The clichéd term “risen from the ashes” can be accurately used in reference to the German city of Dresden – and its small Jewish community.

Over one night in February 1945, aerial bombing by British, American and Canadian forces gutted the historic city centre and left at least 25,000 dead. This late-stage offensive remains controversial because Dresden did not have significant military or industrial installations, and was filled with refugees from the east.

None of the city’s 5,400 Jews were left by then. During Kristallnacht, in November 1938, their century-old Semper Synagogue (so named for its famous architect) was torched and the ruins razed. Jews had been in this Saxon capital since the Middle Ages.

On the site of that destroyed synagogue today is a new one, a striking ultra-modern structure designed by one of Germany’s most prominent architectural firms and built mainly with state funds.

It is just steps away from the splendour of the reconstructed 18th-century rococo palaces and churches in the city core to which tourists flock.

The rabbi is Alexander Nachama, 32, who graduated from a new German seminary and is the grandson of the prewar chief cantor of Berlin.

Completed in 2001, the New Synagogue was the first newly built in the former East Germany, and attracts thousands of visitors a year, mainly because of its unusual architecture. Facing it across a courtyard is a new community centre in a similar design. Unlike Berlin, 2½ hours away, there are no police on guard.

Nora Goldenbogen, chair of the synagogue’s board, was born after the war to Holocaust survivor parents, who were among the 40 Dresden Jews left after the deportations and emigration.

In 1989, 69 Jews lived in Dresden; today, the synagogue has 740 members, the great majority from the former Soviet Union. There are an estimated 200 to 300 unaffiliated Jews in the area.

She explains that the arresting cubic shape of the building, clad beige blocks with no windows, is intended to be reminiscent of the Western Wall and the Temple. The structure tilts slightly from bottom to top toward the east, she points out, with the help of member Michael Hurshell acting as translator. The Seattle native has lived in Germany since 2002. He teaches conducting at Dresden Music University, and heads the New Jewish Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, which exclusively plays the works of Nazi-banned Jewish composers. Most of the musicians are not Jewish.

All that remains of the old synagogue is a brass Magen David over the entrance.

It was saved by a firefighter, forbidden to put out the fire, who rescued the Jewish symbol, hid it in his attic and returned it to the community after the war.

Inside, the synagogue ceiling soars to a great height. The 300-seat sanctuary is draped on two sides and across the ceiling by a metallic mesh that weighs three tons. It is supposed to recall a desert tent.

One of the Torah scrolls was donated in 2007 by a couple near Dresden who found it in the cellar of a deceased aunt. She never spoke about it until shortly before she died, revealing that her husband, who was with the SS in Ukraine, had sent it home apparently as a spoil of war.

Hurshell is heartened by the sense of responsibility Germans, especially the young, demonstrate toward the past and their interest in Judaism.

Since about 2000, Dresden has been the site of some of the largest neo-Nazi gatherings. Until a few years ago, thousands from across Germany and other countries marched in the city on the anniversary of the Allied bombing. More recently, their numbers have been in the hundreds, said Hurshell.

Every year pro-Jewish Germans form a human chain around the synagogue to prevent the thugs from getting near it, he said, standing for up to 10 hours in the cold.

Other than some graffiti, the synagogue has never been targeted, he said.

Other volunteers at the synagogue are Valentina Marcenaro, who heads cultural programming, including an annual Jewish music and theatre festival, and Katja Kulakova, who multi-tasks.

Marcenaro arrived from Italy about 15 years ago, planning to stay six months to pursue her studies. Then she met her future husband. “It’s very strange. I never thought I would end up in Germany. I’m from a Sephardi family.”

Kulakova, who came from Omsk, Siberia in 2005, works with youth and the elderly, and plays the synagogue organ.

Where the medieval ghetto once was, in what is now the town centre, a major residential and commercial complex is to be built. It will be called the Jüdenhof Dresden.

On this day, a couple of hundred newly minted army officers are massing in the city square. But the sight of these uniformed young people lining up to the martial music does not disturb the Jews of Dresden in 2014. This is a new Germany.