Symposium: Geschmack der Erinnerung

German-Jewish cookbooks are far more than collections of recipes: they preserve family histories, document migration and loss, tell stories of continuity and cultural change, and, as sources of everyday life, open up new perspectives on memory, belonging, and identity.

The symposium brings together scholars, archivists, authors, cooks, and cultural mediators. At its center are cookbooks from the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute and related collections as historical sources, carriers of family memory, and expressions of Jewish cultural history.

December 1, 2026

2:00pm

WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS

2:30pm

Panel 1: Cookbooks through the Centuries
Experiences of exile, conservation challenges, and special features of archival collections
With Monika Sommerer, librarian and art historian, Head of the Library of the Jewish Museum Berlin; Dr. Sylvia Asmus, Director of the German Exile Archive 1933–1945 at the German National Library;

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Miriam Rürup, Director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, Chair of the LBI Academic Working Group.

Coffee Break

4:00 pm

Lecture: Kashrut and Cooking
Daniela Rusowsky, journalist, M.A. in Anthropology, doctoral candidate on the connection between food and identity at Paderborn University and Masorti rabbinical student.

4:30 pm

Lecture: Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Diaspora Cuisine, Deli Cuisine
On the diversity of Jewish culinary traditions
Prof. Dr. Gunther Hirschfelder, Professor of Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Regensburg.

Coffee Break

5:30pm

Panel 2: Historical Cookbook Authors as Entrepreneurs
With Priv.-Doz. Dr. Karina Urbach, historian and author, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London; Gerhard J. Rekel, author and filmmaker, biographer of Lina Morgenstern;

Moderation: Ulrich Baumann, Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

December 2, 2026

10am

Lecture: The Psychological Significance of Cooking and Preserving Cookbooks
Marina Chernivsky, psychologist and behavioral scientist, Head of the Competence Center for Education and Research Critical of Antisemitism and founding director of OFEK e.V.

10:30am

Panel 3: Cookbooks in the Family
Intra-family functions of cookbooks in transmitting traditions, gender roles, and identity
With Shani Leiderman, chef and founder of Beba Restaurant & Catering, Berlin; Antonia Reck, cultural scholar and provenance researcher, Lippische Landesbibliothek Detmold; Barbara Guggenheim, former literary agent and founding member of the Jewish Salon at Grindel, co-editor of “The Jewish Cookbook from Hamburg”;

Moderation: Sharon Adler, journalist, photographer, chair of the “Stiftung Zurückgeben” foundation and founder of the online magazine AVIVA-Berlin.

Coffee Break

12pm

Panel 4: Cooking and Cookbooks as Part of Community Building
With Andrei Kovacs, Managing Director of JewLif; Marina Chernivsky, OFEK e.V.; Hermann Simon, historian and founding director of the New Synagogue Berlin Foundation – Centrum Judaicum;

Moderation: Sharon Adler.

Lunch Break

2pm

Panel 5: Recipes for Tomorrow: Jewish Cuisine between Memory, Present, and Future

A conversation with Cynthia Barcomi
Closing panel with Cynthia Barcomi, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Barcomi’s;

Moderation: Shelly Kupferberg, journalist, author, and moderator.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS