Thursday, November 19, 2009

LBI’s Annual Gala Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria:

Presentation of the Leo Baeck Medal to The Honorable Joschka Fischer

Former German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor

Welcome address by Mrs. Carol Kahn Strauss, Executive Director of Leo Baeck Institute

Introductory Remarks by Ambassador Horst Freitag, German Consul General in New York and Mr. Roger Cohen, Columnist, The New York Times

Award Presentation and Formal Addresses by The Honorable James D. Wolfensohn and The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Augenspiegel: a Landmark on the Road to Toleration

Symposium

Professor Elisheva Carlebach, Chair, Jewish Studies, Columbia University; Professor Erika Rummel, University of Toronto; Professor Moshe Idel, Hebrew University; and Peter Wortsman, translator, playwright and author discussed “First Amendment” issues that surfaced almost 500 years ago. This symposium focused on one of the earliest controversies in Jewish-Christian relations: Whether or not to publish Jewish books.

Johannes Reuchlin, a Christian scholar, published Augenspiegel in 1511, a courageous defense of the importance of Jewish ideas in the Christian world. It was an appeal to fairness, reason, and due process — a landmark on the road to toleration. Reuchlin was among the first to place Jews alongside Christians as part of the discourse on legal and human rights.

This program was inspired by LBI’s recent acquisition of many of the original 16th century publications associated with this controversy. Donated by Dr. Sibylle Quack, they belonged to Mr. Frank Herz whose unpublished manuscript “Opinion on Jewish Literature: A Landmark on the Road to Toleration”, is in the LBI archives.

To read about Highlights from the Herz Collection of Renaissance Books click here.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Die Liebe im Exil

A program connected with the exhibition "Publishing in Exile"

Leo Baeck Institute in cooperation with Goethe Institut

On the 100th anniversary of German poet Hilde Domin’s birth, Dr. Frank Druffner of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach presented Die Liebe im Exil, a collection of letters he co-edited between Domin and her husband, art historian Erwin Walter Palm, published by S. Fischer Verlag. Domin discussed efforts to have her husband’s works published in the U.S. as well as the general situation of German immigrants in New York.
Professor Paul North of Yale University and curator of the “Publishing in Exile” exhibit joined him at the Leo Baeck Institute for a discussion of the poet and her years in exile.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

After the Book Burning, Publishing in Hitler’s Germany

A program connected with the exhibition "Publishing in Exile"

Leo Baeck Institute in cooperation with Goethe Institut

Jan-Pieter Barbian, Director of the Duisburg Municipal Library and author, talked on After the Book Burning, Publishing in Hitler’s Germany. The lecture included several of the “Publishers in Exile” featured in the exhibit currently on view in the LBI Gallery. Gottfried Berman Fischer and Fritz Landshoff, for example, came to U.S., while others stayed behind, including Ernst Rowohlt, Gustav Kiepenheuer, Peter Suhrkamp, Bertelsmann, and Holtzbrinck.

Dr. Barbian was joined by Professor Paul North of Yale University, curator of the “Publisher’s in Exile” exhibition.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

"Jewish Power in America: Myth and Reality" by Henry Feingold

Lecture / Book signing

Leo Baeck Institute and American Jewish Historical Society (Co-sponsors)

Professor Feingold offers a thoughtful and reasoned response to the notion that there is such a thing as, or there is too much of, or that there is a misapplication of, Jewish power in America. Yes, he acknowledges, Jews do have political power, but does it differ from the influence of other interest groups? Professor Feingold examines five case studies (including the New Deal and the freeing of Soviet Jewry) to debunk the myth of attributing excessive power to a people that has historically been both powerless and vulnerable.

Henry Feingold is a Professor Emeritus of History at the Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York. He is also a trustee of both Leo Baeck Institute and AJHS.

Monday, April 27, 2009

"The Kissinger Saga, Two Brothers from Fürth" by Evi Kurz

Book presentation and Film

Leo Baeck Institute

Evi Kurz, a journalist from Fürth where the Kissingers were born, has forged a family portrait of a Nobel laureate and a successful CEO. Through years of diligent research and respectful encounters, Ms. Kurz was able to earn the trust of both Walter and Henry, who rewarded her with a personal look into the family life of a German-Jewish family. The result is an award winning documentary film and a book, both of which will be presented and discussed by Ms. Kurz. As we accompany the Kissingers on visits to places of their childhood and youth, it becomes very clear how these formative years provide the context for much that comes later.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Publishing in Exile: German-Language Literature in the U.S. in the 1940s

A Round-Table Discussion

Leo Baeck Institute and The Goethe-Institut New York

The event accompanied the opening of an exhibition, bringing together for the first time literary works published by German-language exile publishers in the U.S. during the Third Reich. Introduction by Paul North (New York University, curator); Moderator Frank Mecklenburg (Leo Baeck Institute). Participants: Mark Anderson, Columbia University; Hildegard Bachert, Galerie St. Etienne; Ernst Fischer, Johannes Guttenberg-Universität, Mainz; Wulf Koepke, Texas A&M University; Beth Merfish, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; John Spalek, University of Albany.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Women in Song: from Baroque to the Present

A concert

Leo Baeck Institute and The Center for Jewish History

The concert features songs by Felix’s beloved sister Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, along with Clara Schumann, Maria Malibran, Pauline Biardot, Amy Beach, and other women composers.

It includes a world premier by Inessa Zaretsky. Performed by the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble under the direction of Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky, this program is made possible through the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Blavatnik.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

"Regina Resnik Presents: Covert or Convert"

A documentary with performance segments

Leo Baeck Institute

Narrated and directed by the legendary mezzo-soprano Regina Resnik, conceived and written by Michael Philip Davis, this unique program celebrates the powerful expression of the Jewish spirit from the 12th century through the 20th century.

Ms. Resnik and Mr. Davis will give a talk before the film, which pays homage to composers who converted to Christianity but wrote on Jewish themes, and to composers who did not convert but wrote on Jewish themes in secret, often at the risk of their lives. It shares the proud and often difficult history of such composers as Anton Rubinstein, Otto Klemperer and Felix Mendelssohn, whose statue outside the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was destroyed by the Nazis. Also represented are four composers killed during the Holocaust.

The works are performed by : Darynn Zimmer, soprano; Michael Philip Davis, tenor; Charles Robert Stephens, baritone; Vlad Iftinca, piano; David Leisner, guitar.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Yehuda Amichai: The German-Jewish Roots of Israel’s National Poet

52nd Annual Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture by Nili Scharf Gold

Leo Baeck Institute

Yehuda Amichai is the unofficial national poet of Israel. He is credited with being one of the founders of “Israeli literature”, among the first authors to publish in the new State of Israel. Most of the biographical material about him begins in 1936, the year he arrived in Palestine with his family. Indeed, Amichai spent his most productive years in Israel, and, in the words of Nili Scharf Gold, author of a brilliant new biography, tried to “camouflage”, “abandon” or “marginalize” his German-Jewish roots. And yet she shows he cannot escape the artistic implication or the profound psychological relevance of his early years.

Was the negation of the past an integral part of the Zionist construction of national identity, or Amichai’s way to suppress his personal history? In this insightful book, Professor Gold shows us a poet whose struggles with the traumatic events of his childhood, as well as with the loss of his first love to another man, informed his entire creative output. Notebooks found in the Yale library, and especially a cache of letters to his beloved “Ruth Z”, reveal a man whose poetry must now be analyzed within the context of these new revelations. This is fascinating history, biography, and drama that combines 20th century German-Jewish upheaval with the creation of the State of Israel, with a love story, with the very nature of poetry itself.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Art Deco Masterpieces by Walter and Marcel Goldscheider:

A lecture by Filipp Goldscheider

Leo Baeck Institute

From its founding in Vienna in 1885 until 1938, the Goldscheider Manufactory was the leading international ceramics producer in Europe with subsidiaries in Paris, Leipzig, and Florence. Its high quality decorative objects were sought by collectors around the world. The pieces encompassed a large variety of styles; more than 10,000 models were in production by the time the company was forcibly Aryanized by the Nazis.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

“The Helena Mayer Story”

Film Screening and Discussion

Leo Baeck Institute / YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Helena Mayer was a Olympic Gold Medalist fencer who represented Germany in the 1936Berlin summer games. Why would this German Jewish woman agree to bring honor to a country that had rejected her? Why would Germany want a Jew to be part of the German National Team?

This documentary by Semyon Pinkhasov examines the motives for the decisions on both sides. Pinkhasov will present the film and engage in a discussion afterwards with James Traub.

Mr. Pinkhasov is the former coach of the U.S. Olympic and Maccabiah fencing teams; Mr.Traub is a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs and others major publications.