German synagogue
German synagogueHadas Parush/Flash90

Potsdam, Germany on Wednesday announced the opening of its first synagogue over 80 years after the city's previous synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis.

The opening of the synagogue was part of an event marking the creation of the European Center for Jewish Scholarship at the University of Potsdam, German newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine reported.

The synagogue, with room for 40 congregants, was built with international funds. Many of the religious items inside, including the Torah pointer and shield were crafted in Israel, and include symbolic representations of the 12 tribes of Israel carved in high relief.

The synagogue is located in the Neues Palais in Palace Park, and will be the connection between two rabbinical seminaries, the Abraham Geiger College and Zacharias Frankel College, and the School of Jewish Theology, where 80 students are enrolled, with about one third studying to be rabbis or cantors.

Potsdam is a city on the border of Berlin. It has a population of 178,000.

The Nazis destroyed the Potsdam synagogue on November 9 and 10, 1938 during Kristallnacht along with many synagogues across Germany, and the recently annexed Austria, the Sudetenland (northern, southern, and western areas of the former Czechoslovakia) and the Free City of Danzig (a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939).