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A conference on anti-Semitism-critical adult education

My W. Michael Blumenthal Fellowship at the Jewish Museum Berlin on the topic Didactics of the Middle East Conflict ended in the beautiful month of May. During the past seventeen months, I have been intensively engaged with continuing education on this politically contentious and very emotionally charged topic, as well as with the question of what we as teachers of social studies or educators working outside of school systems can or should not do, in order to best approach the topic of the Near-East conflict with students (more at: www.jmberlin.de/fellow-rosa-fava-and-her-research).

Discussion of the participants; photo: Berivan Köroğlu

In retrospect, one of the highlights of the conference, which I organized in early April 2018 in order to bring together educators focusing on the Middle East conflict and Anti-Semitism with museum employees working in the areas of education and the Academy programs. Since the first conference in September 2017, the parameters had changed somewhat, since the opening of the Welcome to Jerusalem exhibition made the Middle East conflict an (even bigger) presence at the Jewish Museum. → continue reading

Experts discuss political adult education on the Middle East conflict

Many educational providers offer materials for confronting anti-Semitism pedagogically; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Nadja Rentzsch

“Emotional” and “complex” are words often used to describe the Middle East conflict and approaches to it. How should it be handled in the everyday practice of education and continuing education? This is one of the questions in my research project “Didactics of the Middle East Conflict,” which I am conducting as a W. M. Blumenthal Fellow (more about the project on the museum website).

At a university or an institute, generally there is a research colloquium full of people working on similar themes, or who at least come from the same discipline. In such colloquia, one can present new work, discuss initial findings, get feedback about dealing with difficulties, and discover stimulating new ideas. At a museum, people engage with a great variety of topics, but not with empirical research on the didactics of the Middle East conflict. And so on September 8th, I invited external experts on educational work relating to the Middle East conflict, anti-Semitism, and racism to come to the museum. We discussed teaching and learning on this subject with members of the Education Department and the museum’s Academy Programs. → continue reading

View from the Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin towards the Springer building with the lit-up sign, #FreeDeniz; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stefanie Haupt

As I leave my office at the Jewish Museum Berlin, emerging from the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy onto the street, the hashtag “#FreeDeniz” beams towards me from an illuminated black-on-turquoise-green display on the Axel Springer building. The first time I saw it, I was cheered by the signal that the publishing house Axel Springer SE* was calling for the release of Die Welt’s correspondent in Turkey, Deniz Yücel. But each day seeing the display has gotten sadder. I’ve known Deniz Yücel since 2003, when — together with other German- and Turkish-speaking Berliners — he organized bilingual protests against the bomb attacks on the two Istanbul synagogues, Neve Shalom and Beth Israel, on November 15 of that year. Twenty-four people were killed in those attacks and at least 300 wounded.

Deniz and I haven’t had contact for quite awhile. But since mid-February, through the news of his imprisonment for “terrorist propaganda” and the car procession protests that followed it, as well as conversations with friends and of course the illuminated sign, memories from the period in 2003 and 2004 when we interacted almost weekly having been coming back. → continue reading