MUNICH - Nearly 70 years after Adolf Hitler declared Munich's main synagogue an "eyesore" in the center of his power base and personally ordered it torn down, the city's Jews are celebrating a return to the heart of the southern German city.

On Thursday, the 68th commemoration of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, Torah scrolls will be marched with fanfare through the streets to a newly built home in the heart of downtown Munich. German President Horst Koehler and other dignitaries will be attending.

The completion of the new synagogue and its accompanying community center is a milestone for this burgeoning Jewish community of 9,200 members - Germany's second largest after Berlin. It not only brings their house of worship, schools and community centers all under the same roof, but also places them back in the heart of the city's historic center, a stone's throw from the spires of city hall and the landmark Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady.

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For many, that also means placing them in the heart of German consciousness.

"There are synagogues that have been rebuilt, synagogues that have been renovated, synagogues that have been reconstructed, but those are totally different from building a center from scratch for a growing Jewish community," said Rabbi Israel Singer of the World Jewish Congress.

When the U.S. Army marched into Munich in 1945, only several dozen Jews
remained. While the immediate postwar years saw an influx of mostly Eastern European Jews, most of them were fleeing their homes and swiftly moved on to Israel or the United States.

Those who remained and slowly started to rebuild took up residence in the city's only remaining synagogue, located in the backyard of a far-flung neighborhood. Since then, the city has had no visible Jewish buildings.

"It's symbolic for more profound change in terms of the consciousness of the Jewish community which sees itself no longer sitting on packed bags, rather declaring that they are here to stay," said Michael Brenner, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Munich.

The new synagogue, which seats 550, is a cubic structure of travertine stone topped by a second glass cube aimed at giving worshippers a view of the heavens. The interior walls are paneled with warm cedar decorated with golden psalms.

Funding for the synagogue, which cost of about $72 million came from the city of Munich, the state of Bavaria, as well as Munich's Jewish community. It stands on the St. Jakobs Square, only a few city blocks from where the city's original main synagogue stood until its demise in June 1938.

"It is the return of visibility to the Jewish community of Munich, and to the citizens of Munich," said Brenner.

A key part of the visibility will be the parading of the Torah scrolls from the old synagogue to the new one, through the heart of the city. The citizens of Munich have all been invited to participate.

Although no concrete threats have been received, the parade will take place under strict security, after police thwarted a plot in 2003 by a group of neo-Nazis to bomb the ceremony to lay the cornerstone for the new synagogue.

Fears surrounding security led Jewish leaders to decide to house a memorial to the 4,000 Munich Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust in an underground tunnel between the synagogue and the community center.

Such fears, say Singer, are behind criticism from some Holocaust survivors who argue a new synagogue should not be built in the city that was home to the Nazi party, where Joseph Goebbels gave the orders for the pogrom of Kristallnacht.

Yet, as the home to what the World Jewish Congress describes as the world's fastest growing Jewish community, Germany must ensure that the rights of its new immigrants are respected.

"There should be squares in Germany that are secure under the Star of David, not only under the sign of the cross," said Singer.