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20 | A letter to Israel

Illustration: Yves Haltner

Illustration: Yves Haltner

A letter to Israel. In 1957, twelve years after the end of World War II, students at Freie Universität along with the president of the university, composed a letter to a university in Jerusalem with the intention of initiating academic ties. This was the first step leading to an active partnership between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Freie Universität Berlin. The two universities have maintained a student exchange program since 1986 and a strategic partnership since 2011.


Sources and additional information

In the summer of 1957, even before diplomatic relations were officially established between Germany and Israel (1965), students in the German-Israeli Study Group at Freie Universität wrote a letter to the president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They wanted to initiate academic ties between the Hebrew University and Freie Universität Berlin. The German-Israeli Study Group at Freie Universität was founded in 1957 and was the first of its kind to be founded in the Federal Republic of Germany. Soon similar groups were also founded in other West German university cities.

The Institute of Jewish Studies founded in 1963 at Freie Universität Berlin was the first of its kind in Germany. It was established in connection with the appointment of Jacob Taubes to a professorial chair at Freie Universität. Taubes was a philosopher and Jewish studies scholar as well as a sociologist who specialized in religion. He had previously taught at Columbia University in New York.

In 2015, to mark fifty years of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel, Freie Universität Berlin organized numerous conferences and workshops together with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in cooperation with other Israeli universities.