Geschmack der Erinnerung: Speaker

Speaker

Sharon Adler is a journalist, writer, and photographer. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online women’s magazine AVIVA-Berlin and co-editor of the interview series “Jewish Women in Germany after 1945” in the Deutschland Archiv Online of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. In this series, she profiles Jewish women from different generations and with diverse life stories. As chairwoman of the ZURÜCKGEBEN Foundation, she advocates for Jewish women in the arts and sciences. For the Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin, she has moderated panels and discussions on topics such as exile, resilience, and the culture of remembrance, among others.

Dr. Sylvia Asmus is the director of the German Exile Archive 1933–1945 at the German National Library. Her research focuses on exile, flight, and the culture of remembrance; she has organized numerous exhibitions and published extensively on these topics. She is vice president of the Society for Exile Research (Gesellschaft für Exilforschung e. V.) and project director of the virtual museum “Arts in Exile.”

Marina Chernivsky is a psychologist and behavioral scientist. She studied in Israel and Germany and has lived in Berlin since 2001. Her research and publications focus on transgenerational trauma, Jewish perspectives on antisemitism, and antisemitism and discrimination in institutions. She heads the Center of Excellence for Education and Research on Antisemitism (KOAS), which she founded, and is the founder and executive director of OFEK e.V., a counseling center for victims of antisemitic violence and discrimination.

Until 2017, she was a member of the German Bundestag’s Second Independent Expert Group on Antisemitism, and since 2019 she has been a member of the advisory board to the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight Against Antisemitism. In 2025, her new book, *Bruchzeiten – Leben nach dem 7. Oktober* (Times of Rupture: Life After October 7), was published by Fischer-Verlag.

Barbara Guggenheim, former literary agent and founding member of the Jewish Salon at Grindel, co-editor of *The Jewish Cookbook from Hamburg*

Barbara Guggenheim was born and raised in Zurich. A trained bookseller, she worked in various positions in the cultural sector before becoming a literary agent; she later moved to Hamburg in 1993. In 2007, she helped found the “Jewish Salon am Grindel” and has been organizing its program and much more ever since.

Prof. Dr. Gunther Hirschfelder studied history, folklore, and agricultural science in Bonn and earned his doctorate in 1992 from the University of Trier with a dissertation on trade in Cologne during the late Middle Ages. After a research fellowship in Manchester, he spent several years as a research assistant at the University of Bonn, followed in 2000 by his habilitation thesis on alcohol consumption at the dawn of the Industrial Age. After serving as a visiting professor in Mainz and Bonn, he has been a professor of comparative cultural studies at the University of Regensburg since 2010. From there, he conducts research on the structures of food systems in the past, present, and future. His wide-ranging journalistic and publishing work also focuses on consumption, food, and agriculture

Andrei Aaron Kovacs is the Secretary General of JEWLIF, Jewish Life in Europe, an organization founded in Cologne in 2023 that empowers Jewish voices in Germany and Europe in the fields of education, media literacy, and culture. Previously, as executive director of the association 321-2021: 1,700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany e. V., he oversaw the #2021JLID commemorative year.

He trained as a pianist and conductor, including as an intern under Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Later, with an MBA, he transitioned into the business world and founded several companies. His family history traces back from Transylvania through Hungary to Germany; his grandparents, including the actor György Kovács, survived Bergen-Belsen. This connection between migration, family memory, and work on Jewish themes shapes his work on European cultural and educational initiatives such as MENTSH UNITED.

Shelly Kupferberg, born in Tel Aviv in 1974, grew up in West Berlin. She studied journalism, theater, and musicology at the Free University of Berlin and has since worked as a journalist and hosted numerous radio programs featuring guests and concert broadcasts on ARD, including for Deutschlandfunk Kultur and rbb’s radio3.

In addition to her live broadcasts, she performs on various stages and moderates discussions with writers and panel discussions for various foundations, NGOs, ministries, cultural institutions, and festivals. Her literary debut, the SPIEGEL bestseller *Isidor*, was published in 2022 by Diogenes, has been translated into several languages, and is currently being staged as a play at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In the spring of 2026, her novel “Stunden wie Tage” was published by Diogenes.

Shani Leiderman, lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Owner of Beba restaurant and catering at the Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin. Beba’s menu is inspired by ancient Jewish cuisines from around the world, and the restaurant continuously researches and hosts special events in collaboration with artists that celebrate Jewish heritage. Shani also worked as a lead chef, specializing in Jewish cuisine for 'The Zweiflers,' a TV series for ARD, and in 2021 as a culinary consultant for a TV programme about Jewish culture in Germany. 

Antonia Reck is a cultural studies scholar whose research focuses on Jewish food cultures and historical gender anthropology. Since 2022, she has been a provenance researcher specializing in property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel and the Lippische Landesbibliothek in Detmold.

Gerhard J. Rekel—author, filmmaker. Born in Graz, Austria, he studied screenwriting and directing at the Vienna Film Academy. For his comedy *Trauma*, he received a British Academy nomination, the Japanese Screenplay Award, and other honors. His play *Machiavelli’s Masseuse* was selected by a jury at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg as one of the four best plays by emerging playwrights. Gerhard J. Rekel has written several novels, penned screenplays for the TV series “Tatort,” and directed numerous documentaries for ARTE, ORF, and ZDF-Terra X. His recently published biography “Monsieur Orient-Express” was honored with the 2023 ITB Award from the German Book Trade Association and has been translated into English, French, and Dutch. His play “Lina Morgenstern—How One Woman Changed Berlin” is currently being performed at THEATER IM PALAIS (Am Festungsgraben/Unter den Linden) in Berlin. Upcoming performances: December 9 and 10, 2026.

Prof. Dr. Miriam Rürup is a professor of European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, and chair of the Leo Baeck Institute’s Academic Working Group. Her research interests include German-Jewish history, migration history, and gender history, as well as the history of human rights and legal history.

Daniela Rusowsky Fuenzalida is a Chilean journalist with a master’s degree in anthropology. She lives and works in Berlin. She has conceived, directed, and produced several ethnographic documentaries on the topics of food and identity. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Jewish Theology at the University of Paderborn and studying rabbinics at the Nathan Peter Levinson Foundation in Potsdam. Her research explores food and identity in Chile’s Jewish community, with a particular focus on Jewish cookbooks.

Hermann Simon, Dr. phil., Dr. h.c. Born in 1949 at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. His father had returned to Berlin from the British Army (Jewish Brigade); his mother had survived in hiding.

After graduating from high school with a focus on classical languages, he studied history and Oriental studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, followed by graduate studies in Prague. He worked at the State Museums of Berlin from 1975 to 1988.

From 1988 to 2015, he served as director of the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum Foundation.

Monika Sommerer is an art historian and librarian. (From 1994 to August 2011, she worked at the library of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She then became director of the library at the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz Memorial and Educational Center.) Since March 2023, she has been director of the library at the Jewish Museum Berlin.