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

The project »German-Jewish Cultural Heritage Abroad,« which is being funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of its priority program »Jewish Cultural Heritage,« focuses on the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, established in Berlin in 1872 and shut down by the Nazis in 1942. In the framework of a cooperation with the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, the project explores the fate and significance of the institute’s library, the whereabouts of its books, and the initiatives of the postwar era to preserve both its intellectual and cultural heritage.

The project, which will run for three years, aims to reassess the afterlife of the institute in Berlin. It uses approaches from material culture research, library scholarship, provenance research, and intellectual history to reconstruct the institute’s intellectual and material legacy in different locations. A range of scholarly publications and events will be prepared for a not exclusively academic audience.

Proceeding from a material perspective, the project is dedicated to new research on a central field of Jewish intellectual, cultural, and memorial history in the postwar era. The first module of the project focuses on postwar initiatives to preserve the heritage of the institute, which were spearheaded primarily by intellectuals and Jewish institutions from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The second module explores the paths taken by the scattered books from the institute’s destroyed library.

The project is being financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of its priority program »Jewish Cultural Heritage« (SPP 2357) through to 2025. The priority program aims to explore the developments of the social and cultural/political standing as well as the treatment of Jewish cultural heritage in Europe from an interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival approach.

Project Manager
Prof. Dr. Yfaat Weiss
Dr. Irene Aue-Ben David

Scholarly Supervision
Dr. Elisabeth Gallas

Project Coordinatior at the Dubnow Institute, Leipzig
Dr. Felix Steilen

Project Members at the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem
Dr. Anna Holzer-Kawalko
Bettina Farack

Research project at the Dubnow Institute

Studies on the Material and Intellectual Heritage of the »Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums«

Dr. Felix Steilen

Research Projects at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem

Books and Stories: The Significance of the Library of the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem
Bettina Farack (LBI Jerusalem)

Books from the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and the National Library in Jerusalem
Dr. Anna Holzer-Kawałko (LBI Jerusalem)

Cooperation Partner

Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem

What’s New?

Article
Felix Steilen, Berlin in Cincinnati — Scenes from the End of the ‘Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums’, The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2024

Talk
Felix Steilen, The Liberal Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, 1933–1942, German Studies Association, Forty-Eighth Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia (Sep 2024).

Exhibition
Bettina Farack et.al., The Library of Lost Books. A virtual exhibition and crowd sourcing initiative exploring the history of books looted during the Second World War, and the stories they tell. A project by the Leo Baeck Institutes Jerusalem and London (LBI), and the Friends’ Association of the LBI, funded by the Foundation Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft (EVZ).

Talk
Felix Steilen, Berlin in Cincinnati: Scenes from the End of a Tradition of Jewish Learning,Université de Montréal (Nov 2023).

Talk
Felix Steilen, Berlin in Cincinnati: Scenes from the End of an Intellectual Tradition,American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati (Nov 2023).

Talk
Anna Holzer-Kawalko, Cold War and Cultural Restitution. The Hebrew University Restitution Missions in Post-war Eastern Europe, Purdue University/Ramapo College (Oct 2023).

Article
Bettina Farack, Die Träume der »Arbeitssklaven«: Zwangsarbeit für die »Judenbibliothek« des Reichssicherheitshauptamts,in: Trumah. Zeitschrift der Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, vol. 26, 2023, 11-40.

Talk
Anna Holzer-Kawalko, A Hidden Treasure. On the Distribution of the Nazi-looted Jewish Libraries in the State of Israel,Hebrew University Jerusalem (July 2023).

Talk
Bettina Farack, Jenny Wilde. The Last Librarian of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Association of Jewish Libraries (Digital Conf. Jun 2023).

Talk
Felix Steilen, The Legacy of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the U.S. and Canada,Association of Jewish Libraries (Digital Conf. Jun 2023).

Article
Bettina Farack, Anna Holzer-Kawalko, Provenance Research and Jewish History. The Centralverein Library at the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem (with Anna Holzer-Kawalko), in: Mimeo. Blog der Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden am Dubnow-Institut, April 2023.

Talk
Felix Steilen, Ewigkeit vs. Kontingenz. Zum philosophischen Erbe der Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Dubnow-Institut, Leipzig (Jan 2023).

Article
Anna Holzer-Kawalko, Hermann Cohen in Jerusalem: On the Changing Perception of German-Jewish Heritage in Israel, in: Mimeo. Blog der Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden am Dubnow-Institut, January 2023.

Talk
Bettina Farack, The Last Years of the Hochschule Library, Centrum Judaicum, Berlin (Nov 2022).

Talk
Anna Holzer-Kawalko, Forgotten Heritage. The Fate of the Hochschule Library in Israel, Centrum Judaicum, Berlin (Nov 2022).

Article
Anna Holzer-Kawalko, Eastern European Perspectives on the Restitution of Nazi-Looted Jewish Cultural Property: Gershom Scholem in Prague, 1946,in: Naharaim. Zeitschrift für deutsch - jüdische Literatur und Kulturgeschichte, 16/2, 2022, 229–256.