PD Dr. Andreas Brämer

Andreas Brämer is deputy director at the IGdJ. He studied at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his doctorate in Jewish Studies from the Free University of Berlin – with a dissertation on Rabbi Zacharias Frankel. Before Andreas Brämer transferred to the Institute for the History of the German Jews in 1997, he worked as an academic staff member at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien and at the Gesamthochschule Duisburg. In 2005, he was appointed deputy director of the IGdJ, also serving as acting director in 2011/12 and 2020/21. Since his habilitation in 2006, he has also taught as a private lecturer (adjunct professor) in the Department of History at the University of Hamburg.

Andreas Brämer is a member of the board of the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft of the Leo Baeck Institute and chairman of the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden e.V. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies – Jewish Scepticism at the University of Hamburg and a member of the advisory board of the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook.

Andreas Brämer has written books and essays mainly on German-Jewish history in the nineteenth century. He has extensively dealt with “Jewish history from within,” especially with developments in the history of religion as well as with rabbis and teachers as religious functionaries of the modern Jewish religious community. Another research focus is the history of Jewish historiography. Andreas Brämer is currently conducting intensive research on contemporary German-Jewish history after 1945. In addition, he organizes the Jewish Film Club Hamburg in cooperation with the Metropolis Kino movie theater.

Schächten und Schächtdebatten in Westdeutschland/ der jungen Bundesrepublik (1945/49 bis 1965/1972)
(Kosher Slaughter and Kosher Slaughter Debates in West Germany/ the young Federal Republic, 1945/49 to 1965/1972)

Glaubenswissenschaft? – Wissenschaft des Judentums im 19. Jahrhundert zwischen konfessioneller Theologie und empirischer Forschung
(Science of Faith? – Science of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century between Denominational Theology and Empirical Research)

Jüdische Reform und Architektur
(Jewish Reform and Architecture)

Geschichte der Juden in Schlesien
(History of the Jews in Silesia)

• (Hrsg. mit Katrin Keßler/ Ulrich Knufinke), Wandernde Objekte des Jüdischen (Jüdisches Kulturerbe 3), Braunschweig 2021 (im Erscheinen).
• (Hrsg. Katrin Keßler/ Ulrich Knufinke/ Mirko Przystawik), Jewish Architects – Jewish Architecture? (Schriftenreihe der Bet-Tfila – Forschungsstelle für Jüdische Architektur in Europa 12), Petersberg 2021.
• Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen. Judentum, 3. Aufl., München 2020.
• (Hrsg. mit George Y. Kohler/ Thomas Meyer), Wissenschaft des Judentums. Judaism and the Science of Judaism. 200 Years of Academic Thought on Religion – DAAT Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 88 (2019) [Sonderheft].
• Der Hamburger Israelitische Tempel. Eine historische Skizze, in: Der Israelitische Tempel in Hamburg, hrsg. von der Stiftung Denkmalpflege Hamburg/ Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden (Archiv aus Stein 7), Hamburg 2020, S. 5–18.