The Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem for the Study of German and Central European Jewry, founded in 1955, is a research institute based in Jerusalem, Israel. While affiliated with the Leo Baeck Institute and its affiliates in New York/Berlin (Leo Baeck Institute New York) and London (Leo Baeck Institute London), it is an independent organization under Israeli law. Since 2019, the institute has been led by Galili Shaḥar.
History
As the second generation took over, the LBI Jerusalem transformed from a memorial community to a research centre. Almost all members of the LBI Jerusalem’s second generation were professional historians; most had left Germany as children or adolescents and had either little of no share at all in the founders memories. For this reason the “memorial function” of the historiography now lost significance. In its place came more strictly scholarly aspirations.
Through their publications, scholarly seminars, academic and cultural events, alongside an archive, the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem has been the leading venue for German-Jewish historiography and documentation in Israel. Its archives consist of a microfilm collection of Jewish newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as a collection of family papers, genealogical materials and community histories.
Leadership
Chairpersons of Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem, have been: 1956–1979: Hans Tramer 1981–1992: Jacob Katz 1993–1994: Josef Walk 1995–1997: Avraham Barkai 1997–2003: Robert Liberles 2003–2007: Zvi Bacharach 2008–2019: Shmuel Feiner 2019-present: Galili Shaḥar