Volkswagen Momentum Workshop "Rethinking Jewish Cultures Beyond Europe"

This workshop is organized within the framework of the Volkswagen Momentum Fellowship Programme “From Pre-Modern to Modern Perspectives in Judaic Studies,” which seeks to bridge the traditionally segmented fields of pre-modern and modern Jewish history in the Near East through an integrated, interdisciplinary approach. By encouraging the study of Jewish histories across temporal boundaries, the programme highlights the mutual entanglement of pre-modern developments and modern contexts.
In this spirit, the workshop brings together scholars working across different media, geographies, and methodological approaches to explore how Jewish pasts beyond Europe are narrated, mediated, and transformed into cultural heritage. Particular attention is given to challenging Eurocentric and Ashkenazi-centered paradigms in Judaic Studies by foregrounding Jewish cultural production in Arabic-speaking and other non-European contexts.
Moving from textual and historical analysis to sound archives, visual practices, and participatory methods, the program examines how meanings of the past are negotiated in relation to present-day political, social, and cultural contexts. Cultural production, historical narratives, and heritage practices emerge here as key sites in which competing understandings of the past are articulated and contested.
The workshop is structured in three parts. The opening day introduces different modes of narrating the past across media and disciplines, framing key questions about authority, representation, and cultural translation. The following two-day masterclass led by Rudy Kisler focuses on the politics and semiotics of cultural heritage, combining theoretical reflection with participatory methods such as photovoice. The final day turns to contemporary artistic practices in the exhibition “Yalla: Arab-Jewish Encounters” at the Jewish Museum Munich, where participants reflect on how these questions are negotiated in curatorial and visual form.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2026

Venue: Herzogliches Georgianum, Room 2.33, Professor-Huber-Platz 1, 80539 München

9:30
Registration

9:45 – 10:00
Introduction
Ronny Vollandt (LMU), Marina Shcherbakova (LMU)

10:00 – 12:30
Narrating the Past Across Media

• Jacqueline Kahanoff’s Haggadah: Political Imagination and the Retelling of Biblical Stories in the Twentieth-Century Levant, Claire Leibovich (Durham University)
• “Let this be our Renaissance!”: Reconsidering Holocaust Evacuation to Soviet Central Asia in Jewish Intellectual History, Alexandra Birch (Columbia University)
• Songs of the Land: Recording Trials and Tribulations in Arabophone Israel, Format: short interventions followed by discussion, Christopher Silver (McGill University)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 15:00
Moderated discussion
From Narrative to Heritage: Scales, Media, and Authority
How do cultural narratives become recognized as heritage?
Which actors, media, and infrastructures shape this transition?
And what forms of authority, inclusion, or exclusion emerge in the process?

16:00
Evening Lecture: Judeo-Arabic Writing and the Question of Vernacular Modernity
Avner Ofrath (LMU)

Wednesday, June 10th, 2026

Venue: Herzogliches Georgianum, Room 2.33, Professor-Huber-Platz 1, 80539 München

Masterclass with Rudy Kisler (LMU)
Past Values: Heritage, Power, and Ethics
Day 1

10:00 – 13:00
Masterclass I: Concepts and Approaches

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 16:00
Masterclass II: Photovoice and Participatory Methods

Thursday, June 11th, 2026

Venue: Herzogliches Georgianum, Room 2.33, Professor-Huber-Platz 1, 80539 München

Masterclass with Rudy Kisler (LMU)
Past Values: Heritage, Power, and Ethics
Day 2

10:00 – 13:00
Masterclass III: Case Study — Bar’am/Bir’am

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 16:00
Masterclass IV: Final Session

18:00 Dinner

Friday, June 12th, 2026

Venue: Jewish Museum Munich, Sankt-Jakobs-Platz 16, 80331 Munich

10:00 – 11:00
Guided tour through the exhibition “Yalla: Arab-Jewish Encounters”

11:30 – 12:30
Discussion with the curator Sapir van Abel