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The Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Academy for the Science of Judaism), a secular research institute in Berlin, was established in 1919 by the ancient historian Eugen Täubler (1879-1953), on the instigation of Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929). In the 1920s, the Akademie was the most important institution for the discipline of Jewish Studies. It set important research in motion focused on the history of the Court Jews, Jewish mysticism, and Spinoza aong other subjects, and produced text…

The Central Council of Jews in Germany ( Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland)was founded in 1950 in Frankfurt am Main as an umbrella organization of Jewish communities and regional associations in Germany. In view of the Shoah, the Central Council started from a merely temporary measure of Jewish life in Germany; over the decades it ultimately contributed to its reconstruction. The focus of the work was on the integration of Displaced Persons (DPs; Munich) remaining in Germany, returnees from emigrat…

Modern German historiography took shape in the 19th century. At first within the Wissenschaft des Judentums, it freed itself from the religious vision of premodern interpretations of history. The master narratives that became evident in this process fulfilled social and political functions. Jewish history, which extends so far back, appeared to the representatives of various tendencies as an arsenal from which they derived answers to the questions of their present. Whereas German-Jewish historia…

The Central-Verein (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) (short: C.-V.) founded in 1893 by German Jews in order to defend themselves against antisemitism was the most important German-Jewish political organization for several decades. The very name of the association indicates the patriotism of German Jews, but it also emphasized the Jewish self-confidence of its members. It was dissolved after the November Pogrom in 1938.1. History and foundingThe founding of the C.-V. on March 26, 1893 in Berlin was a reaction to the changing circumstances …