New Jewish studies institute in Frankfurt

Students in the emerging European business capital of Frankfurt have a new Jewish Studies option in a programme named after a Jewish philosopher dismissed from his city university post by the Nazis.

The news from the Buber-Rosenzweig-Institute for Modern and Contemporary Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History came 88 years after Martin Buber, who taught at the university from 1924, was ordered to leave in 1933. 

With his colleague Franz Rosenzweig, Buber established the Free Jewish Teaching House in Frankfurt, and the new course – one of a growing number of Jewish Studies programmes in Germany – will be taught at the city’s Goethe University.

“We are delighted about Christian Wiese [Martin Buber chair for Jewish Thought and Philosophy]’s initiative,” said Professor Enrico Schleiff, president of Goethe University.

“The new institute has great potential to further expand cooperation with other institutions, especially internationally, and to initiate other important projects in the future.”