Dear readers and friends of Medaon,

one hundred years after its founding, we want to dedicate two contributions to one of the most important Jewish instututions to date in our current issue: Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland. Stephanie Weismann remembers Bertha Pappenheim in our series “Biographien jüdischer Frauen”, who triggered the founding of an umbrella organization for different Jewish institutions with her call Wehe dem, dessen Gewissen schläft. Marina Chernivsky and Romina Wiegemann, on the other hand, shed light on a small, but sadly still socially necessary operation of the ZWST in the projects for antisemitism prevention and underline the empowerment-approach. Jennifer M. Hoyer’s and Daniel Pedersen’s contributions build on their talks, given in December 2016 at the conference “Die Erlösung der Sprache – Relektüren Nelly Sachs”. They focus on different productive periods of the poet: While Daniel Pederson carves out different phases of lyrical transformation in Swedish exile, Jennifer M. Hoyer concentrates on phrases and concepts borrowed from geometry, which Nelly Sachs incorporated into her works after 1945.
Further contributions and a number of book reviews round off the current issue.
This issue would also not have been possible without the support of our reviewers.
Corrections and translations were done by Cathleen Bürgelt, Marcus Schaub, Patricia C. Sutcliffe und Phillip Roth – the editors want to thank them!

The editors’ office of Medaon, autumn 2017.