Leo Baeck Institute London

21/08/2026

The Institute of Classical Studies Library, our neighbours in Senate House, has mounted a small exhibition on Dr Victor Ehrenberg on the third-floor landing. 'Catalogue of My Antiques: the Story of Victor Ehrenberg’s Collection' offers a fascinating opportunity to explore the life and work of a German-Jewish refugee scholar.

Ehrenberg was born into a prominent Jewish family in Hamburg and studied Classics at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin before serving in the First World War. He completed his habilitation in Frankfurt in 1922 and was appointed Professor of Ancient History at the German University of Prague in 1929. In 1939, he fled the impending German invasion and settled in England, where he was able to resume his academic career with the support of the Academic Assistance Council.

Greek history was Ehrenberg's principal field of study and, during his travels around Greece, a country he first visited in 1925, he amassed a large collection of artefacts. He carefully catalogued these items and bequeathed them to the Institute of Classical Studies upon his death. Objects from the collection, including pottery shards and metal fragments, are displayed alongside Ehrenberg's books and personal papers.

Library Assistant Amelia Andrews, who has set up the exhibition said: “I’ve had a great time putting the exhibition together. It has been interesting going through the materials that Victor Ehrenberg donated to the Institute and learning more about how he collected his ancient artefacts. I hope I have represented the story well – there’s so much more I could have included”.

The display serves as a reminder of the many refugee academics whose contributions have left a lasting mark on the University of London and beyond.

19/08/2026

Meet Ahuvia Goren, whose research traces how early modern Italian Jews grappled with uncertainty, unbelief, and new scientific ideas, situating Jewish thought within wider transformations in European knowledge and belief. In our latest Meet the Leo Baeck Fellows interview, he discusses skepticism, science and religion, and the circulation of concepts such as atomism, Cartesian philosophy, and medical theories across religious and cultural boundaries, including within German-Jewish contexts.

Read the full interview: https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/05/meet-leo-baeck-fellows-ahuvia-goren-2023-24-cohort

18/08/2026

In 1941, in wartime Jerusalem, a group of German‑Jewish refugees compiled Ariel: Ein Almanach für Literatur‑Graphik‑Musik, an interdisciplinary almanac that brought together poetry, visual art, and music in the German language. Our latest Snapshot, “Reassembling Culture: A German‑Jewish Almanac in Jerusalem”, explores how this one‑off volume navigated the fault line between Hebrew and German, sustained a German‑speaking cultural milieu in Mandatory Palestine, and captured a community suspended between exile and hoped‑for renewal.

Read the full Snapshot: https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/research/snapshots/reassembling-culture-german-jewish-almanac-jerusalem

14/08/2026

In a candid interview conducted in February 2025, Anthony Grenville, a prominent academic and historian, shared insights into his life, family history, and contributions to the study of German-Jewish exile. The interview was part of a project by the LBI London, documenting researchers of German Jewry.

Born in 1944 in Beaconsfield during the final months of World War II, Grenville's early life was shaped by his parents' experiences as Jewish refugees from Vienna. His father fled Austria shortly after the Anschluss in 1938, while his mother escaped months later under challenging circumstances. The family settled in London's Temple Fortune area, where they integrated into British society while maintaining connections with the refugee community in North West London.

Grenville described his parents as assimilated, secular Jews who sought to rebuild their lives in Britain. They abandoned Jewish religious practices and prioritised education and cultural integration for their only child. This upbringing influenced Grenville's identity, which he described as predominantly British, though he also embraced his Viennese Jewish heritage through his academic work.

Educated at Harrow and Oxford, Grenville initially pursued modern languages before transitioning to academia. His research spanned German literature, political history, and the experiences of Jewish refugees in Britain. His notable works include Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain: 1933 - 1970, which draws extensively on archival material from the of Jewish Refugees (AJR). Grenville emphasised the importance of capturing refugee perspectives, arguing that previous histories often overlooked their post-war integration and contributions to British society.

Grenville played a key role in oral history projects like AJR's Refugee Voices, documenting German-speaking Jewish refugees. He stressed the importance of these interviews despite their emotional challenges and highlighted the refugees' lasting impact on British society. Grenville continues to advocate for a balanced view of refugee history.

You can listen to the interview here: https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/research/lbi-scholars-conversation/life-between-vienna-and-britain-dr-anthony-grenville-exile

.london

13/08/2026

We are pleased to share our latest Snapshot of German-Jewish History and Culture: Reassembling Culture: A German-Jewish Almanac in Jerusalem, which is now available to read on our website:

https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/research/snapshots/reassembling-culture-german-jewish-almanac-jerusalem

1941 saw the publication of Ariel, the first (and to our knowledge only) volume of an interdisciplinary almanac compiled by German-Jewish refugees in Jerusalem during World War Two. The almanac aimed to preserve German cultural ties despite displacement and societal rejection. It included poetry, art, and music by prominent émigrés like Max Brod and Else Lasker-Schüler and expressed themes of loss, hope, memory, and longing for Germany or a spiritual homeland.

Envisioning a future for German-Jewish culture in Palestine, it symbolized resilience and challenged the dominance of Hebrew over the use of German, with its links to antisemitism. The volume remains a unique artefact, with references to future projects and Jerusalem’s German-speaking community.

Illustrated with photographs from LBI London’s historical Pamphlet Collection, this article was written by Vlada Malka Pecena.

12/08/2026

Meet Daniel Herskowitz, whose research explores modern German-Jewish thought and its engagement with major philosophical traditions. His first book, Heidegger and His Jewish Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2021), traces how Jewish thinkers wrestled with Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and used it to rethink what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. In our latest Meet the Leo Baeck Fellows interview, he discusses this work, his recent study of Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption, and the ongoing importance of language study and wide reading for scholars in German-Jewish studies.

Read the full interview: https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/06/meet-leo-baeck-fellows-daniel-herskowitz-201718-cohort

11/08/2026

We are thrilled that the LBI London library collection has reached its new home at Senate House Library, following its successful move from Queen Mary University of London last month.

This transition represents the culmination of over two years of careful planning and hard work. We extend our warmest thanks to our wonderful colleagues at both Senate House Library and Queen Mary for their incredible support in making this move possible.

With our team having relocated to Bloomsbury in June 2024, reuniting with our library collection feels like a true homecoming. We look forward to seeing how this new chapter opens up the collection to fresh perspectives, making these vital resources more accessible than ever to researchers, students, and the public alike.

Read the full story on our website: https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/05/lbi-london-library-collection-arrives-senate-house-library

10/08/2026

Last week, the Channel 4 documentary series ‘Dictator: The Hi**er Interviews’ featured historical testimony from the late Dr Edgar Feuchtwanger OBE (1924–2025), historian and long-standing member of the Board of LBI London.

The series examines the rise and exercise of power of Adolf Hi**er through the perspectives, testimonies and archival accounts of those who lived alongside his regime, including associates, contemporaries and eye-witnesses.

Born into a prominent German-Jewish family in Munich, Edgar Feuchtwanger spent his childhood on Prinzregentenplatz, directly across the street from Hi**er's apartment. In his account, he reflects on his early memories of seeing Hi**er in the neighbourhood, the gradual shift in everyday life under the N**i regime, and his uncle, the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, whose critical writings made the family a particular target of N**i hostility. Following Kristallnacht and his father's brief imprisonment in Dachau, Feuchtwanger emigrated to Britain in 1939.

Dr Feuchtwanger went on to build a distinguished academic career as a historian of nineteenth-century British political history and Anglo-German relations at the University of Southampton. As a member of the Board of LBI London, he contributed both scholarly expertise and personal experience of exile and renewal to the Institute’s work of preserving and promoting German-Jewish history.

The episode is available to stream via Channel 4: [Dictator: The Hi**er Interviews](https://www.channel4.com/programmes/dictator-the-hitler-interviews)

https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/08/edgar-feuchtwanger-obe-featured-channel-4s-dictator-hitler-interviews

07/08/2026

Congratulations to Amitai Glass Stegman, from LBI’s 2023/4 fellowship cohort, on his article in Jewish Studies Quarterly. In this piece, he looks at late antique debates on fasting in Sasanian Mesopotamia.

The article examines a comparative discussion in the Babylonian Talmud and Aphrahat’s Demonstration 3 on fasting. It adds to the study of Jewish and broader religious thought in late antiquity.

This is another welcome publication by an LBI fellow, and a further contribution to the field.

The article can be read online here https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/issue/jewish-studies-quarterly-2-2026-0944-5706/

https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/07/lbi-fellow-amitai-glass-publishes-jewish-studies-quarterly

05/08/2026

Congratulations to Avinoam J. Stillman, from LBI’s 2023/4 fellowship cohort, on the publication of his article ‘An Inheritance of Dreams’. It appears in the latest volume of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry.

In the article, Stillman looks at how Early Modern Jewish men and women understood and responded to their dreams. His work adds to our knowledge of Jewish life and thought in the early modern period.

The article is available in the latest volume of Polin, and marks another strong contribution from an LBI fellow to the field.

The article can be read online here: https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/10.3828/polin.2026.issue-38

https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/news/2026/06/lbi-fellow-avinoam-j-stillman-publishes-polin-studies-polish-jewry

How did Jewish men and women in early modern east-central Europe respond to their dreams? Some answers to this question emerge from a manuscript written by Yehuda Katz, a Jewish man from seventeenth-century Żółkiew. Writing after the Khmelnytsky ...