The Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture is an international academic research institute established to promote research into German and Central European Jewry in the modern era and to further the liberal heritage of German Judaism in contemporary Israeli society.

We are happy to present our new newsletter and invite you to be impressed by the extensive activities of the institute in the past year.

Who was Walther Rathenau, the only Jewish foreign minister in the history of Germany, who stands as the main figure of the month of June at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem?

On June 24, we will mark the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Walther Rathenau, the German-Jewish Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. In a new video series, we will discuss the character of Rathenau who embodies in his extraordinary biography the dilemmas and controversies that reflect the lives of Jews in Germany: meteoric success in the face of brutal failure, identity crises, acquiring education as a tool for social status, how to be a Jew in the Weimar Republic and more.

Prof. Shulamit Volkov, Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and author of the book “Walther Rathenau: German Jewish Tragedy” tells of Walter Rathenau ‘s last years, which present the contradictions, dilemmas, and multiplicity of faces that reflect Jewish life in the early twentieth century.

Rathenau served as Germany’s foreign minister during a period of great upheaval. Germany’s economic, political and social problems after the defeat in World War I led to an unstable period in the transition between monarchy and democracy. Added to this were rising unemployment, inflation, and hunger which created fertile ground for extremist, anti-Semitic, and nationalist movements and groups who sought to find a responsible person for Germany’s situation. In this atmosphere Rathenau was appointed Foreign Minister, four months later he was assassinated, which caused a great deal of shock in German society.

Chidushim is a peer-reviewed academic journal published annually in Hebrew under the auspices of the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem. We invite established and young scholars to submit original unpublished papers to the journal’s editorial board.

We call upon researchers at any academic stage to join a research group that will be active in the 2022/23 academic year.

The Material and Intellectual Legacy of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin

This is a joint project of the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem and the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow in Leipzig. The three-year multidisciplinary project is financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of its Jewish Cultural Heritage Program. The DFG will finance the Jewish Cultural Heritage Project until 2025.