Today marks the birthday of the influential philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), born in Hanover and raised in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Berlin. Arendt, a co-founder of the Leo Baeck Institute London, is renowned for her profound impact on political thought and her dedication to preserving Jewish cultural heritage.
We’re thrilled to announce that our innovative project, Library of Lost Books, has been shortlisted for the prestigious PR Report Award 2024 in two categories: Politics & Society/Non-Profit and Content Communication/Integrated Communication and Content Strategy.
The Leo Baeck Institute London is delighted to announce that its renowned publication series, Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts, is now available open access, offering free and unlimited digital access to our collection of publications. This significant move reflects the Institute’s commitment to fostering greater accessibility and engagement with German-Jewish history and culture for researchers, students, and the wider public.
18th, 20th of November, 2nd, 9th December 2024
4.00-6.00pm Berlin Time
Participants:
Aebischer, Emilie: Writing History in the Face of Fanaticism: Ernst Cassirer and his Reception as a Historian (University of St. Andrews, History)
Aizenberg, Tamar: The Third Generations: Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors, Grandchildren of Perpetrators and Holocaust Memory (Brandeis University, Jewish Studies)
We are excited to share the news that the Library of Lost Books has been nominated for this year’s Grimme Online Award, a prestigious German media prize.
Votes are now open so please help us by voting and sharing with others. Your support will make all the difference!
Vote here: https://w1.grimme-online-award.de/goa/voting/ext_voting.pl
And read more details about our nomination: https://www.grimme-online-award.de/2024/nominierte/nominierte-detail/d/library-of-lost-books
The Friends and Supporters of the Leo Baeck Institute in Berlin have published an interview on their website looking at the work of our Director and Deputy Director. Excepts can be read below and a link to the full article (in German) is at the bottom of the page.
When Joseph Cronin began working at the Leo Baeck Institute as a young doctoral student in 2012, he got to know some first-generation German-Jewish emigrants at board meetings – while serving coffee, as he recalls. Dr. Joseph Cronin has headed the Leo Baeck Institute London since September 2023.
“In itself it is nothing. Nothing but a book: parchment, colouring, ink. Yet the most perishable material is at the same time the most durable substance in the world…”
Lion Feuchtwanger, The Jew of Rome
Samuel David Luzzatto’s Synonymia Hebraica (Mavdil Nirdafim) (c. 1815–1820) is a remarkable manuscript smuggled out of Germany by Alexander Guttmann in 1940.
This beautifully bound notebook contains 25 essays in Hebrew, each exploring groups of words in the Bible with similar or identical meanings. All but one essay were later published in the journals Bikkurei Ha-Ittim (1825–1828) and Jeschurun (1856).
What makes this item unique are the author’s corrections and notes in the margins, written in ink, crayon and pencil. It is thus a fascinating testament to the editing process. This item is on permanent loan to the Leo Baeck College Library from the Judaica Conservancy Foundation.
Can women hold rabbinical office? This was one of the questions discussed at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, Berlin, in the 1920s and 1930s. And no one was better suited to provide an answer to this than Regina Jonas, a student at the Higher Institute who became the first female rabbi in the world in 1935. Prior to her ordination, Jonas answered the question about women’s access to the rabbinate in a halachic treatise that she submitted in 1930 as her final halachic project.
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