Huberta von Voss-Wittig joins Board of Trustees

Media advisory – For immediate release

April 23, 2020

Contacts:

North America: David Brown Director of Communications and Programs, Leo Baeck Institute dbrown@lbi.cjh.org | +1 (920) 265-2374

Europe: Miriam Bistrovic Berlin Representative mbistrovic@lbi.cjh.org | +49 (0)30 500 14 165

Huberta von Voss-Wittig joins Board of Trustees of Leo Baeck Institute—New York | Berlin

Huberta von Voss-Wittig, a German journalist and Think Tank executive, will join the Board of Trustees of the Leo Baeck Institute—New York | Berlin (LBI), strengthening the Jewish archive and library’s ties to Germany. Based in the Center for Jewish History in New York, the LBI safeguards more than 80,000 books and millions of archival documents from centuries of German-Jewish history, many of which were saved by refugees who fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The Institute serves scholars who study German-Jewish history and conducts public outreach to increase awareness of the long history of Jewish life in Germany, Austria, and other parts of Europe.

To the LBI Board, Huberta von Voss-Wittig brings extensive experience in public affairs communications, non-profit management, and transatlantic relations. As the Executive Director of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) Germany, she has helmed the London-based organization's expansion into Germany. The ISD is a non-profit Think & Do Tank, powering solutions against the rising tide of digitally amplified extremism and polarization . Before joining ISD, von Voss Wittig was the Director of Communications and Public Affairs for the New York-based conflict-resolution organization Seeds of Peace.

Von Voss-Wittig’s involvement with the Leo Baeck Institute dates back a decade, to when she wrote a feature story on the Institute for the German magazine Cicero. The Institute also honored her and her husband, former German Ambassador Peter Wittig, with its highest honor, the Leo Baeck Medal, in 2018.

The President of the LBI Board, Dr. David Marwell, said: “Huberta’s impressive credentials in the fields of non-profit management and public affairs communications alone would make her an exemplary candidate for our Board of Trustees in a moment when we are refining our message for contemporary Germany. What is probably most valuable to us, however, is the deep understanding of the importance of preserving the memory of German-Jewish history that she has demonstrated through her work as a journalist and friend to the Institute over the past ten years.”

Huberta von Voss-Wittig said: “Our German past and present is unthinkable without the contributions of our Jewish compatriots. And yet, the othering of Jews in Germany has grown exponentially in recent years due to the steep and steady rise of extremism across the ideological spectrum and the algorithmic amplification of hate online. Whatever I can do to help change the narrative and subsequent threat landscape, I will do, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to support an organization that preserves the memory of German-speaking Jews while building bridges into the future.”

The Leo Baeck Institute in New York is one of the three sister institutions founded by German-Jewish emigres in the 1950s to preserve the German-speaking Jewish culture that was nearly destroyed in the Holocaust. The other Leo Baeck Institutes are located in Jerusalem and London. LBI New York opened an archive at the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2001 and a branch office in Berlin in 2013, and it has mounted numerous exhibitions and public programs in Germany since then, including the current Shared History Project, a year-long virtual exhibit celebrating 1700 years of German-Jewish history through weekly spotlights on notable objects in LBI’s collection and from around the world.