:

800 Jahre Juden in Boppard” (Boppard 1996) (Under the Jews: 800 Years of Jewry in Boppard). “Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Rheinland-Pfalz” (Rhineland-Palatinate state office for the preservation of historic landmarks), Synagogues of Rhineland-Palatinate - Saarland (Mainz 2005) Pg. 124.