Leo Baeck Institute
Founded in 1955 to document, research, and publish the distinct history of German Jewry and its impact on German society from the Enlightenment to the Holocaust. The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) was established in the three main centers of German Jewish emigration and German Jewish life after the Holocaust: London, New York, and Jerusalem.
German Jewish emigrants and Holocaust survivors who organized the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe had already voiced the desire to preserve the memory, history, and cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewry with its distinct identity and dedication to Wis-senschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) as it had developed between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Although individual Jewish historians and scholars had discussed such a project, the idea could not be realized due to a lack of funding and the question arose of how to organize such a project in a community as dispersed and financially shaken as that of German Jewry.
However, when the Federal Republic of Germany started restitution payments and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany found itself in a position to support cultural projects outside of Germany, these funds enabled a group of leading intellectuals to create a scholarly institution in the memory of German Jewry. In the summer of 1953 Siegfried Moses, chairman of the Israeli audit division and former chairman of the Zionist Association of Germany officially applied for funds for the establishment of a Leo Baeck Institute of Jews from Germany. At the end of May 1955 prominent German Jewish scholars such as Max Grue- newald, Robert Welsch, Hans Reichmann, Ernst Simon, Martin Buber, Gershom Sholem, Curt Worman, and Siegfried Moses met to define the mission of the future institute, which they considered to be to further scholarly research on German Jewish history from the Enlightenment to the Holocaust and to collect archival material and publish academic research related to German Jewry.
Consequently, they decided to ask Leo Baeck, the unquestioned leader of German Jewry and a Holocaust survivor, to allow them to name the institute after him and to serve as the first president of the institute. In 1955 the initiative was granted a first installment of $42,000 and in the same year the Leo Baeck Insti-
Rabbi Leo Baeck, Reform theologian, leader of German Jewry, and Holocaust survivor. When Baeck died soon after taking up the presidency of the Leo Baeck Institute in 1956, Siegfried Moses succeeded him as international president of the institute. (Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Campus, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion)
tute was founded with three bases in London, New York, and Jerusalem.
When Baeck died soon after taking up the presidency of the institute in 1956, Siegfried Moses succeeded him as international president. He was followed in office by Gruenewald and Michael A. Meyer, professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
While the New York branch of the institute turned into a research center and focused on building up a collection of archival source material as well as an extensive library and archives under the guidance of Gruenewald and Max Kreutz- berger, the London-based LBI became the center for the publication of the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, a quarterly periodical that was first edited by Welsch, then by Arnold Paucker, and is currently edited by John Grenville. The institute also publishes a scholarly series in German, the Schrften- reihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts (Series of Scholarly Accounts of the LBI). In addition, the Jerusalem LBI serves as a center for research on German Jewry in Israel and publishes the German-language Bulletin of the Leo Baeck Institute.
Due to a growing scholarly interest in the history of German Jewry in Germany during the 1980s, the LBI organized the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Scholarly Workshop of the LBI in the Federal Republic of Germany).
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft is based in Frankfurt am Main and has become a central network for German scholars in German Jewish studies. Currently it is chaired by Michael Brenner, professor for Jewish history and culture in Munich.In 1999 the LBI in New York City moved into the Jewish Center in New York, which constitutes a major hub for Jewish research together with the American Jewish Historical Society and the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. In 2001 the LBI New York opened the Leo Baeck Archive in Berlin to make its materials accessible for research in Germany.
Cornelia Wilhelm
See also New York City
References and Further Reading
Hoffmann, Christhard. “Deutsch-judische Geschichtswissenschaft in der Emigration: das Leo-Baeck Institut.” In Die Emigration der Wissenschaften nach 1933. Eds. Herbert Strauss et al. Munchen, London, New York, Paris: K. G. Saur, 1991, pp. 257-279.
Hoffmann, Christhard, in cooperation with the LBI Jerusalem, ed. The History of the Leo Baeck Institute, 1955—2005. Tubingen: Siebeck Mohr, 2005.
Jacobs, Robert. “Das Leo Baeck Institut. Juden und Deutsche nach der Shoah.” In Aufbau nach dem Untergang. Eds. Andreas Nachama and Julius Schoeps. Berlin: Argon, 1992, pp. 381-388.
Meyer, Michael A. “Das Leo Baeck Institut und das neuvereinigte Deutschland.” LBI Information II (1991/1992): 1-7.
Schaber, Will. “Das New Yorker Leo Baeck Institute.” In Deutschsprachige Exilliteratur seit 1933. Eds. John M. Spalek and Joseph Strelka. Vol. 2, II. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1989, pp. 1403-1408.