for a religious piece to conduct here and he discovered Jacob Weinberg's work. According to the Jewish Telegraph Service article of 26 October 1934, the Sabbath Eve liturgy was performed in front of a packed house of 3,000 in this synagogue on 25 October 1936. It was met with an enthusiastic ovation. The work comprises twelve different musical compositions, all based on the prayers recited during the Sabbath Eve religious service. The collaboration was such a success that Winawer collaborated with Jacob Weinberg again on 5 September 1938 when he conducted Weinberg's prize-winning opera "The Pioneers of Palestine" (aka "Hechalutz" or "Die Chalutzim"), the first opera on Hebrew/Israeli themes (composed in 1924). It was performed on 5 September 1938, at another Berlin synagogue on Prinzregentenstrasse, as part of the Kulturbund. The Kulturbund was a program that permitted performances of Jewish works in Germany as the Nazi regime escalated. The Nazis did not allow Jewish works to be performed in regular concert halls attended by Aryans, but it did allow such works to be performed in other spaces such as synagogues. It was administered by Kurt Singer. The New Synagogue (the Neue Synagogue on Oranienburger Street) survived Kristallnacht, the pogrom of 9–10 November 1938. Unfortunately the equally-grand synagogue on Prinzregentenstrasse did not survive Kristallnacht. It was plundered of its valuables, torched, and ultimately destroyed; only a bronze plaque at the site remains of this magnificent structure. Both Jacob Weinberg and Chemjo Winawer went to the U.S. to avoid Nazi persecution. During the November Pogrom (9 November 1938), colloquially euphemised as "Kristallnacht", a Nazi mob broke into the Neue Synagoge, desecrated the Torah scrolls, smashed the furniture, piled up such contents as would burn in the synagogue interior, and set fire to them. Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt, the police officer of the local police precinct on duty that night, arrived on the scene in the early morning of 10 November and ordered the arsonists to disperse. He said the building was a protected historical landmark and drew his pistol, declaring that he would uphold the law requiring its protection. This allowed the fire brigade to enter and extinguish the fire before it could spread to the fabric of the building, and the synagogue was saved from destruction. Senior Lieutenant Wilhelm Krützfeld, head of the local police precinct, and Bellgardt's superior, later covered up for him. Berlin's police commissioner Graf Helldorf only verbally reprimanded