Between Aliya and Escape

Project Description

The project continues the research of the previous project "National Jewish Youth Culture and Zionist Education in Germany and Palestine between the World Wars". It seeks to expand and enrich the findings of the previous project, which highlighted the dynamics of the transnational, intergenerational pedagogic networks and development of youth culture among women and men who were inspired by Jewish-national ideologies prior to 1933. The results of the project’s first period accentuated the continuous impact of pedagogical ideas before emigration and after the arrival of the youth groups to Mandate Palestine. The ideological principles and institutions that supported Zionist upbringing and training since World War One, had played a fundamental role in facilitating Aliyah and escape of Jewish children and youth after 1933.

The current research considers the contribution of the Zionist youth movement to the survival of Jewish youth from Germany and Europe. It intends to analyze the emergence of the Youth Aliyah as a globally active Zionist education and rescue project, and its influence on the kibbutz movement and on the development of a new Zionist pedagogy in pre-state Israel. This approach is fundamentally transnational and geared towards the reconstruction of the divergent perspectives of those involved. Consequently, gender-related experiences and perspectives will take center stage in its analysis. The roles of gender in the inter-generational nature of the discourse and the institutions that developed within the youth movement and shaped its activities will also be emphasized.

In accordance with the DFG guidelines for ensuring good scientific practice, in this project as in its predecessor, the BBF archive is responsible for the long-term availability of the project and research data. The collected data and the entire source corpus are transferred to the BBF, stored there in a structured manner and made available to all project participants via a suitable platform in accordance with legal requirements and contractual agreements.

Project Website

• Project website

Funding

The project is funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation).

Cooperations

• Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft der Technische Universität Braunschweig (Prof. Dr. Ulrike Pilarczyk, management of the entire project)
• Koebner Center for German History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Dr. Ofer Ashkenazi)

Project Management

• Dr. Bettina Reimers

Project Team

• Henriette Hiller, B.A.
• Annett Krefft, M.A.

Project Details