In the early 1960s, Jewish life in the Federal Republic of Germany was anything but a given. In his 1965 book German Jews Today, American photographer Leonard Freed captured glimpses of everyday life for Jewish men and women in West Germany, from Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main to Munich.

A year later, the World Jewish Congress in Brussels held a discussion on the topic Germans and Jews. Contributors included Nahum Goldmann, Gershom Scholem, Golo Mann, and Karl Jaspers. Both Freed’s photo series and the World Congress explored the question of whether it was possible to live as a Jew in Germany—an issue that remains the subject of debate to this day.

Panelists: Sarah Hadda (art historian and screenwriter), Thomas Sparr (co-editor of Germans and Jews. Documentation of a Debate), and Theresia Ziehe (curator for photography, JMB).

Moderator: Daniel Wildmann (Program Director, W. Michael Blumenthal Academy, JMB).