Chair for the History of Jewish Music

Jewish traditional music is widely known: Yiddish and Sephardic songs and especially klezmer, that unique instrumental folklore of Eastern European Jews. However, the spectrum of Jewish musical tradition reaches much further, from two and a half millennia old motifs, the so-called tropes, to the New Jewish School in the 20th century. The study profile for the history of Jewish music deals with this unique musical cosmos. It is the first, fully equipped chair for Jewish music history in Europe.

"The new professorship closes a historically justified, serious gap in higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany. The professorship helps decisively in the re-establishment of Jewish life in Germany by imparting musicological knowledge to aspiring cantors. At the same time, it opens up a view of an important heritage of the world's musical culture for all students at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar," said Prof. Dr. Christoph Stölzl, former President of the Weimar University of Music.

The establishment of the professorship was made possible by funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in connection with the "Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg (ZJS)", which was newly founded in 2012. In addition to the three major Berlin universities, one partner of the ZJS is the Abraham Geiger Kolleg at the University of Potsdam, which is dedicated to the education of rabbis and Jewish cantors.