"Would you..."

Controversy about a German TV show--"Wetten, das"--which sounds like a cross between "America's Got Talent" and "Jackass"--exposes all kinds of things about national identity: "Stupid German Tricks, Wearing Thin" (New York Times, January 30, 2013).

Ah, Berlin, you're always so complicated

Hat tip to @AMichael_Wright for this tip on Berlin Jewry's forward looking perspective: "Berlin's Jews Have Sights Set On Cultural Future, Not Historical Past" (from Haaretz).

Good Eating Awaits!

From The New York Times: "Michelin Stars Fall on Berlin." Start saving those Euros....

Applications for May 2013 Now Available!

GERMANY CLOSE UP: JEWS IN CONTEMPORARY GERMANY

Dates: May 7-14 (Stateside); May 21-June 2 (Germany).

This course explores the long, complex and often painful history shared by Germans, both Jews and non-Jews. By looking at diverse literary, philosophical, historical and religious sources, we will explore the changing terrain of identity politics in national, cultural and theological realms. Preliminary close and intensive study on all campuses through our cross campus e-Learning classrooms will be followed by an intense 12-day study tour of Germany. Sites there include museums, memorials, monuments and markers of the varied and joint culture of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. Our discussions before departure will investigate the background and controversies of those places we will visit and will prepare students for conversations with the Germans of different backgrounds (rabbinical students, university personnel, tour guides, politicians, community leaders) who are in the process of determining their shared future. All of our preparation will create an awareness of contemporary German Jewish life. The class will visit Berlin, Worms and Speyer; institutional visits include the Centrum Judaicum and the Neue Synagogue, the Jewish Museum, walking tours of (former east and west) Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, primary locations for Liberal Judaism (the former Hochschule fuer Wissenschaft des Judentums/Leo Baeck Haus and the Abraham Geiger College) and a trip to a concentration camp.

Open to students in all programs. Prerequisites include completion of the modern Jewish history core course or approval from the instructor. Requirements include full participation in all course activities, preparatory reading, the writing of a directed journal during the trip, and several short papers meant to help prepare students for the trip. The class is being offered in cooperation with Germany Close Up: American Jews Meet Modern Germany. For further information and for an application, please contact Leah Hochman at hucgermanycloseup@gmail.com.

Shabbat

We're headed to the New Synagogue on the Oranienbuergerstrasse where the egalitarian minyan meets. Most of the congregation has already headed up north to Limmud.de and we'll be joining them tomorrow. Completely coincidentally we met the other Germany Close Up trip on the way to Leipzig yesterday so we'll see them again in the morning.

We'll post some more photos--from Limmud and our goodbye dinner--after Shabbat.

We say goodbye to Brandon tomorrow but the rest of us have another day together. It's hard to believe the trip is almost over!

a Napoleon complex of sorts

This morning, on our fascinating tour of Leipzig, we stopped at the Voelkershlachtdenkmal (Monument to the Battle of the Nations) which marks Napoleon's defeat in 1813.

this one is for Adena

Rabbi Ducky and Martin Buber (together in Worms).

Worms and it's many splendored delights...

We could have shown what we really did in Worms, which was check our email (free wireless in front of the Rashi House, the museum and reconstructed beit midrash that marks Rashi's visit to the city) but instead I'll suggest that we listened very carefully to our guide Maria....

(Here we are just outside the cemetery in Worms--the second oldest cemetery in Europe with a gravestone that dates to the 11th century--about to take a tour.)

We're fine, I promise!

We've all heard from family and friends worried about the e-coli situation in Europe. We've been very lucky--this is a meat eating crowd--and no one has even had a hint of cucumber (or produce) related illness.

Here's the group in the women's section of the synagogue in Speyer, right in the heart of medieval ShUM (Speyer-Worms-Mainz) aka Ashkenaz.

And we're back!

Sorry for the long delay! Internet access was less than optimal in Heidelberg and Leipzig (though the breakfasts were divine).


Here's the group last night at dinner in Leipzig's famous Auerbach Kellar, made famous by Goethe in Faust, and made infamous by the devil who came out and performed live right after this picture was taken.

After the Opera

For part of the group Shabbat ended with a trip to the Deutsche Oper (the opera house on the west side of the city); the other half watched Barcelona's exciting win over Real Madrid. Two fantastically "typical" German experiences!



Brandon, Ann, Joel and Adena having a (very) late night snack (photo by Jay).

Our intrepid Direktorin...

Here's the group with the fantastic Dr. Dagmar Pruin who serves as the director of Germany Close Up (you can check out their Website at www.germanycloseup.de) and whose partnership with HUC-JIR makes this trip possible.



(We're standing in front of the Neue Synagogue on Oranienbuergerstrasse at the end of a walking tour of "Jewish" Berlin.)

Scenes from the top of the Reichstag...

Luke, Keren, Laura, Brandon, Adena, and Joel at the top of the dome itself and

Adam, Arjan, Nadine and Joel at the top of the Reichstag

and
Luke, Jay, Adena and Brandon (with the very hint of the top of the Neue Synagogue in the distance).

It's not a trip to Berlin without....

that fantastic group photo in front of the Brandenburg Gate. This picture was taken just before our morning meeting with Hans-Ulrich Klose, a representative from the SPD, Germany's Social Democrat Party, and a former exchange student to Clinton, Iowa.






(And, since Adam insisted, we all shifted to the side to take this one in front of the American Embassy.)

Dinner With Friends

Those group bonding exercises are really working! Here's the group at dinner just down the street from our hotel.