"Zugang zum Tempelatz in Jerusalem" Etching by E.M. Lilien on a Postcard

The Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem and the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts Deutschland issue the following call for papers:

The seminar will offer postdoctoral students of German-Jewish and Central-European Jewish History the opportunity to present and thoroughly discuss their current research projects. More senior scholars from Germany and Israel will be invited to comment on the projects and provide the young researchers with feedback and academic guidance. Apart from the scholarly debate itself, the scholars from both countries will have the opportunity to learn more about the scholarly traditions and research contexts of their colleagues and to meet senior scholars of the respective countries. Furthermore, this seminar will include tours of museums and memorials related to the German-Jewish experience.

We hope that the format of the seminar, with the meetings in both Germany and Israel, will contribute to a more thorough and comprehensive scholarly exchange and debate. The initial event in Berlin will allow candidates to present their projects and will be followed by a several months-long period of continued informal discussion. During the second meeting in Jerusalem, the participants will present revised versions or new insights resulting from the feedback they received. The extended period of personal encounters, of dialogue with other researchers in the field, and of intensive exchange is meant to promote the quality and interdisciplinary character of the candidates’ scholarly output.

The seminar will be held in English.

Applications (only via email) must be submitted in English by March 15 to the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem (leobaeck@leobaeck.org). They should include a CV and a one page description of the current or planned postdoctoral project. One letter of recommendation from a senior scholar should be sent directly (via email) to the LBI Jerusalem. For additional information please call the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem: (++972)(0)2-5633790.

Funding is available to cover most of the travel expenses and accommodation in Berlin and Jerusalem.

The seminar is supported by the Stiftung Deutsch-Israelisches Zukunftsforum.

Queen Mary, University of London

The Leo Baeck Institute in conjunction with the School of History, Queen Mary, University of London is offering two bursaries tenable for the academic year 2012-2013 for students taking the Leo Baeck Institute MA in European Jewish History. The bursary will cover the fee at the Home/EU rate (the rate for 2012/13 is £5,500). Candidates should normally have attained or expect to attain a first class degree or equivalent in history or a related humanities subject.

The Program

The Leo Baeck Institute MA trains scholars towards undertaking independent research on Jewish history, culture and thought in Europe. It provides a strong grounding in approaches and theories which have influenced the ways in which scholars understand Jewish history. Simultaneously, the MA introduces students to a wide range of sources available for European Jewish studies. Particular attention will be paid to the Jewish response to modernity and problems around the definition and issues of assimilation and identity. The role of anti-Semitism and the origins of the Holocaust are central, as is Jewish intellectual history, focusing on the ideas of eminent Jewish thinkers about the place of Jews and Judaism in premodern and modern society.

LBI London 2012-2013 MA Scholarship Announcement

Learn more about the Leo Baeck Institute MA in European Jewish History at the LBI London home page

The Loewenberg Trio is Ilya Movchan, Hannah Loewenberg-Harnest, and Jordan Gregoris

Sunday, February 5, 2012 2:00 pm

These three young graduates of London’s Royal College of Music have a passion for chamber Music.  Ilya Movchan (violin) was born in Russia; Jordan Gregoris (cello) was born in France; Hannah Loewenberg-Harnest (piano) was born in New York and raised in Germany and England.

Their international perspective brings a unique interpretation to their superb musicianship.  The trio has already won great critical acclaim, both as an ensemble and individually as soloists in venues around the world.  Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present them in their debut concert in New York.

Sunday, February 5, 2012 2:00 pm
Forchheimer Auditorium
Center for Jewish History
15 W. 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
Map
Admission: $10 for LBI Members / $15 for non-Members
To reserve a seat:
RSVP to (212) 744-6400
or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org

Joseph Roth on a train platform in France, 1926

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 6:30 pm
Newly recognized as one of the 20th century’s great writers, Joseph Roth wrote beautifully original prose that is still reaching ever wider audiences as new translations of his works appear, even 73 years after the author’s death.

In January 2012, W.W. Norton will offer a new window on Roth’s life when it publishes poet Michael Hofmann’s new translations of Roth’s letters, many of which are preserved in Roth’s literary estate in LBI archives.  

To mark the publication of this landmark biographical work, W.W. Norton and LBI present a panel discussion of Roth’s literary legacy moderated by W.W. Norton executive editor Robert Weil and featuring New Yorker fiction editor Willing Davidson, the author and record producer Anthony Heilbut, and author Fran Lebowitz.

Read excerpts of Roth’s Letters published in the New Yorker’s “Culture Desk” blog.

Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters (Michael Hoffman ed.) W.W. Norton, January 2012

About Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters: “Who would have thought that seventy-three years after Joseph Roth’s lonely death in Paris, new editions of his translations would be appearing regularly? Roth, a transcendent novelist who also produced some of the most breathtakingly lyrical journalism ever written, is now being discovered by a new generation. Nine years in the making, this life through letters provides us with our most extensive portrait of Roth’s calamitous life-his father’s madness, his wife’s schizophrenia, his parade of mistresses (each more exotic than the next), and his classic westward journey from a virtual Hapsburg shtetl to Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt, and finally Paris. Containing 457 newly translated letters, along with eloquent introductions that richly frame Roth’s life, this book brilliantly evokes the crumbling specters of the Weimar Republic and 1930s France. Displaying Roth’s ceaselessly inventive powers, it finally charts his descent into despair at a time when ‘the word had died, [and] men bark like dogs.’ ” (from W.W. Norton)

LBI holds a wide range of digital archival materials related to Joseph Roth.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 6:30 pm
Forchheimer Auditorium
Center for Jewish History
15 W. 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
Map
Admission: $10 for LBI Members / $15 for non-Members
To reserve a seat:
RSVP to (212) 744-6400
or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org

Stacks at the Austrian State Archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv)

Sunday, January 15, 2012 2:00 pm
The Jewish Genealogical Society and the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the center for Jewish history present a talk by Dr. Hubert Steiner of Vienna, who will speak about the Austrian State Archives and some of its holdings.   Shortly after the Nazi occupation and annexation of Austria, a regulation on the declaration of Jewish property was enacted on  April 26, 1938.  These property  registrations were the first steps in the systematic robbery of  Jewish properties. The next month, the Nazi authority dealing with properties was established in Austria to administer the so-called Aryanizations.   Most of their files still exist and may be used not only for studying questions of economic or administrative history but also for genealogical research.

After the end of Nazi rule in 1945, property restitution laws were implemented. Ten years later a process for compensation for victims of political persecution began, and in the 1950s and 1960s relief funds were established.  These files, which contain many personal biographies, especially about how people escaped and started new lives in exile, can now be viewed in the Austrian State Archives.

It is these same files which are used by the National Fund of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, which was founded in 1995.  In 1998 the Austrian Historical Commission was established to investigate and report on the whole complex of expropriations in Austria during the Nazi era and to develop procedures for restitution and/or compensation (including other financial or social benefits) to victims by Austria.  In 2003 the Commission presented its results in a 14,000 page document.

This meeting will be of interest to anyone whose family lived within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at CJH will be open before the meeting at 11:00 a.m. for access to research materials and computers and networking with other researchers.

Sunday, January 15, 2012 2:00 pm
Center for Jewish History
15 W. 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
Map
Admission: JGSNY members free / guests $5
For more information:  info@jgsny.org or www.jgsny.org

The new "Topography of Terror" Documentation Center (cc) flickr user 96dpi

Friday, January 20, 2012 11:00 am
Between 1933 and 1945, the central institutions of Nazi persecution and terror were located on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, just steps away from Potsdamer Platz in the heart of Berlin. In this building were housed the Secret State Police Office with its own “house prison,” the leadership of the SS and, during the Second World War, the Reich Security Main Office. Today, this house of terror is gone, but a permanent exhibition within the old foundations documents the apparatus of Nazi persecution.

Trapped in the shadow of the Berlin wall for decades, the site was largely ignored until the basement cells of the Gestapo house prison were finally excavated in 1987 for exhibitions marking the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin.  After German reunification in 1989, the site became one of the most visited memorials in Berlin.  After years of debate about how to give the site and the exhibition a proper home, a design by architect Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer und Partner, Berlin) and the landscape architect Heinz W. Hallmann (Aachen) was chosen in 2006 and completed in 2010.

Dr. Andreas Nachama, director of the “Topography of Terror” foundation, will discuss the new documentation center and permanent exhibition.  He will also discuss the exhibit “The Face of the Ghetto: Pictures by Jewish Photographers from the Lodz Ghetto 1940-1944” which was curated by the “Topography of Terror Foundation” and opens at the United Nations in New York on January 24.

Otto von Bismarck, (Bundesarchiv)

Thursday, December 15, 2011 6:30pm Professor Jonathan Steinberg is the author of the highly acclaimed new book Bismarck: A Life, which Dr. Henry Kissinger called “the best study of Bismarck in the English language.” Steinberg describes the political genius of the man who dominated his era. Bismarck’s belief in Prussia’s cohesion and authority, and in a nationalism that could be put to good use, ultimately led to Germany’s tragic 20th century.

Thursday, December 15, 6:30 PM
Forchheimer Auditorium
Center for Jewish History
15 W. 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
Map
Admission is free
To reserve a seat:
RSVP to (212) 744-6400
or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org

On December 12, 2011, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will award the Leo Baeck Medal to Anselm Kiefer and bestow a special honor on Dr. Henry A. Kissinger.  The presentation will take place during the annual Leo Baeck Institute Gala Award Diner at the Waldorf≈Astoria in New York.

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany, at the close of World War II, Anselm Kiefer studied art informally under Joseph Beuys at the Düsseldorf Academy in the early 1970s.

Kiefer reflects upon and critiques the myths and chauvinism which eventually propelled the German Third Reich to power. His paintings depict his generation’s ambivalence toward the grandiose impulse of German nationalism and its impact on history. Kiefer’s work consistently balances the dual purposes of visually powerful imagery and intellectually critical analysis.

His work has been shown in and collected by major museums throughout the world. Recent retrospective exhibitions include the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth (2005) (traveling to the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and SF MOMA). In 2007, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presented an extensive survey of recent work and Kiefer was commissioned to create a huge site-specific installation of sculptures and paintings for the inaugural “Monumenta” at the Grand Palais, Paris. In 2007, he became the first living artist to create a permanent installation at the Louvre since Georges Braque in 1953. In 2009, he directed and designed the sets for Am Anfang (In the Beginning) at the Opéra National in Paris.

Kiefer lives and works in France.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

Henry A. Kissinger

Born in Fuerth, Germany, Dr. Kissinger came to the United States in 1938 and was naturalized a United States citizen in 1943. He served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1950 and went on to receive MA. and PhD. degrees from Harvard University.

Dr. Kissinger was sworn in on September 22, 1973, as the 56th Secretary of State, a position he held until ]anuary 20, 1977. He also served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from Ianuary 20, 1969, until November 3, 1975. From 1983-1985, he chaired President Reagan‘s National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. From 1984-1990 he served as a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He is currently a member of the Defense Policy Board.

At present, Dr. Kissinger is Chairman of Kissinger Associates, lnc., an international consulting firm. He is also a member of the International Council of Morgan Chase & Co.; a Counselor to and Trustee of the Center for Strategic and Intemational Studies; an Honorary Governor of the Foreign Policy Association; and an Honor Member of the Intemational Olympic Committee. Among his other activities, Dr. Kissinger is a member of the Board of Directors of ContiGroup Companies, Inc. and an Advisor to the Board of Directors of American Express Company. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Forstmann Little and Co.; a Trustee Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a Director Emeritus of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc.; and a Director of the lntemational Rescue Committee.

Among the awards Dr. Kissinger has received have been the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973; the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation’s highest civilian award) in 1977; and the Medal of Liberty (given one time to ten foreign-born American leaders) in 1986.

For further information, please contact Marcie Rudell at (212) 207-6797 or mrudell@mraevents.com.