Berlin’s Child, Youth and Family Centre (FEZ) is putting on a five-day information programme aimed at educating teachers, families and young people about Jewish life in Germany.
“Shalom – An Encounter with Jewish Life” is the motto of this year’s event. FEZ organised the five-day programme in close cooperation with the major Jewish institutions in Germany as well as the Israeli embassy.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany took on the role of patron.
Paul Spiegel, the president of the Central Council, who is currently recovering from a heart attack, wrote that “prejudices can best be combatted when one makes an effort to learn as much as possible about one’s fellow human beings”. He called his statement “banal” – yet stressed “that such dialogue has not yet embedded itself within German society”.
The Central Council’s primary goal is to promote dialogue between Jews and non-Jews. Thus, Spiegel called the FEZ’s event a “grand opportunity for Jews and non-Jews to learn as much as possible from each other”.
The five-day event will highlight Jewish culture and its customs and traditions. It will also attempt to make its non-Jewish participants aware that anti-Semitism is still alive and well in Germany, a mere 60 years since the defeat of the Nazi dictatorship.
Promote Dialogue
Spiegel hopes that “each participant will take home with them a more positive image of Judaism as well as learn to be more sensitive when encountering prejudice”.
Children from the Jewish middle and high schools are supporting the FEZ organisers.
The programme’s calendar is filled with concerts, exhibitions, thematic and feature films, round-table talks and teacher education.
“What would an event about Judaism be without at least one Klezmer concert”, one registered participant told EJP ironically – unhappy and frustrated that “no Jewish event, including the FEZ’s, can seemingly be produced without bringing the Klezmer cliche into the picture”.
Variety of themes
Themes such as rescue missions of children during the Holocaust, the life and times of Anne Frank, Israel today and then, the meaning of Jerusalem to Jews, histories of prominent Jews in German history are only some of the exhibits that have been prepared.
Theatre shows will plunge young and old deep into Jewish parables and history – including the story of Queen Esther and her salvation of the Jewish people from Persian destruction.
With the upcoming Passover festival around the corner, the local Chabad Lubavitsch community will teach participants, in a half-day course, the art of baking unleavened bread – mazzahs.
However, traditions will not be the only themes on offer. The programme will also cover everything from encounters with Holocaust survivors to journalism workshops presented by the country’s leading Jewish newspaper, the Juedische Allgemeine.
The course “which will hopefully prove to be the most memorable”, according to EJP’s source, may be the teacher education programme on how to actively and effectively deal with anti-Semitism.
The programme runs from 25-30 March. For more information, visit http://www.fez-berlin.de
By Oliver Bradley in Berlin |