Leo Baeck Institute

Leo Baeck Institute

The Leo Baeck Institute is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry.

The Leo Baeck Institute is made up of three independent international institutes, two Berlin centres, and two Berlin working groups that are governed by the Leo Baeck Institute International board:

In the beginning of the 1950s some of the most influential Jewish scholars from Germany met in Jerusalem to discuss what form the Leo Baeck Institute would take. The founding conference took place from May 25–31, 1955; Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Gershom Scholem were some of the intellectual heavyweights present.

Most attendees as well as the personalities steering the institute had known each other before their flight from Germany through organizations like the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens and the . Others had held positions with the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (formed under Leo Baeck's direction and later renamed the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland). It was initially assumed that this project would take the form of a long-term historical project, preparing a comprehensive work on the history of German Jewry. With the expectation that this would not last more than a decade, institute members concentrated entirely on research projects and filling in the history of German Jewry from the Enlightenment to the Nazi seizure of power.

The Leo Baeck Institute was created in 1955 at a conference in Jerusalem. It was founded as a board that was made up of two governing bodies, a research and publication board, and an administrative board. It is now a central umbrella organization focused on the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. It was founded internationally, with multiple locations made up of three independent branches. The Leo Baeck Institute International board coordinates the activities of all three branches, and each branch reports at annual international board meetings about their research and publication projects. It is named in honor of its international president, Leo Baeck, the senior Rabbi of Berlin in Germany's Weimar Republic and the last leader of the Jewish Community under the Nazis. The Leo Baeck Institute, New York, was founded in 1955, at the same time as the parent organization, and is the United States branch of the organization.