Rosh Hashana this year is Saturday and Sunday 7 and 8 September, with Erev Rosh Hashana being Friday evening 6 September. RE'02 week begins Monday 9 September right after the close of Rosh Hashana. However, only workshops begin on Monday, the conference proper begins on Wednesday 11 September, leaving two days to travel after the close of Rosh Hashana to get to the Essen in time for the conference.

However, there may be some celebrating Rosh Hashana and not able to travel until after it is over, who may wish to attend one or more workshops, starting Monday or Tuesday. For these people, one option is to arrive in Germany before Erev Rosh Hashana on Friday, and to celebrate the holiday in a synagogue in Germany.

Perhaps surprisingly, there are many Jews and many Jewish communities in Germany. A large fraction of these Jews are immigrants to Germany from Russia. (Hence, the prayer books tend to be Russian-Hebrew and you may wish to bring your own Machzor if you understand neither Russian nore Hebrew well enough; I am bringing an English-Hebrew machzor)

I have investigated with the help of the Web, possible places to worship. I ended up asking Zentralrat Jueden in Deutschland for addresses, phone, and fax numbers of synagogues on the way from Frankfurt to Essen and I asked each of these synagogues if they would be having services for Rosh Hashana and whether they can accommodate a small number of guest from among us.

For the benefit of all those who might want this information, I have compiled what I learned here.

There are synagogues in Essen, Duesseldorf, Koeln, Bonn, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden in order of increasing distance to Essen.

I list the information I know below. For your own safety, please double check with the synagogue you choose by calling its phone number or using its fax.