Dubnow Institute celebrates its 30th anniversary

The institute is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a festive event surrounding the 24th Simon Dubnow Lecture, a book presentation, and an annual conference from 5 to 6 November 2025 in Leipzig.

In the 30 years since it was established, the Dubnow Institute has developed into a renowned and internationally well-connected research institution focusing on Jewish history and culture. In challenging times, we wish to celebrate this occasion and at the same time take it as an opportunity to examine the past, present, and future of the institute through the lens of the core questions of our research agenda. In the process, we will also consider the development of Jewish studies in Germany and in Eastern Europe since the ruptures of the years 1989/90.

On 29 April 1994, the Saxon State Parliament voted unanimously to establish an Institute for Jewish History and Culture in Leipzig. One year later, this institute went into operation. Since 1996, it has been associated with Leipzig University through a cooperation agreement, becoming an affiliated institute in 2000. In 2018, the institute was accepted into the Leibniz Association.

On the recommendation of the establishing committee, the institute was named after Simon Dubnow (1860–1941). This Russian Jewish historian acted as a cultural intermediary between the Jewries of Eastern and Western Europe. This choice of name reflected the institute’s agenda: It was to serve the interdisciplinary and trans-epochal research of Jewish life above all in Central and Eastern Europe from early modernity through to the present. At the same time, Jewish history was always to be regarded in the context of its non-Jewish environment and understood as a seismograph of general historical developments.