Issue 19 (2025), 37

Dear readers and friends of Medaon,

The current issue of Medaon focuses on a wide range of topics. The articles range from contemporary social science analyses and in-depth historical research to innovative communication formats and newly discovered sources.

Dani Kranz illustrates that Jewish life in Germany since 1945 has long transcended religious affiliation: it forms a social and cultural resonance chamber in which belonging, identity and participation are constantly being renegotiated – not least through diverse forms of conversion. In urban areas such as Frankfurt’s railway station district, Arndt Emmerich examines Jewish-Muslim interactions that create spaces for cooperation in everyday life, but at the same time reveal social and political tensions. Günther Jikeli adds to this by emphasizing how asymmetrically discrimination is perceived and that constructive Jewish-Muslim relations require active education and dialogue. Tina Sanders adds a special emphasis by reinterpreting Jean Améry’s concept of the ‘catastrophe Jew’ considering 7 October 2023. She shows how powerlessness, threats and growing global anti-Semitism are once again shaking Jewish confidence in the world and lending Améry’s thoughts a depressing topicality.

The series of biographies of Jewish women focuses on Gerda Lerner – feminist historian, Shoah survivor and pioneer of women’s and gender history. The article traces how Lerner re-examined her Jewish identity in the 1990s and increasingly linked her own experiences of persecution and exile explicitly to her academic work. In the field of education, this issue focuses on innovative forms of teaching. The digital remembrance game Erinnern. Die Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm (Remembering: The Children of Bullenhuser Damm) shows how playful approaches can sensitize young people to Nazi crimes and Jewish history. The graphic novel Zeter und Mordio (Murder and Mayhem) also opens up new perspectives: it uses a visual, narratively powerful medium to make Jewish history accessible and emotionally tangible. The magazine sets further accents with two articles on the digitization of historical research and communication. A study on the Jewish Samson School in Wolfenbüttel (1786–1886) shows how fragmentary archive holdings can be converted into sustainable, networked research data using modern digital methods. A second project analyses digital exhibitions using eye tracking and usage studies and makes it clear that the effectiveness of digital formats depends crucially on user-centered design and good contextualization.

Finally, the Sources section presents a remarkable discovery from the Dresden City Archives: a rare Hebrew parchment fragment from a medieval manuscript of the Midrash Sekhel Tov. It is probably the earliest Jewish written document relating to Dresden – copied in the 13th century, later pulped and recycled as a book cover in the 17th century. This find not only give new insights into medieval Jewish life but also shows what stories even inconspicuous archive remnants can tell. Finally, the reviews cover a wide range of topics related to current publications on Jewish history.

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to all the authors, reviewers and editorial staff and associates whose voluntary commitment has made the publication of the 37th issue of Medaon possible. We would like to express our special thanks to Rahel Blume, who has played a key role in shaping the reviews in the editorial office and is now leaving the editorial team. Casey Sutcliffe Christ has also been a great support in editing the English abstracts over the last few years; we would also like to thank her for her many years of service.