A Jewish Museum was opened in Frankfurt in March 1922 as a Museum of Jewish Antiquities. It was managed by the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung jüdischer Kunstdenkmäler (Society for Research into Jewish Cultural Monuments), and was lodged in the Jewish Community centre at Fahrgasse 146, the original location of the Scheuer. The exhibits came from the collections of the Historisches Museum, the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung jüdischer Kunstdenkmäler, the Jewish community and private donations, and the displays covered the synagogue and domestic life and the history of the Jews in Frankfurt. In the pogrom of the night of 9 November 1938 ("Kristallnacht") the Frankfurt synagogues were destroyed along with Jewish businesses and homes, and the Museum of Jewish Antiquities was looted and its collections largely destroyed.
On the 50th anniversary of the November pogrom the Jewish Museum was reopened on 9 November 1988 at the historic Rothschild house as a Frankfurt city museum. The Jewish Museum consists of two houses: Untermainkai 14, where the famous Frankfurt doctor Salomon Stiebel lived with his family, and Untermainkai 15, built around 1821 for the Jewish banker Joseph Isaak Speyer and occupied by his family. In 1846 this was bought by Baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild as a residence. Since 1906 the two buildings have housed the Baron Carl von Rothschild public library, donated in 1888 by Hanna Louise von Rothschild in memory of her father. In 1928 the collection became a separate section of the Frankfurt city and university library. The Rothschild library remained in the house until 1967, after which it moved to the city and university library building.