Preface

Abstract

Addressing questions of German-Jewish history and culture from the eighteenth century to the present, the Year Book at hand presents articles from a variety of disciplines and through a broad range of methods. German-Jewish history—the central field of the LBI Year Book over many decades—has always been a transnational discipline. This is reflected in the three centres of the Institute in Jerusalem, London, and New York which themselves arose in the intellectual centres of German-speaking Jewish refugees. But not only have the regional, political, and religious perspectives on German-Jewish history changed over time, the disciplinary boundaries of its writing have shifted as well. This volume can be seen as an expression of these immense changes, which are similarly evident in the successful candidates of the Leo Baeck Fellowship Programme, run jointly by the LBI London and Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. Over seventy fellows from the greatly diverse academic disciplines of, among others, history, literature, philosophy, film studies, theology, Judaic studies, musicology, Yiddish, and the history of science have already participated in this programme. The present volume includes a range of these approaches.