On May 29-June 1, 2023, we convened a GIF Young Scientists Meeting for 18 doctoral and postdoctoral students in Speyer and Alsace. 

The workshop was organized by Debra Kaplan (Bar-Ilan University), Christoph Cluse (Universität Trier), and Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University). We were also joined by Stefan Laux (Universität Trier). The nine Israeli students came from Bar-Ilan University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, The Hebrew University, and the Open University. The nine German participants came from Universität Trier, the Freie Uniiversität in Berlin, LMU in Munich, Johannes Gutenburg University of Mainz, and the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. The aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers from both countries, from various fields, and to discuss how the study of individual Jews sheds light on a meta-narrative of Jewish history. Students who participated came from the fields of History, Jewish History, Art History, Folklore, Talmud, and Jewish Thought. 

Our first two days were spent in Speyer, where we held meetings in a variety of formats: large group workshops in which we read texts together and discussed methodology and interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Jewish past in Germany; small group meetings, in which each student discussed their own project and the benefits of and specific possibilities for collaboration; and on-site visits to Jewish sites, such as the Speyer Judenhof, where we presented texts and analysis in situ.  We continued this approach in the Alsatian villages of Bouxwiller and Ettendorf, where we visited a rural cemetery, a museum, and walked the town ramparts, accompanied by discussion and reading of primary texts.
In our final destination of Strasbourg, we continued to work in large and small groups, viewed Hebrew, Yiddish, and German manuscripts from the Rare Book Collection in the National and University Library, and conducted a nighttime tour of the medieval city and its Jewish and Christian spaces.
The combination of keynote lectures from faculty, presentations by young scholars, and small group learning facilitated intense discussion between the participants. Several students discovered that they had shared interests and different skills, which were complementary to one another.
As such, this workshop will hopefully prepare the ground for future international cooperation between Israeli and German scientists. In particular, the visits to sites encouraged a robust discussion of the different ways in which we study the past, and the benefits of working in cross-country teams.

Thank you for the opportunity to bring these young scholars together in what we hope will be a first step toward continued collaboration.

Report by Prof. Debra Kaplan