Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) will fund the research project “REACT Jewish Actors” for three years starting in March 2026. It is part of the collaborative project “Jewish Reactions to Anti-Semitism in Educational Institutions (REACT)”, which is funded within the BMFTR research programme “Causes and Dynamics of Contemporary Anti-Semitism”.
In this interdisciplinary collaborative project, in partnership with the Academy of World Religions at the University of Hamburg, Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen and the Centre of Excellence for Anti-Semitism-Critical Education and Research (KOAS) in Berlin, the project—led by Dr Karen Körber—will examine the reactions of Jewish people as victims of anti-Semitism, as well as the conditions and limitations of their participation in educational institutions. The findings from the research project are intended to contribute to the development of evidence-based concepts for inclusive and anti-Semitism-critical education, teaching and organisational culture. The aim is to counteract anti-Semitism in institutional educational contexts and to strengthen and promote the participation of Jewish people in the long term.
The sub-project at the Institute for the History of the German Jews (IGdJ) examines, within the institutional fields of schools and higher education, processes of self-organisation and articulation among Jews who act as pupils, students and (university) lecturers and who take a stand against anti-Semitism both before and after 7 October. Against the backdrop of the migration-driven demographic growth of the Jewish minority since the 1990s and the associated religious, cultural and social diversifications within German Jewry, and with a view to 20th-century German-Jewish history, the research project also examines the tension between particularity, participation and belonging among Jews in contemporary Germany.
Source and contact information: IGdJ (in German)