The scholars at the Dubnow Institute approach the history and culture of the Jewries of Central and Eastern Europe from an interdisciplinary perspective. Jewish lifeworlds are here always viewed in the context of their non-Jewish surroundings, thus highlighting the insights that Jewish history can offer concerning general historical developments.
Our multi-epochal research work is divided into three research units, namely »Politics,« »Law,« and »Knowledge,« each of which pursues its own thematic focal points, theoretical approaches, and methodologies. Common to all three units is an interest in the tensions that have shaped Jewish European history since the era of emancipation: individuality versus collectivism, particularity versus universality, homogeneity versus heterogeneity, participation versus exclusion, and tradition versus secularization. Another leitmotif of all three research units is the question of mobility and change, with regard to self-determined and self-initiated migration as well as to flight and expulsion, population transfer, border shifts, and experiences of violence. Thus, our scholarly work adopts a transnational and pan-European perspective, moreover encompassing spaces of Jewish migration, especially Israel as well as North and Latin America.
