Mirjam Zadoff – författare

From the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to "take a cure"-to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading. Originally the haunt of aristocrats, the spa towns came to be the favored summer resorts for the emerging bourgeoisie. Among the many who traveled there, a very high proportion were Jewish.In Next Year in Marienbad, Mirjam Zadoff writes the social and cultural history of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad as Jewish spaces. Secular and religious Jews from diverse national, cultural, and social backgrounds mingled in idyllic and often apolitical-seeming surroundings. During the season, shops sold Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers, kosher kitchens were opened, and theatrical presentations, concerts, and public readings catered to the Jewish clientele. Yet these same resorts were situated in a region of growing hostile nationalisms, and they were towns that might turn virulently anti-Semitic in the off season.Next Year in Marienbad draws from memoirs and letters, newspapers and maps, novels and postcards to create a compelling and engaging portrait of Jewish presence and cultural production in the years between the fin de siÈcle and the Second World War.

From the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to "take a cure"-to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading. Originally the haunt of aristocrats, the spa towns came to be the favored summer resorts for the emerging bourgeoisie. Among the many who traveled there, a very high proportion were Jewish.In Next Year in Marienbad, Mirjam Zadoff writes the social and cultural history of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad as Jewish spaces. Secular and religious Jews from diverse national, cultural, and social backgrounds mingled in idyllic and often apolitical-seeming surroundings. During the season, shops sold Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers, kosher kitchens were opened, and theatrical presentations, concerts, and public readings catered to the Jewish clientele. Yet these same resorts were situated in a region of growing hostile nationalisms, and they were towns that might turn virulently anti-Semitic in the off season.Next Year in Marienbad draws from memoirs and letters, newspapers and maps, novels and postcards to create a compelling and engaging portrait of Jewish presence and cultural production in the years between the fin de siÈcle and the Second World War.

Werner Scholem never took the easy path. Born in 1895 into the Berlin Jewish middle class, he married a young non-Jewish woman of proletarian background. He was the youngest member of the Prussian Parliament in the 1920s, one of the leaders of the German Communist Party, and the editor of the influential journal The Red Flag. As an outspoken critic of Stalin, he was soon expelled from the party, only to take up a position at the head of a revolutionary Trotskyite faction in the years before 1933. Reviled by the National Socialists as a Communist and a Jew, he was among the first to be arrested when Hitler rose to power and, after a long incarceration, was murdered in Buchenwald.In Werner Scholem: A German Life Mirjam Zadoff has written a book that is at once a biography of an individual, a family chronicle, and the story of an entire era. It is an account of the ruptures within a society and of the growing insecurity in which German Jews lived between the two world wars-and especially of two brothers who chose opposing paths out of the shared conviction that there was no future for Jews in Germany after the First World War. While Werner pinned his hopes on a universal revolution he would never see, the younger Gerhard emigrated to Palestine where, as Gershom, he would choose revolutionary Zionism and the reanimation of ancient strains of Jewish mysticism.

Werner Scholem never took the easy path. Born in 1895 into the Berlin Jewish middle class, he married a young non-Jewish woman of proletarian background. He was the youngest member of the Prussian Parliament in the 1920s, one of the leaders of the German Communist Party, and the editor of the influential journal The Red Flag. As an outspoken critic of Stalin, he was soon expelled from the party, only to take up a position at the head of a revolutionary Trotskyite faction in the years before 1933. Reviled by the National Socialists as a Communist and a Jew, he was among the first to be arrested when Hitler rose to power and, after a long incarceration, was murdered in Buchenwald.In Werner Scholem: A German Life Mirjam Zadoff has written a book that is at once a biography of an individual, a family chronicle, and the story of an entire era. It is an account of the ruptures within a society and of the growing insecurity in which German Jews lived between the two world wars-and especially of two brothers who chose opposing paths out of the shared conviction that there was no future for Jews in Germany after the First World War. While Werner pinned his hopes on a universal revolution he would never see, the younger Gerhard emigrated to Palestine where, as Gershom, he would choose revolutionary Zionism and the reanimation of ancient strains of Jewish mysticism.

Historical events and our knowledge of them mould our understanding of today’s world. The interdisciplinary authorship of this volume focuses on the connection between past and future. A bold and unusual publication whose approaches and themes extend from biographical experiences via intergenerational exchange to the discussion of current social phenomena.To what extent does (lack of) knowledge of the past influence our view of the present and our tales of the future? Authors from the realms of history, art, philosophy, journalism, poetry, cartoons and film investigate complex everyday reality in history and the present and direct their attention towards the shifts in political hegemonies which lead to ostracism, denigration and destruction. They have explicitly chosen an international perspective which shows that social polarisation and radicalisation are not phenomena limited by national boundaries, but are universal social manifestations in a globally interlinked world.

The contributions that have been assembled in this volume present the story of queer lives – from the first emancipation movements around the turn of the (last) century via attempts at self-empowerment in the Weimar Republic to the destruction of queer subcultures under the National Socialist regime and the continued discrimination of LGBTIQ* persons in the postwar period.Since the late 19th century, increasing numbers of people have self-assuredly championed the recognition of queer lifestyles. These pioneers formed collectives, made their voices heard and questioned dominant gender categories politically, scientifically and artistically. Through essays, interviews and artworks the authors and artists illustrate this struggle for recognition which was forcefully prevented and destroyed following the seizure of power by the National Socialists and almost forgotten after 1945.

Das engagierte Leben Ernst Grubes ist Anlass, um über die erinnerungspolitische Dimension von Zeitzeugenschaft nachzudenken.Der Shoah-Überlebende Ernst Grube (*1932) trägt durch sein politisches und pädagogisches Engagement bis heute dazu bei, dass das Leid der NS-Verfolgten nicht in Vergessenheit gerät. Regelmäßig berichtet der Münchner Zeitzeuge über die existenzielle Erfahrung von Unrecht, Ausgrenzung und Gewalt, die seine Kindheit und frühe Jugend prägte und zur Triebfeder seiner Erinnerungsarbeit werden sollte.Sein jahrzehntelanges Engagement nehmen die Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Bandes zum Anlass, die erinnerungspolitischen Dimensionen von Zeitzeugenschaft ebenso zu beleuchten wie Möglichkeiten der Bewahrung und Weitergabe von Zeitzeugenerinnerungen: Welche digitalen und analogen Formate können Museen, Gedenkstätten, Schulen und Kunstschaffende nutzen, um Erlebtes zu vergegenwärtigen und Zeitzeugenschaft zu bewahren?Mit Beiträgen von: Matthias Bahr, Anja Ballis, Renate Eichmeier, Markus Gloe, Andreas Heusler, Paul Huf, Dorothee Janssen, Andrea Löw, Julian Monatzeder, Friedbert Mühldorfer, Peter Poth, Dirk Riedel, Thomas Rink, Oliver Schreer, Maximilian Strnad, Alexander Wenzlik, Kim Wünschmann und Mirjam Zadoff.

Was schwächt Demokratien? Ab wann sind Demokratien bedroht? Und was brauchen sie, um autoritären und faschistischen Tendenzen entgegenzutreten?Heute leben nur noch etwa 13 % der Weltbevölkerung in liberalen Demokratien. Antidemokratische Überzeugungen verbreiten sich zunehmend. Bürgerrechte werden eingeschränkt, unabhängige Institutionen abgebaut, populistische -Parteien und demokratiefeindliche Politiker*innen ziehen in Parlamente ein.In diesem Band diskutieren internationale Expert*innen aus Geschichts-, -Politik-, Natur-, Kultur-, Rechtswissenschaften und Journalismus darüber, was Demokratien schwächt. Sie blicken auf verschiedene Regionen der Welt, in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, und überlegen, was freie Gesellschaften brauchen, um autoritären und faschistischen Tendenzen entgegenzutreten. Autor*innen: Çiğdem Akyol, Alice Bota, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Pranish Desai, Felix Heidenreich, Mark Jones, Élise Julien, Tarunabh Kaithan, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Jan-Werner Müller, Heike Paul, Jonas Schaible, Astrid Séville, Ronen Steinke, Martin Schulze Wessel, Mark Terkessidis, Michael Wildt, Claudia Zilla, Noam Zadoff, Benjamin Zeeb.

Spätestens seit dem 7. Oktober, dem Hamas-Massaker in Israel und der folgenden Bombardierung Gazas sowie der daraus resultierenden humanitären Katastrophe, finden Menschen in allen Teilen der deutschen Gesellschaft sich wieder in einer neuen Isolation oder gar Angst. Es häufen sich offene Briefe, Veranstaltungsabsagen und Begriffsstreitereien in einem Ton der Endgültigkeit. Langgehegte Allianzen werden gelöst, Gespräche versiegen. Die trennende Macht der Differenzen basiert nicht zuletzt auf der realen Erfahrung von Antisemitismus und Rassismus legen. Wer davon profitiert, sind die Rechtspopulisten. Diejenigen, die der liberalen, wertebasierten Gesprächskultur ebenso den Garaus machen möchten wie unserer Demokratie insgesamt.Welchen Mut, welche Kraft und Toleranz für Ambiguität und Streit können wir, müssen wir gar, aufwenden, um die Logik der Verhärtung auf der Seite derer, die unsere Welt zu einer besseren machen möchten, zu stoppen? Die hier versammelten Autor:innen halten am Austausch fest, so schwierig er sein mag. Nachdenklich, mit unverstelltem Schmerz und ungebrochenem Willen zum wechselseitigen Abwägen sprechen sie trotzdem miteinander. Dieser Band ist die greifbarste Utopie unserer Tage.

The unifying thread of the interdisciplinary volume Jewish and Non-Jewish Spaces in the Urban Context is the fact that Jewish spaces are almost always generated in relation to non-Jewish spaces; they determine and influence each other.This general phenomenon will be scrutinized and put to the test again and again in a varied collection of articles by international experienced researchers as well as junior scholars using various urban contexts and discourses as data. From the viewpoints of different temporal and regional research traditions and disciplines the contributors deal with the question of how Jewish and non-Jewish spaces are imagined, constructed, negotiated and intertwined. All examples and case studies together create a mosaic of possibilities for the construction of Jewish and non-Jewish spaces in different settings.The list of examined topics ranges from synagogues to ghettos, from urban neighborhoods to cafés and festivals, from art to literature. This diversity makes the volume a challenging effort of giving an overview of the current academic discussion in Europe and beyond. Although the majority of the contributions are focused on Central and Eastern Europe, a more general tendency becomes apparent in all articles: the negotiation of urban spaces seems to be a complex and ambivalent process in which a large number of participants are involved. In this regard, the volume would also like to contribute to trans-disciplinary urban studies and critical research on spatial relations.