Welcome to the LBI London
The Leo Baeck Institute London is devoted to the study of German-Jewish history and culture. The LBI is an independent charity and aims to preserve and research this history by organizing innovative research projects, Fellowship programmes, and public events. Through the lens of German-Jewish history, the Institute seeks to address some of the most topical and timely questions of our times.
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Leo Baeck Institute Lecture Series 2021 – Conceptions of Heimat in Jewish Visual History and Culture – Ofer Ashkenazi
Conceptions of Heimat in Jewish Visual History and Culture
A lecture series organised by the Leo Baeck Institute London in cooperation with the German Historical Institute London.
This season’s series examines the German-Jewish and European-Jewish notion of Heimat and its diverse and changing visual representations and interpretations during the course of history. It looks at the subject through a prism of visual media, such as the arts, photography, film and fashion, as well as literature and social media, etc.
For more information on the lecture series please refer to the leaflet here.
We are delighted to resume our LBI Lecture Series on Zoom. Dr Daniel Wildmann (Director, Leo Baeck Institute London) has the pleasure of warmly inviting you to the third lecture in this series:
Prof Ofer Ashkenazi
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Heimat as a Shelter from Nazism
6.30pm, 22nd April 2021
This talk analyses the presence of generic Heimat imagery in German-Jewish family albums from the 1930s and highlights two major tendencies: the appropriation of Heimat iconography in photographs of the Jewish home, and the endeavor to situate Jewish family members within generic Heimat scenes. In both cases, Heimat iconography alluded to an alternative notion of German identity – and of belonging in the German landscape – which allowed and encouraged the integration of Jews within it. Consequently, in Jewish family albums, Heimat imagery provided an imagined landscape that sheltered Jews from the menace of Nazism.
Ofer Ashkenazi is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He is the author of three monographs on German film (most recently, Anti-Heimat Cinema: The Jewish Invention of the German Landscape, 2020). His current research project considers Jewish photography under Nazism.
This lecture will be held online via Zoom on Thursday, April 22nd 2021 and will start punctually at 6.30pm (UK time).
To join the event please click this link:
https://zoom.us/j/96098360635?pwd=eEw4QWhPbis2Mkg2SjlWdEVnUHcyUT09 at the appointed date and time, wait to be admitted by the host and follow the instructions on your screen. If you have any difficulty joining us on the night, please contact volunteer@leobaeck.co.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.
Admission is free but we would welcome if you could inform us of your intention to participate prior to the event by emailing us on info@leobaeck.co.uk. This would help us to prepare in advance for participant numbers and management.
Seventh ‘Snapshot’ of German-Jewish History and Culture
Our seventh ‘Snapshot’ of German-Jewish History and Culture is now online. Please click here to view the full post: German-Jewish Aviators in WWI – A Search for Heimat above the Clouds
Cover featuring a photography of Staff Sergeant Fritz Beckhardt and his plane
This item presents Felix A. Theilhaber’s unique publication on German-Jewish aviators in WWI. His book Jüdische Flieger im Weltkrieg – Jewish Aviators in the Great War (1924) is a fascinating visual and textual source which passionately challenges anti-Semitic allegations spread in the early Weimar Republic against German-Jews who had served in the military during the Great War.
The ‘Snapshots’, which attempt to give you an insight into interesting items from our London institute’s collection of rare books and historical pamphlets and documents, and which illustrate many facets of the history and culture of Europe’s German speaking Jewry, are also available on our social media outlets such as:
Our Facebook page (Leo Baeck Institute London), Instagram (@leobaeckinstitutelondon),
and Twitter (@lbi_london).
Recording of the second lecture of the Leo Baeck Institute Lecture Series 2021 – Jan-Christopher Horak
Leo Baeck Institute Lecture Series 2021: ‘Conceptions of Heimat in Jewish Visual History and Culture’.
We are happy to announce that the recording of the second lecture in the series, Jan-Christopher Horak‘s Helmar Lerski between the Diaspora and a Jewish Homeland, is now online.
To listen, please click here.