Ignatz-Bubis-Chair

Ignatz Bubis Memorial Chair for the History, Religion and Culture of European Jewry
 
The Ignatz Bubis Memorial Chair for the History, Religion and Culture of European Jewry at the School of Jewish Studies Heidelberg was established in 2001. It is dedicated to the memory of Ignatz Bubis, who until his death in 1999, served for many years as chairman of the Council of Jews in Germany. The chair is currently funded by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation.

The chair focuses on the history, religion and culture of Jews throughout Europe as well as on European Jewish communities living abroad in the Diaspora. The main focus, however, lies on periods of political, social, and cultural transformation and on the various intellectual religious movements characteristic of a changing Jewish history in Europe. While acknowledging its religious and cultural diversity, it aims to present this history as an integral part of European history, documenting how it interacts with the forces that it helps to determine. At the same time, through teaching and research, the distinctive cultural characteristics of Jewish existence are to be articulated. The European framework of the chair facilitates comparative observations as well as diachronic and synchronic approaches to focusing on individual places and regions. Macro and micro perspectives complement each other: Jewish-European history is addressed as a whole along side Jewish regional and local history. The European context also allows for links to be drawn to broader questions such as issues raised by research on gender, minorities and migration.

The interest in past Jewish history, religion and culture is determined by the present. In addition to providing understanding for the past, the scholarship of experience is used to address the future. The historical perspective opens horizons for understanding Jewish existence today, its origins and form.

At the School of Jewish Studies the chair is responsible for international relations, both regarding study abroad and research contacts and exchanges. Moreover, the chair is in charge of coordinating study programs with Heidelberg's Ruperto Carola University philosophy faculty.

Lectures and other special events are scheduled regularly as part of the Ignatz Bubis Memorial Chair.

The chair is currently linked to the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft by a project with the specialized program (SPP) 1173 "Integration and Disintegration in Medieval Europe".
 
Information concerning other research projects in preparation will be made available at this website. 

 

Staff of the Ignatz  Bubis Foundation Chair for the Religion, History, and Culture of European Jewry:

Prof. Dr. Johannes Heil

CURRICULUM VITAE

Born 1961
Study of medieval and modern history, art history and religious philosophy in Frankfurt am Main, as well as Jewish studies in Frankfurt, Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Doctorate degree in 1994 under Johannes Fried and Heribert Müller in Frankfurt
Post-doctorate degree in 2003 under Wolfgang Benz at the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the TU Berlin und in the department of history.
Since April 2005 Ignatz Bubis Memorial Chair for the History, Religion and Culture of European Jewry at the Advanced School of Jewish Studies, Heidelberg.

Numerous Teaching and Research visits to Israel and the United States, including 2003/4: Friedrich Solmsen Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, und 2004/2005: Fellow, Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame, IN.

Scholarly Focus:

• Jewish history during the transition from the Antiquity to the Middle Ages
• History, religion and culture of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages and early modern era
• Historiography of Jewish history
• General textual and intellectual history, espec. of the Middle Ages
• Political, cultural and religious aspects of Jewish-Christian relations

Hobbies and more:
active: our three children (13 and 10 and 4 years old);
Mountain climbing, photography (... when I find the time)
passive: classical music and German soccer (the rise and fall of Eintracht Frankfurt)

 

Dr. Gundula Grebner