How is it that Berlin has the world’s fastest-growing Jewish population?
The topic will be discussed by Leslie Morris, associate professor of German literature at the University of Minnesota, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, at Mount Zion Temple, 1300 Summit Ave.
The talk, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Jewish Studies in cooperation with the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at the University of St. Thomas and St. John’s University.
For decades after World War II, Germany had a small Jewish population and little Jewish cultural life. It also was difficult for Jews worldwide to separate Germany from the Holocaust. Morris will explore the enormous changes that have taken place since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, including the role of the American Jewish community in the rebuilding of Jewish life in Germany.
The program will include a photographic tour of Jewish Berlin.
Morris, who was former director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Jewish Studies, is author of a book on history and memory in postwar Austrian poetry and co-editor of two volumes on contemporary writing in Germany and the German-Jewish relationship. She is completing a book on Jewish memory in Germany.