Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts / Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook

The Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow institute for 2011 has as one of its major themes the Jewish presence in the local governments of Central Eastern Europe, particularly during the time between World War I and World War II and especially in Poland. A further theme considers matters of literary history after 1945 based on iconic texts as well as approaches determined by our knowledge of history.The general section and the other sections contain contributions on urban life in Eastern Europe, on the history of Jewish newspaper production, on the early studies of the Holocaust, on intellectual circles in the study of Judaism, and on the history of the transfer and effect of continental theories in America.

To mark the centenary of Gustav Mahler's death, one thematic focus of the Yearbook deals with the life, work and legacy of this musician of Jewish extraction in the context of culture and social politics. Another thematic focus here is early research on the Holocaust, an area of inquiry whose image in recent years has fundamentally changed. These focal areas are expanded by papers dealing with questions of political history, legal history, cultural restitution and the critique of post-modern philosophy.The regular sections of the Yearbook feature articles on Günther Anders, Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Lea Goldberg, the language question in Simon Dubnow's thinking, and the participation of Jewish anarchists in the Munich Soviet Republic (Räterepublik) of 1919.

Two focal areas are central in the 2015 Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute. In the follow-up to 100th anniversary since the outbreak of World War I, one thematic focus is devoted to the life and work of the universal historian, sociologist and language philosopher, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973), for whom World War I became a key epistemological experience. The articles in this focal area deal inter alia with the significance for intellectual history of the Leipziger Nachtgespräch (Leipzig Nocturnal Discussion) in July 1913, in which along with Rosenstock-Huessy, Franz Rosenzweig and Rudolf Ehrenberg also participated. The second thematic focus deals with the documentary and fictional representation of history after the Holocaust. Proceeding from the multifarious character of the representation of and discourse about historical and political events in the performing arts, the articles explore their influence in an extended framework in the context of research on postwar history. How and to what extent did theatre and film contribute to shaping the discussions in society about Jewish history and culture, and thus the history of the perception of the Holocaust?In the regular and special sections of the Yearbook, there are articles on the history of memory, the history of science and law in Palestine/Israel, the history of religions, and Russian-Jewish literary history and publishing history in the nineteenth century.

The 2013 Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute is centered on two focal areas: Jewish military history and the secularization of Hebrew. Jewish military history is principally a history of the integration of the Jews into their surrounding European cultures. This section highlights questions of loyalty and citizenship. The thematic focus brings together contributions from recent research on this theme. On the one hand, imperial and national life worlds are differentiated; on the other hand, topics are explored that touch on questions of religion in the face of military demands and exigencies. The second part on the secularization of Hebrew presents essays on the transformation of Hebrew as a primarily »sacred language« anchored, until the dawn of modernity, in religious written culture. In particular, it explores secularizing impulses in the medieval and early modern era affecting the language. The papers are complemented by other articles concerned with language philosophy and literary studies.The regular and the special sections of the Yearbook contain articles on Holocaust historiography, Oriental studies, Christian Hebraic studies, the Science of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums), as well as contributions examining the differing processes of appropriation, transfer and representation of everyday and historical Jewish experience in literature, poetics and theater.

Das Jahrbuch 2016 des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts widmet sich in zwei Schwerpunkten aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln Stationen jüdischer beziehungsweise israelischer Diplomatiegeschichte. Der erste Schwerpunkt befasst sich mit Problemfeldern bei der Ausgestaltung des modernen Staatensystems seit dem 19. Jahrhundert, die für die europäischen Judenheiten von zentraler Bedeutung waren. Gezeigt wird, wie und in welcher Form Fragen von Staatsbürgerschaft, Emanzipation, Minderheitenschutz und humanitärer Intervention in den modernen Debatten zur internationalen Politik hervortraten und welche Lösungsansätze jüdische Protagonisten entwickelten. Der zweite Schwerpunkt untersucht mit dem deutsch-israelischen Wissenschaftsaustausch seit 1959 einen besonders belasteten Fall internationaler Beziehungen. Anlässlich des fünfzigsten Jahrestages der diplomatischen Kontaktaufnahme zwischen beiden Ländern werden vor allem die Widersprüche und Ungleichzeitigkeiten der wissenschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit in den Blick genommen. Inwiefern wurde an Traditionen deutsch-jüdischen Geisteslebens angeknüpft und wie bildete sich der Zivilisationsbruch des Holocaust in ihnen nach. Im Allgemeinen Teil und in den Rubriken des Jahrbuchs finden sich Beiträge zur politischen Ideengeschichte, zur Nationalismusforschung, Staatsbildung und Minderheitenfrage, zur Buber-Scholem-Kontroverse und zur deutsch-jüdischen Nachkriegsgeschichte.

The newest volume of the Simon Dubnow Yearbook has one major theme: It looks at the 100th anniversary of the beginning of what came to be called the "Great Seminal Catastrophe" – World War I. The discussion is centered around the multifaceted literary processing of war and war experiences. In the General Section and in the other sections of this Yearbook there are contributions on historical semantics and conversion history as well as on Richard Koebner, Max Horkheimer and Ruth Fischer.