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This month Potsdam University, the Berlin Humboldt University, the Berlin Freie University and the Berlin Technical University have unanimously decided to finalize plans for a Corporate Centre for Jewish Studies. This project aims to unite and cross-link numerous academic activities regarding study, training and research in this field. Furthermore, by providing visiting professorships and positions for guest fellows and readers the centre aims to enhance international exchange with scientists and scholars especially from the US, Israel, the United Kingdom, France and the CIS countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

Berlin can look back on a long tradition of Jewish Scholarship. The “Science of Judaism” (Wissenschaft des Judentums) emerged during the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century. The pronounced anti-Semitism of the Prussian Empire prevented this scholarly tradition from advancing at Prussian universities. Today however, Jewish Studies constitute a crucial component of academic training and research in fields as diverse as Theology, Philosophy, History, Literature, art history as well as Cultural Studies, educational sciences, European Ethnology, Law and the History of Medicine.

Apart from the four aforementioned universities several other institutions participate in this project. These include:

The Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin (Trust of the New Synagogue Berlin), the Centrum Judaicum, the Abraham Geiger Kolleg for Rabbinic Education and the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European Jewish Studies in Potsdam.

At present the Jewish Centre Founding Commission is discussing plans for a suitable location for the project. The site of the former Jewish children’s home on Auguststrasse, owned by the Berlin Jewish Community and built by Eduard Knoblauch (the architect of the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Stra?e) is currently under consideration. These premises are also known as the Ahawah-Building and constitute a protected historical site. It is currently being refurbished and will subsequently host both academic activities and cultural events (exhibitions, concerts, talks).

At present there is already a large focus of expertise in the field of Jewish Studies in the region of Berlin and Brandenburg: 15 professorships (in different constellations and emphasis on research or training) within the existing supply of positions and resources of all four universities and accordingly a respective number of institutions, such as centres, departments and research groups already cover a host of different themes and topics of Jewish Studies. A few examples of such institutions and departments include:

• Potsdam University has since many years established BA and MA courses in Jewish Studies

• At Humboldt University Berlin: the ‘Kollegium Jüdische Studien’ which offers a graduate School for Jewish Studies (this cross-links several departments in interdisciplinary postgraduate studies and research projects); The Leo Baeck Summer University for Jewish Studies; The Walter Benjamin Chair for German-Jewish History and Culture which includes a visiting lecturer chair for Jewish law; The Faculty of Theology at Humboldt University which hosts the Institute for Church and Judaism

• The Free University Berlin: offers a BA in Judaism Studies; together with Touro College it offers a joint MA entitled “Judaism in Historical Context” within their Department of “Judaism in Hellenic-Roman and Islamic-Christian Context” focusing on antiquity, medieval and the early modernist period. A sub-section of this Masters programme is titled “Modern Judaism and Holocaust Studies” and covers the 19th and 20th century. In 2008 the Ernst-Ludwig-Ehrlich Masters degree programme for History, Theory and Practice of Judeo-Christian relations” was established as part of the Faculty of Catholic Theology.

• At the Technische Universit?t Berlin there is the distinguished Centre for the Research of Anti-Semitism; 19th and 20th century German-Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust have been researched, taught and studied for many years. A new department and Masters degree course on anti-Semitism and further research on prejudices will soon be established.

This list is just a fraction of the four universities’ numerous activities in the field of Jewish studies.

The intended establishment of a Corporate Centre for Jewish Studies is innovative in many aspects but above all there can be no doubt about the topical value of establishing an academic and cultural seat of Jewish Studies in Berlin and Brandenburg. In the spring of 2010 the German Science Council strongly recommended such measures. The realization of such a centre can therefore be seen as the logical enactment of the council’s proposals which called for better representation of Islam Studies and Jewish Studies in German universities. Finally the proposed centre will provide numerous opportunities to enhance successful cooperation between the four largest universities in Berlin and Brandenburg, uniting them in a highly topical joint project focusing on the teaching and research of Jewish Studies.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Freie Universit?t Berlin
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rainer Kampling
Seminar für Katholische Theologie
Schwendenerstr. 31
14195 Berlin
Tel.: (030) 838-54074
E-Mail: kampling@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
Prof. Dr. Christina von Braun
Institut für Kulturwissenschaft
Sophienstra?e 22a
10178 Berlin
Tel.: (030) 2093-8244
E-Mail: CvBraun@culture.hu-berlin.de

Technische Universit?t Berlin
Stefanie Terp
Pressesprecherin
Tel.: 030/314-23922
E-Mail: pressestelle@tu-berlin.de

Universit?t Potsdam
Birgit Mangelsdorf
Universit?tssprecherin
Tel.: 0331/977-1474
E-Mail: presse(at)uni-potsdam.de