On Jodenkerkstraat, near the place where a synagogue had been in use since 1790, a new synagogue was built in 1867, designed by city architect Cornelis Sillevis. It is a simple hall church with a white-plastered facade in neo-Gothic style.
This style is also called Willem II Gothic. Around 1900, the Culemborgse Kille was a flourishing community with about two hundred members. During the Second World War, the majority of Culemborg Jews were deported and killed in concentration camps.
In 1949, the building was sold to the Dutch Reformed Church. Two facade stones in the facade are a reminder of its original function: the one on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone in 1867 on the right and another with the names of the then church council on the left. Above the entrance is a Hebrew text from Isaiah 56:7: ‘For my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples’. The Torah mantle and Esther scrolls from the synagogue were saved by a local resident during the war and are now in the Elisabeth Orphanage Museum.
Stolperstein memorial stone
In front of the gate is a brass memorial stone, a Stolperstein, one of the 23 places in Culemborg where memorial stones have been laid for the houses of people who were murdered in the war. The Stolpersteine are part of the project by the German artist Gunter Demnig, there are now almost 60,000 of them in various European countries.