Israelis in Berlin

This interdisciplinary panel will focus on the community of Israeli immigrants in Berlin, the largest community of Israeli immigrants in Germany. Situating the community within Berlin’s rich multiculturalism, the panel speakers will juxtapose memory studies along with diaspora, immigration and integration theories, seeking to understand how, given the particular part Germany played in Jewish-Israeli history, Israeli immigrants reconcile the past-present duality faced when living in the city. The panel further aims to go beyond the hype created around this community, and will provide new insights and understandings regarding its social and economic networks as well as its place within German society.

The speakers, both Israeli and German academics, will discuss the influences of this community on Germany’s memory landscape, and will map the reactions to the Israeli presence in the German media. The speakers will further provide an overview of this new Jewish-Israeli cultural revival that centers around the use of the Hebrew language, and present a nuanced analysis of this community through an overview of queer (LGBT) Israelis in the city. By taking a closer look at these questions, the panel seeks to understand what makes this community unique, and what greater lessons could be drawn regarding integration and reconciliation.

The event is organized by the WZB research unit Migration, Integration, Transnationalization.

The speakers are:

Dr. Hadas Cohen, Leibniz-DAAD postdoctoral fellow and WZB guest researcher of the research unit Migration, Integration, Transnationalization

Dr. Irit Dekel, faculty member at Bard College Berlin and research fellow, Institute for Social Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin

Professor Dani Kranz, associate professor of sociology and empirical research methods at Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences

Dr. Ruth Preser, affiliated fellow ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry and teaching fellow at Haifa University