Dedication card for the bar mitzvah of Alfred Neuländer, 1925.

The dedication card from Alfred Neuländer’s prayer book shows a scene of the passing down of religious law from generation to generation. In the background, the New Synagogue towers over Breslau. Built between 1865 and 1872, it served not only as a place of worship for the liberal faction of the Jewish community, but also as a concert hall with excellent acoustics and electric lighting. Historian Willy Cohn recalled that men in the New Synagogue rarely wore tallit, or traditional prayer shawls, but instead put on a type of sash for prayers, similar to the stole used in Christian rituals.