Leo Baeck Institute

The Leo Baeck Institute
Formation 1955
Founders Hannah Arendt
Martin Buber
Siegfried Moses
Gershom Scholem
Ernst Simon
Robert Weltsch
Type Research Institute
Location
International President
 Michael Brenner
Website

Leo Baeck Institute

The Leo Baeck Institute is an international research institute with centres in New York, London and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry.[1][2]

Organizational structure

The Leo Baeck Institute is made up of three independent international institutes, two Berlin centres, and two Berlin working groups that are governed by the Leo Baeck Institute International board:[3]

History

In the beginning of the 1950s some of the most influential Jewish scholars from Germany met in Jerusalem to discuss what form the Leo Baeck Institute would take. The founding conference took place from May 25–31, 1955; Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Gershom Scholem were some of the intellectual heavyweights present.

Most attendees as well as the personalities steering the institute had known each other before their flight from Germany through organizations like the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens and the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland.[4]:100 Others had held positions with the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (formed under Leo Baeck's direction and later renamed the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland).[4]:62 It was initially assumed that this project would take the form of a long-term historical project, preparing a comprehensive work on the history of German Jewry. With the expectation that this would not last more than a decade, institute members concentrated entirely on research projects and filling in the history of German Jewry from the Enlightenment to the Nazi seizure of power.

The Leo Baeck Institute was created in 1955 at a conference in Jerusalem. It was originally founded as a board that was made up of two governing bodies, a research and publication board, and an administrative board.[4]:43 It is now a central umbrella organization focused on the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. It was founded internationally, with multiple locations made up of three independent branches. The Leo Baeck Institute International board coordinates the activities of all three branches, and each branch reports at annual international board meetings about their research and publication projects.[4]:240-242 It is named in honor of its international president, Leo Baeck, the senior Rabbi of Berlin in Germany's Weimar Republic and the last leader of the Jewish Community under the Nazis.[5][6][7] The Leo Baeck Institute, New York, was founded in 1955, at the same time as the parent organization, and is the United States branch of the organization.

Leadership

Presidents of Leo Baeck Institute International, the umbrella organization of the institute:

Leo Baeck Institute, New York / Berlin

The Leo Baeck Institute, New York in Manhattan includes a library, an archive, an art collection, and an exhibition centre. Its offices and collections are housed in the Center for Jewish History, a centralized partnership with other Jewish organizations that share one location, with separate governing bodies and finances, but collocate resources. in New York City.[9]

Additionally, Leo Baeck Institute, New York also administers several fellowships for scholars working in the field of German-Jewish history, produces exhibitions and public programming related to German-Jewish history, and awards the Leo Baeck Medal annually for special achievements related to German-Jewish history and Culture.

Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem

As the second generation took over, the LBI Jerusalem transformed from a memorial community to a research centre. Almost all members of the LBI Jerusalem’s second generation were professional historians; most had left Germany as children or adolescents and had either little of no share at all in the founders memories. For this reason the “memorial function” of the historiography now lost significance. In its place came more strictly scholarly aspirations.[4]:59-60

Through their publications, scholarly seminars, academic and cultural events, alongside an archive, the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem has been the leading venue for German-Jewish historiography and documentation in Israel. Its archives consist of a microfilm collection of Jewish newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as a collection of family papers, genealogical materials and community histories.

Leadership

Chairpersons of Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem:

Leo Baeck Institute, London

The Leo Baeck Institute, London has published the LBI Year Book since its inception in 1956. The annual covers the cultural, economic, political, social and religious history of German Jews. In addition to the Year Book, it also produces monographs and the Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen. In addition to its publishing activities, Leo Baeck Institute, London supports scholarships and holds lectures and conferences.

Digital collections

DigiBaeck

In 2012, Leo Baeck Institute, New York announced that it had digitized the majority of its archival holdings as well as large segments of its art and library collections. Among the over 3.5 million digital images available through the online catalog, known as DigiBaeck, include:

Internet Archive

Of note, Leo Baeck Institute, New York partnered with the Internet Archive, non-profit digital library that offers permanent storage of and free public access to digitized materials to complete the project.[13]

Freimann Collection

The Freimann Collection of books related to the Wissenschaft des Judentums (in English: Science of Judaism) is another important digitization project.[14] Working in coordination with Frankfurt University Library, the Leo Baeck Institute library located about 2,000 volumes in its collections that were missing from the Frankfurt Library’s collection of Judaica created by curator Aron Freimann in the 1920s and were able to reconstruct the collection. The project was funded by a joint grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – DFG).[15][16]

Notable publications

See also

References

  1. ↑ Leo Baeck Institute; Folio Corporation (1999). Weltsch, Robert; Paucker, Arnold; Grenville, John, eds. Leo Baeck Institute Year Book. Volumes I-XL, 1956-1995 (CD-ROM) (in German and Yiddish). New York: Leo Baeck Institute. ISBN 978-1-571-81183-7. OCLC 54877908. Retrieved 23 July 2015. Elektronische Ressource
  2. ↑ Kaufman, Michael T. (11 October 1998). "Fred Grubel, 89, Who Headed A Jewish Research Institute". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  3. ↑ Leo Baeck Institute. "About: International Presence". Leo Baeck Institute - New York/Berlin. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hoffmann, Christhard, ed. (2008). Preserving the Legacy of German Jewry: A History of the Leo Baeck Institute, 1955-2005. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-161-49668-4. OCLC 257584531.
  5. 1 2 Johnston, Laurie (20 November 1980). "A Chancellor Visits With German Jews". The New York Times. p. 3. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Friedländer, Albert H. (1996). Leo Baeck: Leben und Lehre (2. Aufl. ed.). Gütersloh: Kaiser. ISBN 978-3-579-05084-3. OCLC 75688811.
  7. ↑ Friedlander, Albert (1992). Leo Baeck: Teacher of Theresienstadt. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. ISBN 978-0-879-51441-9. OCLC 232659859.
  8. ↑ Leo Baeck Institute (30 October 2013). "Michael Brenner elected LBI President". Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  9. ↑ Shepard, Richard F. (28 April 1997). "Archives of Jewish History, Now Under One Roof". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  10. ↑ Kahn, Eve M. (5 August 2010). "Resurrecting Laurelton Hall: A Book Burning Debate". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  11. ↑ Mecklenburg, Frank (Spring 2004). "Inventing a Discipline: The Leo Baeck Institute and German-Jewish Studies". Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) (Berman Jewish Policy Archive). Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  12. ↑ Aderet, Ofer (14 October 2012). "Albert Einstein like you've never seen him before". Haaretz. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  13. ↑ "Featured Digital Collection: DigiBaeck". D-Lib Magazine. November 2012. ISSN 1082-9873. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  14. ↑ Dolnick, Sam (7 March 2011). "Jewish Texts Lost in War Are Surfacing in New York". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  15. ↑ "Funded Projects: Wissenschaft des Judentums: An International Digital Collection". National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  16. ↑ "Judaism, Special collection 7.7 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)". Frankfurt University Library. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2015.

Further reading

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, February 12, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.