November 9 is a loaded date in German history. It's the day Germany was declared a Republic in 1918, and it's the day the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It's the day German police squashed Hitler's 1923 coup attempt in Munich, and it's the 1938 Night of Broken Glass when Nazi Germany attacked Jews across the country, ransacking their homes, stores and synagogues.

One of the more symbolic casualties of the 1938 pogroms was Munich's synagogue, which Hitler deemed an "eyesore" and ordered destroyed. Sixty eight years later to the day, the site of destruction was made a symbol of November 9th's brighter historical connotation: unification. This time, between Germany and its Jewish community.

Thursday, the newly constructed Ohel-Jakob Synagogue was opened in the heart of Munich. Charlotte Knobloch, holocaust survivor and president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said "This is the symbol of November 9, 2006: we Jews are again a part of this country."

"Munich says Shalom," writes the conservative daily Die Welt. This is the first time the Jewish community returns to the center of Munich since the end of World War II. The city's Jewish community carried Torah scrolls in a procession through the streets of Munich to deliver them to their new place of worship.

Knobloch has a particularly personal attachment to the synagogue. She was a six-year-old living in Munich at the time of the pogroms. After her father was arrested, she was led away by a stranger and then raised by a Catholic family that pretended she was their daughter. Bild commentator Franz Josef Wagner recalls Knobloch's childhood, calling her adoptive mother -- "the Aryan, Christian cleaning lady who took in the girl as an illegitimate daughter" -- a hero.

This echoes German President Horst Köhler's call for courage at the opening ceremony. "It is the duty of each and every one of us to get involved and act to prevent people from being abused, injured or even murdered for their religion, origin or appearance." Indeed, Germany has come a long way, but there is still plenty of reason to be concerned. Köhler warned that "still today our dream of a normal Jewish life in Germany clashes with the reality that there is open and latent anti-Semitism."

In fact, on November 9, 2003, neo-Nazis tried to bomb the ceremony for laying the foundation stone for the new synagogue. Fortunately, the plan was thwarted. Some 1,500 police officers sealed off the parade route Thursday and secured the square during the ceremony.

Knobloch made headlines last month for comparing an upsurge in right-wing violence in Germany to the time of Hitler's reign: "Anti-Semitic and far-right attacks have become so blatant and aggressive that it brings to mind the years after 1933." Many found her remarks ill-conceived, and another member of the board of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, told Berlin's daily Tagesspiegel that such comparisons were "historically inaccurate" and that "if you call the fire brigade five times because someone lit a candle, they won't come the sixth time when it is really serious."

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation released a report  this week that showed surprisingly high levels of anti-Semitism in Germany. Anti-Semitism -- like right-wing extremism -- is often written off as a phenomenon isolated in the economically depressed eastern German states. The report showed, though, that over 15 percent of Germans in the western, more prosperous areas agreed with the statement: "Jews use dirty tricks more than other people," compared to only six percent in the east.