How Germany’s ‘Rent a Jew’ Fights Stereotypes
“We try not to debunk the stereotypes from the Jewish side, but instead show the participants how stereotypes work in general.”
24
Dec
09
Jun
Uncovering the Silence: A Jewish-German Healing Exchange
My parents were Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors who fled World War II and ended up in Mexico, where my sister and I were born. They lost most of their families. My mother had only a brother, an uncle and a cousin who survived, while my father only a sister and two cousins.
15
Dec
A Cemetery Story
A documentary about a cemetery: It may not sound like much of a crowd-pleaser, but the German film In Heaven, Underground, directed by Britta Wauer and tracking the 131-year history of Europe's second-largest Jewish cemetery, has been garnering some high praise. Last month, the New York Times called the movie, about the Jewish Weissensee Cemetery in Berlin, "poetic and exquisite." Wauer spoke with Moment's Sala Levin about the past and present of Berlin's Jewish residents.
What inspired the film?
It was not my idea—five years ago a program director from a Berlin television station asked me to make a film about this cemetery. I knew the cemetery and found it very special, but I felt that it wasn’t a good idea to make a film about it. You can walk in there and look around, and you...
28
Jul
Should Jews Play Richard Wagner?
Richard Wagner, the lauded 19th-century German composer of operas such as Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, had an anti-Semitic streak.
It was more than just a streak. He discussed Jews throughout his writings, most notably in an essay, “Judaism in Music,” which derided Felix Mendelssohn and other Jewish composers, as well as the Jewish people in general, for corrupting German culture.
“Judaism and Music” is troubling to read, with its claims that “Jewish music is bereft of all expression, characterized by coldness and indifference, triviality and nonsense,” and at the “harmful influence of Jewry on the morality of the nation.”
Long after his death, Wagner’s anti-Semitism continues to cause many to chafe at his music. This is particularly true in Israel, where for decades no group publicly played any of his music, as part of an unofficial ban.
Yet...
10
Mar
Lessons for Germany’s Turks from France’s Jews
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In the midst of cheering crowds and booming music at an auditorium in Düsseldorf, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Turkish audience of 10,000 to "integrate…into German society but don't assimilate. No one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity." Later he said, “I am here to show that you're not alone!...You are part of Germany, but you are also part our great Turkey." The response inside the hall was jubilant. Throngs of people shouted out “Turkey is great!” and waved Turkish flags. In the words of one audience member, Erdogan is “their savior.”
Erdogan’s visit comes at a time of particular upheaval for Germany, where an ongoing debate over the meaning of Turkish assimilation. Anti-Muslim feeling is strong. One of...
10
Mar
Lessons for Germany's Turks from France's Jews
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In the midst of cheering crowds and booming music at an auditorium in Düsseldorf, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Turkish audience of 10,000 to "integrate…into German society but don't assimilate. No one has the right to deprive us of our culture and our identity." Later he said, “I am here to show that you're not alone!...You are part of Germany, but you are also part our great Turkey." The response inside the hall was jubilant. Throngs of people shouted out “Turkey is great!” and waved Turkish flags. In the words of one audience member, Erdogan is “their savior.”
Erdogan’s visit comes at a time of particular upheaval for Germany, where an ongoing debate over the meaning of Turkish assimilation. Anti-Muslim feeling is strong. One of...
18
Feb
Keeping Up With the Times: Digitizing Holocaust Archives
By Amanda Walgrove
The rapid growth of technology, characteristic of the twenty-first century, has altered methods of human relation. Communicating through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and email correspondence can make interpersonal connections seem trivial and dispassionate, but technological advancements can also produce meaningful intimacy. For example, we can video chat with estranged loved ones on the iPhone and reconnect with old friends through social media networks. The resources of cyberspace not only affect how we communicate, but also how we access, preserve, and retain information.
On the eve of International Holocaust Day, Yad Vashem announced that the world's largest collection of Holocaust archives would be incorporated into Google's overwhelmingly vast pool of virtual documents. Yad Vashem began digitizing their collection in the 1990's but collaboration with Google is a vast leap for any remote assemblage of archives. What...
18
Feb
Keeping Up With the Times: Digitizing Holocaust Archives
By Amanda Walgrove
The rapid growth of technology, characteristic of the twenty-first century, has altered methods of human relation. Communicating through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and email correspondence can make interpersonal connections seem trivial and dispassionate, but technological advancements can also produce meaningful intimacy. For example, we can video chat with estranged loved ones on the iPhone and reconnect with old friends through social media networks. The resources of cyberspace not only affect how we communicate, but also how we access, preserve, and retain information.
On the eve of International Holocaust Day, Yad Vashem announced that the world's largest collection of Holocaust archives would be incorporated into Google's overwhelmingly vast pool of virtual documents. Yad Vashem began digitizing their collection in the 1990's but collaboration with Google is a vast leap for any remote assemblage of archives. What...
11
Nov
The Human Touch
By Merav Levkowitz
Tuesday (November 9th) marked seventy-two years since Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass,” which marked the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany. The first manifestation of Nazi-led violence against the Jews, Kristallnacht saw destruction and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish businesses. Over the past few days, Jewish communities around the world have gathered to remember Kristallnacht and the Holocaust. While “Never Forget” has become a mantra for the Jewish people in particular, I, as many others, fear that as time goes on, we risk distancing ourselves from the Holocaust in a dangerous way.
While the Holocaust remains at the root of much of contemporary Jewish thought and action, for many of us it lives on as part of collective memory, which causes pain but is very much intangible. As American Jews in particular, the...
26
Aug
When Good Intentions Meet Reality
By Symi Rom-Rymer
In a recent posting on the Washington Post's OnFaith blog, a Rabbi and law professor recount their experience on a joint US Jewish-Muslim trip to the concentration camps of Germany and Poland. According to the authors’ account, “the Muslim leaders were visibly shaken by what they saw” and even those who had previously expressed skepticism about the Holocaust were moved and encouraged those with similar doubts to visit the camps for themselves.
Upon their return, the participating imams issued as statement saying in part, “We condemn any attempts to deny this historical reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy as against the Islamic code of ethics…We have a shared responsibility to continue to work together with leaders of all faiths and their communities to fight the dehumanization of all peoples...