Knowledge Architectures: Mapping structures of Jewish heritagization processes on communal, organizational and academic levels in post-1945 Europe

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sarah M. Ross
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Musicology ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 496850477

Jewish cultural heritage is conceptually neither universal nor uniform. Rather, it is determined by political, socio-cultural, and religious structures; it is subject to power relations. The aim of the project is to capture, analyze, and decolonize ‘knowledge architectures’ that structure the understandings of Jewish heritage, its multiple uses, and the different forms of knowledge and transmission of Jewish cultural heritage: How is Jewish cultural heritage and knowledge produced, (re)constructed, and transmitted? This will be examined in the context of Jewish communities, national and supranational heritage organizations, and academic structures. 'Knowledge architecture' is broadly understood as the production, identification, organization, and provision of dispersed, heterogeneous information about what can be categorized as Jewish cultural heritage.The project targets 'knowledge architects' who define cultural heritage processes and who establish requirements for creating, recording, organizing, accessing and using bodies of knowledge about Jewish heritage: Jewish communities and groups, Jews and non-Jews active in cultural heritage organizations, Judaizing milieus, and Jewish and non-Jewish scholars researching Europe's Jewish heritage. They take (competing) decisions about the production, management, and transmission of the cultural heritage of European Jews in different regional, national, and inter/transnational contexts. What is constructed as Jewish (cultural) heritage, by whom, for what purpose, and what (conflicts of) interest arise are core research questions. The project considers Jewish cultural heritage (in/tangible as well as intellectual) against the background of the concept of cultural sustainability. This means that the former is understood as a living concept subject to continuity and change: Jewish cultural heritage is actively and constantly produced, recreated, and passed on to future generations by different groups of actors, Jewish, and non-Jewish alike.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2357: Jewish Cultural Heritage
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professorin Dr. Dani Kranz