The conference describes the history of German Jewry in light of two principle ideas: the notion of a Bund between the Jewish people and God and the need to define this Bund (Hebrew: Brith) within geopolitical and social borders. Traditionally, German Jews were standing between two systems of ideas: the world of fundamental faith and religious commitment and the world of secular power in politics. Historically, since Moses Mendelssohn, the majority of German Jews was committed to the idea of a religious Bund that should be transformed into a strong notion of cultural identity, between well-defined borders. They did so by integrating the tools of intellectual critique on the one hand, and of moderate politics, on the other.

Once National Socialist rule came to power and forced German Jews out of Europe, many transferred the same intermediary forms they learnt and practiced to other cultures, most notably to the heart of the Jewish Yishuv and then the new Jewish state. Responsible for much of the activity among Israel’s cultural elite, German Jews – now aware of the danger inherent in powerful nation states – reworked an intensive culture of mediation and moderation. Ingrained in today’s tension between religious and secular segments in Israeli society is the notion that many of the early achievements were erased. As a result, a variety of voices have recently pleaded to return to a model of a German-Jewish critique, one that dares to ask difficult questions but strives to find moderate solutions.

»Bund and Borders« relates to the ideas of key German Jewish scholars that formulated a language of dialogue and defined distinctions between state and religion, power and faith, operative language and its philosophy – as issued by the Brith Shalom members or Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, Jacob Taubes and Yeshayahu Leibovitz. All of these scholars were committed to defining a fruitful and promising relation between the notion of Bund, in its religious and political form, and borders, in its geo-political context, its social as well as methodological relevance.

The conference was initiated and shaped by Nitzan Lebovic and Mirjam Wenzel, two former Fellows of the Leo Baeck Fellowship Programme. It is organized by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and supported by the Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft.