On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Leo Baeck Institute, German President Steinmeier expressed his concern about rising antisemitism. “Only when Jewish women and men feel at home in Germany again, only then is Germany truly at peace with itself,” he said.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his dismay at the rise of antisemitic attacks just a few decades after the Shoah. “Once again, Jews are asking themselves whether they are truly safe in the country of the former perpetrators,” Steinmeier stated in a message marking the 70th anniversary of the Leo Baeck Institute. “That shames me and makes me angry.”
The Leo Baeck Institute was founded in 1955 – ten years after the end of the Holocaust – by a group of exiled intellectuals, including Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Max Grunewald, and Robert Weltsch. Its aim was to preserve the nearly annihilated cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewry.
Today, the LBI has branches in Jerusalem, London, New York, and Berlin, serving as a research centre and library with tens of thousands of volumes on Jewish culture, much of which is also accessible digitally. The institute is named after Rabbi and Holocaust survivor Leo Baeck.
“Leo Baeck’s legacy is also an obligation for us,” said Steinmeier. “His hope is our responsibility: only when Jewish women and men are again at home in Germany, only then is Germany truly at peace with itself.”
LBI President Michael Brenner told the German Press Agency that hostility towards Jewish life is not a phenomenon limited to Germany. “But given the history of the 20th century, the threat to Jewish life in Germany is understandably viewed through a particular lens.” The development of Jewish life is also considered a measure of democracy in Germany.
“One must first realise how small the Jewish community in Germany is today: it comprises no more than 0.2 percent of the German population,” Brenner added. That is less than the population of the city of Oberhausen. “And yet Jewish existence in Germany, 80 years after the Shoah, is also a symbolic presence. If that is under threat, so too is Germany’s democracy.
The great achievement of the Leo Baeck Institute is that it has preserved the German-Jewish heritage around the world. The historical task remains. “We ensure that the centuries-long history of Jewish life in Germany is not forgotten,” said Brenner. The goal is not only to point to the destruction caused by the Shoah, but also to highlight what has been rebuilt.
