The historian Miriam Rürup will be the new director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam (MMZ) on December 1st. Rürup, born in 1973, has been director of the Hamburg Institute for the History of German Jews since 2012. She succeeds MMZ founding director Julius H. Schoeps.
Miriam Rürup’s research interests include German-Jewish history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of migration, the culture of remembrance after 1945, and the history of women and genders. Most recently she worked on the project “Homeless or Cosmopolitan? Stateless persons in Europe after the two world wars ”.
European view of Jewish history
Compared to the Tagesspiegel, Rürup emphasized that German-Jewish history can only be captured in a transnational context. “And that is why I am delighted to be able to head a center in Potsdam that opens up to a European perspective on Jewish history.”
The variety of topics and scientific approaches represented in the MMZ and the many opportunities for cooperation that the Berlin-Brandenburg area offers would appeal to you. “And by that I don’t only mean the metropolitan region of Berlin-Brandenburg, but also consciously looking beyond the boundaries of the metropolis – for example when we look at the Jewish history of rural areas.”
It is also important for Miriam Rürup to take a Jewish perspective on German-German history: “Consciously in this entanglement, in other words: not to put the separation forward, but rather the question of whether and what similarities there are in the Jewish history of the two Germans States gave. ”She is also“ actively involved and, where necessary, also as a critical voice ”in current debates on the culture of remembrance.
Recently, for example, in the discussion about the reconstruction of the Bornplatz synagogue in Hamburg, which was destroyed by the National Socialists, where she spoke out against the planned location and the historic facade of the new building.
“If we are dealing with 1700 years of Jewish history in German-speaking countries everywhere in the coming year, then it is especially important to show inner-Jewish diversity, to point out how diverse Jewish history was and how it is today,” says Rürup. This is something that one comes across again and again, not least in discussions about new synagogues – but not only there.
Large project on the German-Jewish diaspora
At the MMZ, Rürup wants to turn to the German-Jewish diaspora outside Germany in a large-scale publication project to ask what form German Jewry lived on outside of Germany. “This is a great way to follow up on work already done at the MMZ,” she says, referring to international cooperation between Israel, the USA, England and Germany.
For Julius H. Schoeps, the definitive farewell to the MMZ, which he founded in 1992, has come. Six years ago he officially retired as director, but was still running the house through the rather lengthy search for a successor.
It was more or less 30 years for Schoeps, a “successful story”, as he says today: From the founding of Potsdam University in 1991, in which Schoeps was involved, to the establishment of secular Jewish studies and the Abraham Geiger College Rabbi training up to the establishment of Jewish theology at the university in 2013, which was anchored for the first time at a German state university – under the initiative and direction of Rabbi Walter Homolka.
The development was initiated by the MMZ
The broad subject of the history of German-Jewish relationships at Potsdam University “has resulted in many other developments,” remembers Schoeps today. “Basically, all of this was initiated when the MMZ was founded,” says Schoeps. “This gave the state of Brandenburg a unique selling point that it can be proud of.”
[Wenn Sie alle aktuellen Entwicklungen zur Coronavirus-Pandemie live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
The focus of anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism at the MMZ is also important for the historian today. “I never expected that it would come to the point that this issue would have to be addressed again to this extent,” says Schoeps. The current development in Germany is depressing and makes him very thoughtful. But he also says: “As long as the rule of law in Germany can still set barriers, you shouldn’t worry.” The more right-wing extremists, conspiracy theorists and “other weirdos” gain influence, the more carefully one has to observe developments.
Thomas Mann’s “Magic Mountain” in Yiddish
There are always ups and downs in the history of German-Jewish relationships, and Schoeps has always been interested in this area of tension. “You can’t always look at it from the Holocaust perspective.” The latest project in this work is research on the translation of German literary classics into Yiddish at the MMZ by Elke-Vera Kotowski. Who knows, according to the historian Schoeps, that Thomas Mann’s “Magic Mountain”, for example, was translated by the later Nobel Prize winner Isaac B. Singer.
Julius H. Schoeps will not really say goodbye to his work, in Berlin he is driving the fortunes of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation – for example the new project “Else Ury Campus” adjacent to the deportation memorial on platform 17 in Grunewald. And he wants to keep in touch with his MMZ successor. “Miriam Rürup as the successor is a very good choice,” explains Schoeps. Miriam Rürup has made a name for herself as the previous director of the Institute for the History of German Jews. “It is well connected internationally and has all the prerequisites to continue the previously very successful work of the MMZ in Potsdam – and also to set new accents.”
[Wenn Sie alle aktuellen Nachrichten live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere runderneuerte App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
For Rürup, digital space is also of central importance for Jewish history. “I have been dealing with Jewish material and immaterial heritage for a long time, and digital access is elementary in the discussion about access to sources of Jewish history.”
To this end, she set up the “Key Documents for German-Jewish History” project in Hamburg. In Potsdam, the historian wants to transfer this to a larger portal on German-Jewish history. “I’m really looking forward to that, because the digital in particular offers us wonderful opportunities for cooperation here, which also enable internationalization.”
Digital tools would make it possible to at least digitally overcome the dispersion of Jewish history in a certain way, for example by digitally merging separate archives. “We just got this off the ground in Hamburg for the 400 years of Jewish history there in cooperation with Israel.”
