German Refugee Rabbis and German–Jewish Cultural Heritage: Towards a Global Comparative Perspective

The workshop seeks to bring together work in progress on German refugee rabbis in different regions and seeks a comparative perspective on how these refugees dealt with their traditions, their knowledge and the experience during and after the Nazi era.

We would like the workshop participants to consider a perspective of the Critical Heritage Studies and reach across disciplinary backgrounds, thematic or regional focus pursuing questions such as: How was the refugee rabbis’ (communal rabbis, students, ordained scholars and the second generation, those born in Germany and educated after emigration) expulsion and the destruction of their cultural centers part of a cultural transfer/knowledge transfer? How did they and others perceive their forced presence and scholarship? Were there discussions on the construction of cultural heritage, the re-construction of their networks and hubs (seminaries, colleges, universities), and audiences, what purposes did they serve? How have their activities after the Holocaust resonated in society, and why was their knowledge sometimes lost to future generations? Where and why did it survive? We would also like you to address how the cultural transfers materialized (in religion, society and politics and memory) and were related to local and global contexts, to nationhood, diaspora and existing Jewries in their respective countries of refuge. We would like to learn about the agency these refugees (re-)gained or lost in and after their forced flight. Finally, we are very interested in exploring the rabbis’ memory, the memory of their tradition, possible returns to Germany and also methodological questions on how to explore and evaluate these topics in such a large group.

[Link] Workshop registration

Date: May 20-22, 2024

Conference Venue: Jüdisches Museum Franken, Fürth (JMF), Königstraße 89, 90762 Fürth, DE

Organizer: Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wilhelm, Abteilung Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur, LMU München

Sponsors (and co-organizers): Abteilung für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur der LMU München, Jüdisches Museum Franken in Fürth, Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, München, DFG, Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo-Baeck-Instituts in Deutschland, Bayerischen Amerika-Akademie, Münchner Universitätsgesellschaft, Historisches Seminar der LMU and Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst.

Program