New Reviews of IGdJ Books Published

Two new IGdJ publications have received a positive reception from readers and have been reviewed in academic journals and on H-Soz-Kult.

The edited volume “Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte und Gegenwart“ (Wallstein, 2025), edited by Karen Körber and Björn Siegel, was reviewed by Alexander Walther in Historische Zeitschrift, who particularly highlighted its potential for further research: “The slim volume opens up an impressive range of perspectives, inviting further observation of Jewish life after 1945 in both German states, in its entanglements and ongoing processes of negotiation." Previously, Bernd Hüttner had already emphasized that "several highly worthwhile contributions" reveal new perspectives on the diverse, cross-border German-Jewish history after 1945 and work out "complex patterns and entanglements."

Former Hamburg residents in Israel also helped shape this post-1945 history — as Jana Matthies outlines in an essay in the above presented edited volume, and elaborates on in greater detail in her recently published monograph “Die Hamburger Ehemaligen-Vereine in Israel“ (Hentrich & Hentrich, 2025). In doing so, she brings visibility to this small, long-forgotten yet important actor in Hamburg's memory-political debates of the 1980s and 1990s. Or, as Joachim Schlör puts it in his review of the book for the journal Jewish Culture and History: "Sometimes big questions need small and detailed responses. The small book under review offers a glimpse into a minuscule cultural situation that is, nevertheless, amazingly rich and colourful." In her review for H-Soz-Kult, Silja Behre likewise praises the "vividly written and informative study." According to the reviewer, it captures a "fascinating phenomenon of its time" and contributes to "the history of these German-Israeli contacts and of German-speaking immigrants in Israel" — a history that is being researched not least "with and from the Hamburg Institute for the History of the German Jews."