JMB is starting a digital lecture series with Ofer Waldman talking about Jewish intellectuals

Hetty Berg, director of the JMB: “This series examines which long-forgotten answers offered by outstanding Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century are relevant today in responding to the present challenges facing Jewish life in Germany. What historical works do contempo­rary intellectuals refer to in search of answers to today’s pressing questions? And how do they read the texts they have selected? The conver­sations create bridges to present-day social and political challenges. For example, interlocutors might discuss how social power structures and ideological mechanisms shape the ways we think.”

The author and journalist Ofer Wald­man, PhD, was born in Jerusalem in 1979. In 2021 he was awarded the radio prize of the ARD German public broadcasting company. His literary debut Singular­kollektiv. Erzählungen, a short story collection, was published by Wallstein in 2023. This was followed by Gleich­zeit, his correspondence with Sasha Marianna Salz­mann about the world after 7 October 2023, published in 2024 by Suhr­kamp.

We would like to thank the Berthold Leibinger Foundation for its support of the Digital Lecture Series.
 

22 May 2025, 7 pm, online lecture and conversation with Delphine Horvilleur discussion Gershom Scholem (in English)

The first in the series features Delphine Horvilleur and Ofer Wald­man discussing the religious historian Gershom Scholem (1897–1982). In 1926, three years after Scholem emigrated to Palestine (Jerusalem), he wrote a letter to Franz Rosen­zweig titled Confession on the Subject of Our Language. In it, Scholem links the transformation of Hebrew from the holy language to an everyday, vernacular language, as he heard in Jerusalem, with the concept of apocalyptic threat. Even today, the letter is incredibly topical.

Delphine Horvilleur was born in Nancy, France, in 1974. She is one of the rabbis of Judaïsme En Mouvement, a liberal Jewish movement based in Paris, and she is also an author. Among her books that have been translated into English are Anti-Semitism Revisited: How the Rabbis Made Sense of Hatred (2021); Living With Our Dead: On Loss and Consolation (2024); and How Isn’t It Going? Conversations after October 7 (2025).

12 Jun 2025, 7 pm, online lecture and conversation with Moshe Sakal discussion Magnus Hirsch­feld (in English)

In the second lecture, Moshe Sakal and Ofer Wald­man explore the life and legacy of Magnus Hirsch­feld (1868–1935). The focus will be on Hirschfeld as a Jewish intellectual, immigrant, and gay man in Berlin and in exile in France, and on his effort to change how certain groups are perceived in society. He fought for the Other to be recognized and ultimately he himself was perse­cuted and driven into exile, where he died only two years later. In conversation with Ofer Waldman, Sakal reflects on how Hirsch­feld’s ideas continue even today to influence our under­standing of sexuality and Jewish identity.

Moshe Sakal, born in Tel Aviv in 1976, has been living in Berlin since 2019. He is the author of six novels and co-founder of the Berlin publishing company Alt­neuland Press. His texts have been translated into numerous languages and have appeared in various publications, including the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

18 Sep 2025, 7 pm, online lecture and conversation with Yael Kupfer­berg discussing Max Hork­heimer (in German)

The third lecture features Yael Kupfer­berg talking with Ofer Waldman about Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) and Critical Theory as Jewish philosophy. Max Horkheimer, philosopher and founder of the Frankfurt School, did not only reflect on human existence, but also continued to write Jewish philosophy after Auschwitz. He aimed to save Judaism philosophically without uni­versalizing it and to defend diasporic Judaism without renouncing an affirmation of the State of Israel. The tension between philosophical-Jewish universalism and pragmatic-existential particularity still characterizes Jewish existence today; and Horkheimer’s thoughts – especially as regards antisemitism – seem as relevant as ever.

Yael Kupferberg, PhD, was born in Berlin in 1978. A literary scholar with a post-doctoral (habilitation) degree, she presently holds the Martin Buber Professorship for Jewish Philosophy of Religion at Frankfurt am Main’s Goethe University. From October 2018 to September 2024, Kupferberg also held various positions at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Her book on studies on Judaism in Max Horkheimer’s late works (Zum Bilderverbot. Studien zum Judentum im späten Werk Max Horkheimers) was published by Wallstein Publishers in 2022.

16 Okt 2025, 7 pm, online lecture and conversation with Eva Illouz discussing Jean Améry (in English)

In the fourth lecture, Ofer Waldman will be speaking with the French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz about the writer Jean Améry, born in Vienna in 1912. His essays My Jewishness (Mein Judentum, 1978), The Limits of Solidarity (Grenzen der Solidarität, 1977), and those on the new anti­semitism from the years 1969–1976 have been republished both in German and French in 2024. They have also been published in English in 2021 as Essays on Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the Left. Améry offers therein a lucid description of his existential connec­tion to Israel. The former Résistance fighter, concentration camp prisoner, and survivor of Auschwitz also comments on how leftwing anti-Zionism as “virtuous anti­semitism” separates him from the New Left.

Based on her foreword for the new French edition, Eva Illouz discusses the tension of present-day Jewish existence, for which neither Zionism nor the political left- or right-wing can serve as an orientation, a way forward, or a solace. Améry demonstrates, according to Illouz, an “orphaned” Jewish consciousness.

Infor­mation regarding the fifth lecture will be announced in due time on the JMB website.
For current infor­mation on the Digital Lecture Series, go to:
https://www.jmberlin.de/en/deja-vu.