From the Jewish Museum Hohenems (translated)
Christian Chizzola via Jewish Museum Hohenems
European Summer University for Jewish Studies
Chosen... For What? On Jewish Universalism and Particularism
July 6-11, 2025
An event organized by the Department of Jewish History and Culture at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel, the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna, the Professorship for Jewish Studies at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, the Sigi-Feigel-Guest Professorship for Jewish Studies at the University of Zurich, the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, the Jewish Studies Program at the Central European University in Budapest/Vienna – in collaboration with the Jewish Museum Hohenems.
A people and a religion – this is how many have tried to grasp the ambiguity of Judaism in terms. And in doing so, they have only created new misunderstandings. Whether the confederation, the Jewish family is a “people” like others is just as questionable as the puzzle of whether the Mosaic Law can be understood with popular, Christian-influenced ideas of “religion”.
Does Judaism therefore elude all concepts or does it only question them in their respective narrow-mindedness?
What remains open, though, is whether the talk of being the chosen people represents a claim or a burden. In any case, it has repeatedly provided a basis for anti-Semitic projections in history. But it has also led to internal Jewish debates and contradictions about the actual consequences of the claim to the authorship of monotheism: moral and ritual, universalist and particularist, for Judaism itself and for the world.
The 15th European Summer University for Jewish Studies Hohenems will take place from July 6 to 11, 2025, and will explore the historical and political, religious and cultural dimensions of the paradigm of chosenness from July 6 to 11, 2025 – from the usual broad interdisciplinary perspective. Jewish history and scriptural interpretation, philosophy and tradition, literature and art are full of bitter disputes about universalism and tribal thinking – and ultimately also about the question of whether there are laws and human rights that even divine authority must abide by.
The Summer University for Jewish Studies Hohenems 2025 is open to students from all fields of study. Preference will be given to students from the participating universities in Bamberg, Basel, Budapest, Innsbruck, Munich, Vienna and Zurich.