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DFG Priority Programme 2357 Jewish Cultural Heritage

Trials and Transmissions: Mapping the Legacy of the German Refugee Rabbinate

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wilhelm and Dr. Christian Riepl

The project focusses on the creation of a digital prosopographic research portal exploring the cultural heritage and legacies of the German refugee rabbinate (over 250 refugee rabbis) in the United States. We aim to present an analytic and communicative digital research tool including a digital edition of articles on these individuals discussing the agency this group gained in the definition of their heritage and legacy after 1945. Besides persecution, flight, exile and post-exile, the database will allow to visualize this refugee group as a whole, as individuals, or as collective, according to specific criteria, such as region of birth, religious affiliation, political activity, etc. As a research tool, it will be able to analyze the mobility of the group, the destruction of their intellectual centers, and their re-establishment after emigration. Their late returns to Germany gave them unexpected agency in the face of history and an opportunity to act as special moderators of the painful Jewish reality. The former refugees turned into advocates for the existence of Jewish life in the country of the perpetrators, — precisely because of their history. Therefore, the portal will also examine the returns of this refugee group to Germany after 1945 according to purpose and motivation and will collect, display and make accessible the refugees’ discourses on their intellectual heritage, their history and the legacy they were to build as the last of the German rabbinate.

The portal will provide a meta-structure to stimulate further research on this group, and will serve as a platform for interdisciplinary research and communication for a global audience. The research tool will be developed in an interdisciplinary cooperation with the LMU Center for Digital Humanities (ITG) and will find a permanent home and continuous maintenance there. Project partners are the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, the Leo Baeck Institute in New York and the Goldstein Goren Center for American Jewish History at New York University.

The project is partially based on data from a precursor project, see:

https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/160974826

For further reference, see also:

Cornelia Wilhelm, The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate: German Refugee Rabbis in the United States, 1933–2010 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2024).

Team

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wilhelm

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Historisches Seminar

Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1

80539 München

✆ +49 (89) 2180-72126

cornelia.wilhelm@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

Dr. Christian Riepl

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1

80539 München

✆ +49 (89) 2180-3746

riepl@lmu.de

Tabea Henn, M.A.

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1

80539 München

✆ +49 (89) 2180-6755

tabea.henn@itg.uni-muenchen.de

Dr. Gerhard Schön

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1

80539 München

✆ +49 (89) 2180-1393

schoen@lmu.de

Monographs

Cornelia Wilhelm, The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate: German Refugee Rabbis in the United States, 1933–2010 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2024),

https://iupress.org/9780253070197/

Through the generous support of The Trustees of Indiana University, Indiana University Press is pleased to make this monograph freely available as an Open Access publication,

https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/projects/the-last-generation-of-the-german-rabbinate/

Articles

Cornelia Wilhelm, “Saved by the Seminary: German Refugee Rabbis’ Careers during and after the Holocaust: A Transnational Perspective”, in Academics in a Century of Displacement: The Global History and Politics of Protecting Endangered Scholars, ed. Leyla Dakhli, Pascale Laborier, and Frank Wolff (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2024), 73–99,

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-43540-0

Cornelia Wilhelm, “Introduction”, European Judaism 54 (2021): 1–5.
Cornelia Wilhelm, “German Refugee Rabbis in the United States and the Formation of the ‘Last Generation of the German Rabbinate’”, European Judaism 54 (2021): 6–26.

Edited Volumes

Cornelia Wilhelm, and Sebastian Musch, eds., The Holocaust and Varieties of Migration: Beyond Flight and Displacement (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025), forthcoming.

Cornelia Wilhelm, guest ed., “The Synagogue and the Legacies of the Holocaust: German Refugee Rabbis and Cantors”. European Judaism 54 (2021), with contributions by Judah Cohen, Björn Siegel, Astrid Zajdband, and Cornelia Wilhelm.

Media Coverage

Conversations with B’nai B’rith

July 25, 2023

German Refugee Rabbis and American Congregations

Breuers 2gether

May 24, 2019 A brief introduction to a database of German refugee rabbis in America after the war

Publications from other Projects

Michael A. Meyer, Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler (New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 2025),

http://aboveallwearejews.ccarpress.org/

Isaac Hershkowitz, “Kasztner and the Rabbis: A Study of the Composition of the Passengers on the Kasztner Train”. Yad Vashem Studies 52, 2 (2024): 131–164.

Astrid Zajdband, German Rabbis in British Exile: From ‘Heimat’ into the Unknown (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2016),

https://degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110471717/

CCAR 2025 Cincinnati

Online Event “Rabbi Alexander Schindler and the Making of Contemporary Reform Judaism” with Michael A. Meyer

CCAR Press Speaker Series: Rabbi Alexander Schindler and the Making of Contemporary Reform Judaism

Announced by: Rafael Chaiken (CCAR Press)

info@ccarpress.org

Co-sponsored by: CCAR Press and Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion

April 22, 2025

7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT

Free and open to all with registration:

http://ccar.co/aboveall-event

Join CCAR Press and Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion to celebrate the release of Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler by Michael A. Meyer (Adolph S. Ochs Emeritus Professor of Jewish History, HUC–JIR). Rabbi Alexander Schindler (1925–2000) was an extraordinarily influential leader in the history of Reform Judaism. From 1973 to 1996, he served as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (today’s Union for Reform Judaism), where his charisma and vision raised the Reform Movement to unprecedented influence. Never afraid to be controversial, he argued for recognizing patrilineal descent, institutionalized outreach to interfaith families and non-Jews, and championed LGBTQ rights and racial equality. He was a tireless advocate for Israel while maintaining diaspora Jews’ right to speak out independently on the Jewish state. In this compelling new biography, Meyer draws on extensive archival research and interviews to paint a definitive portrait of Rabbi Schindler’s life.

Join us for an engaging conversation between the author and Rabbi Joan S. Friedman (Professor Emerita of Religion and History, The College of Wooster) as they explore Rabbi Schindler’s impact and enduring influence.

Order your copy of the book at

http://aboveallwearejews.ccarpress.org/ and use promo code ABOVEALL20 at checkout for 20% off. Valid through Tuesday, April 29, 2025.

SPP DFG 2025 Bonn

Jewish Cultural Heritage in Light of Critical Heritage Studies

March 3–6, 2025

Gustav Stresemann Institut e.V.

Langer Grabenweg 68

53175 Bonn

Constructing Jewish Heritage: From Art History to Digital Humanities

Panel 14, March 6, 2025, 11 am – 12:30 pm

Chair:

Samuel Weigel

Presenters:

Cornelia Wilhelm – The Making of Jewish Heritage in the Digital Age I (History): From the Invisible to Mapping the Trials and Transmissions of German Refugee Rabbis

Starting with a major absence of knowledge on the surviving German refugee rabbis as a collective, the project had to deal with unique methodological challenges to grasp, define and research an invisible group that was globally dispersed, had launched new careers elsewhere, was only perceived as individuals. Who should belong to the group and who should not, was difficult to define. Nevertheless, the refugee rabbis were the last of a significant elite that had defined German Jewry’s identity and stood side by side with their congregants during the Nazi period. Many years later, they were the ones who concluded German Jewish history by reasoning, writing and commemorating this last chapter of German-Jewish History passing on its essence, traditions and a specific legacy to Jews and non-Jews in other parts of the world. Late in their lives, some of them returned to the country of their birth and re-launched institutions for modern Jewish learning in the German-speaking heart of Europe. The presentation will examine how the digital humanities added a new methodological key to the analytic exploration of this research topic. It will highlight key research questions, what data and which records were used to build this research portal. It will also highlight how this information was transformed to information that could also be used in data science and thus add an analytic dimension to this project. The paper will evaluate the advantages and the limits of using the digital humanities as an analytical and communicative tool versus the book from the perspective of the historian, it will discuss challenges for the sustainability of the project, challenges for the research, data management and legal privacy issues. The presentation will explain how these issues were mastered in the project and how they led to larger questions of cooperations with libraries, archives and digitization and an expansion of the project to new regions. Finally, the presentation will demonstrate some of the features of the MIRA research portal.

Christian Riepl – The Making of Jewish Heritage in the Digital Age II (Technology): From Data Science to History

Following the first presentation in this project, this paper will provide deeper insights in the creation of a digital research portal on the legacy of the German refugee rabbinate. The presentation will demonstrate how in a data-driven approach digital methods can be used to explore networks, relationships and spaces beyond traditional perceptions of “community”, and how interactions and changes in the lives and careers of dispersed refugees can be traced. The paper will underscore the potential of the digital humanities in analyzing modern day heritage studies and discuss critically the value and benefits of using digital methods in a humanities application. Since the project follows a data-driven approach, we will first have a closer look at the modelling and acquisition of data: The relational data model for event-based modelling to map biographies (time, place, education, membership), the mapping of relationships (parent/child, teacher/student), the handling of source references and the linking to archival sources and literature, the use of authority files, persistent identifiers and links, conventions for the attribution of proper names (persons, places) and dates (also taking into consideration fuzziness and incompleteness) and their notation. This is intended to ensure the quality, traceability and sustainability of the data on which the analyses and visualizations are based. Then we will turn to data analytics and data visualization: Translating a research question into a formalized database query. Technologies to create a clear and simple layout and to visualize various analyses: Two-dimensional visualization of geodata on maps with linked timeline, three-dimensional visualization of relationships (relatives, scholars), three-dimensional visualization of relationships between people and institutions, use of color codes (for specific branches of tradition) and circles in variable sizes (for rankings).

Mirko Prystawik – The Establishment of Jewish Art History: Constructions of Cultural Heritage in Texts on Jewish Architecture in the Early 20th Century

GSA 2024 Atlanta

48th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association

September 26–29, 2024

Courtland Grand Hotel

165 Courtland Street NE

Atlanta, GA 30303

Trials and Transmissions — Forced Migration and Knowledge Transfer: The German Rabbinate, its Seminaries and Congregations after 1933

(sponsored by the DAAD)

September 27, 2024, 8:00–9:50am, Room Georgia 13

Moderator:

Björn Siegel – Institute for the History of the German Jews

Presenters:

Cornelia Wilhelm – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

The Last Generation of the German Rabbinate in the United States, 1933–2010: Cultural Transfers and Reflections on the Past

Felix Steilen – Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture

The Liberal Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, 1933–1942

Raphael Thurm – Bar Ilan University

A Neo-Orthodox Jewish Legacy: The Breuer Congregation in Washington Heights

MIRA 2024 Fürth

Workshop in Germany

May 20–22, 2024

Jüdisches Museum Franken

Königstraße 89

90762 Fürth

German Refugee Rabbis and German–Jewish Cultural Heritage: Towards a Comparative Perspective

The workshop seeks to bring together work in progress on German refugee rabbis in different regions and seeks a comparative perspective on how these refugees dealt with their traditions, their knowledge and the experience during and after the Nazi era.

We would like the participants to consider a perspective of the Critical Heritage Studies and reach across disciplinary backgrounds, thematic or regional focus pursuing questions such as: How was the refugee rabbis’ (communal rabbis, students, ordained scholars and the second generation, those born in Germany and educated after emigration) expulsion and the destruction of their cultural centers part of a cultural transfer/knowledge transfer? How did they and others perceive their forced presence and scholarship? Were there discussions on the construction of cultural heritage, the re-construction of their networks and hubs (seminaries, colleges, universities), and audiences, what purposes did they serve? How have their activities after the Holocaust resonated in society, and why was their knowledge sometimes lost to future generations? Where and why did it survive? We would also like you to address how the cultural transfers materialized (in religion, society and politics and memory) and were related to local and global contexts, to nationhood, diaspora and existing Jewries in their respective countries of refuge. We would like to learn about the agency these refugees (re-)gained or lost in and after their forced flight. Finally, we are very interested in exploring the rabbis’ memory, the memory of their tradition, possible returns to Germany and also methodological questions on how to explore and evaluate these topics in such a large group.

Organized by

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wilhelm as part of the ongoing research project “Trials and Transmissions: Mapping the Legacy of the German Refugee Rabbinate” in the DFG funded priority program “Jewish Cultural Heritage”

The workshop is sponsored by Jüdisches Museum Franken, Lehrstuhl für Jüdische Geschichte und Kultur der LMU München, Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung e.V. München, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo-Baeck-Instituts in Deutschland, Bayerische Amerika-Akademie and Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts).

Conference Program

MIRA 2023 New York

Community Sourcing Workshop in the LMU NYU Research Cooperation Program

Archival, Institutional, and Personal Files, Memoirs, Audio and Video Records on German Refugee Rabbis in the United States after 1933

October 10, 2023

Deutsches Haus @ New York University

42 Washington Mews

New York, NY 10003

October 11–12, 2023

Goldstein Goren Center for American Jewish History @ New York University

14A Washington Mews

New York, NY 10003

Presentation by Cornelia Wilhelm

Presentation by Stephan Lücke

WAG Scholars’ Working Group on German Rabbis after 1933

Members

Kimmy Caplan

Isaac Hershkowitz

David Jünger

Tammy Kohn

Christian Kraft

Mendy Mayer

Björn Siegel

Charles Steiman

Raphael Thurm

Charlotte Weber

Cornelia Wilhelm

Dan Wolf

WAG Scholars’ Working Group on German Rabbis after 1933

Meeting times

Since the group is composed of individuals from different time zones, the meeting times are spread across the day. We have picked Monday as the meeting day, and I would suggest to stick with that day and meeting time.

10am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) Berkeley, CA

1pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) New York, NY

2pm ART (Argentina Time) Buenos Aires

7pm CEST (Central European Summer Time) München

8pm IST (Israel Summer Time) Tel Aviv

Meeting dates and presentations

April 7, 2025

“German Judaica as Objects of Memory in Argentina: the cases of Rabbis Hans Andorn (1903–1945) and Hanns Harf (1914–2004)”

Dr. Tammy Kohn (Buenos Aires)

May 5, 2025

“A Day in the School Life of the Neo-Orthodox Diaspora”

Raphael Thurm (Lakewood, NJ / Bar Ilan University)

June 16, 2025

“Rabbi Alfred Wolf: A Rabbi’s Journey from Berlin to Los Angeles”

Dan Wolf (Los Angeles, CA)

A zoom link will be circulated shortly prior to each meeting.

WAG Scholars’ Working Group on German Rabbis after 1933

Call for Contributors

In the context of our research project on German refugee rabbis in the DFG Priority Program “Jewish Cultural Heritage”, we would like to initiate a new online discussion group on German rabbis after 1933. We are proud to have the support of the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft (WAG) of the Leo Baeck Institute in Berlin for this project. The idea follows the model of discussion groups supported by the Center for Jewish History in New York City and seeks to establish a long-term scholarly exchange that can bridge regional dispersion and will provide cohesion and collaboration in the long run.

Conveners: Cornelia Wilhelm (LMU München), Raphael Thurm (Bar Ilan University).

Cycle: Commitment to a two-year cycle of six online meetings per year.

Schedule: Six-week schedule during the semester, i.e. October to January and April to July.

Venue: Zoom Link will be provided by conveners.

Goals: The meetings will consist of scholars presenting work in progress, unpublished works of scholarship and/or methods of research of the German rabbinate after 1933. The conveners will organize a schedule of discussion rounds every semester and send out a call for thematic suggestions.

The working group should also consider how to engage the broader public for their work. This might take the form of sponsoring a public symposium, developing a digital platform, print publication, or other forms of disseminating the group’s results, all based on the outcome of the working group’s cumulative deliberations. Conveners will determine the specific composition of the group, but both junior and senior scholars as well as advanced graduate students (ABD) should be invited to participate as well as guest speakers. Participation is by invitation only. Annual or Bi-Annual Workshops and in-person meetings are planned from 2026 on. If you would like to join this group and commit to a long-term engagement with this topical focus, please respond by September 30, 2024 to

cornelia.wilhelm@lmu.de and send a short bio, a statement of interest outlining your project and your interest to join the group and a suggestion for a presentation! If you know individuals who might also be interested in this topic, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Cornelia Wilhelm

Community Sourcing

If you like to share your information with us, kindly download and fill in the word document on this page, and send it by email to

mira@lmu.de

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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1

80539 München

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