The Potsdam Synagogue is opening its doors to the public for the first time on Thursday, only a few hundred meters from the Brandenburg state parliament building in the heart of the city's historic center.

It's an impressive building, with a sand-colored brick facade that rises a good four stories high. The seven distinctive arched windows that open up onto the sanctuary on the first and second floors look like a work of modern Gothic art.

Potsdam is the last of Germany's 16 state capitals to now have a prominent synagogue; the construction of the building has been almost 20 years in the making.

In early January 2005, the state government signed an agreement with the Jewish Community of the State of Brandenburg, which included a promise by the state to support the community's efforts to build a synagogue. However, things did not move as quickly as the state government had planned.

An architectural competition was held in 2008 and won by the Berlin architect Jost Haberland and his team. Yet both politicians and representatives of the Jewish community carried on with the discussions, rejecting plans for the project, making fresh inquiries and renegotiating.

What became clear from this process was that the groups involved represented several competing schools of Judaism. These groups have been worshipping in different temporary spaces for some time now.

Judaism is not a monolith, but consists of a variety of different movements. Just as there isn't just one representative of the Jewish community in the city of Potsdam, there have also been not one, but two state associations for several years now.

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