The university hosted a travelling exhibition and arranged an associated interdisciplinary Symposium and concerts between 14 November and 5 December, in cooperation with Heinrich C. Olmer, President of the Bamberg Jewish Community, under the patronage of Lord Mayor Lauer and the President of the Bavarian Association of Jewish Communities Dr. Josef Schuster. The direction was in the hands of Professor Dr. Max Peter Baumann.

They were supported by the Culture Office of the City of Bamberg, the Oberfrankenstiftung and the firm of Michelin, Hallstadt.

The exhibition was mounted in the Aula of the University.

The travelling exhibition entitled -Klezmer - hejmisch und hip showed the history and development of Klezmermusic. There were 38 large panels with pictures and text, folders containing material and musical examples on mobile CD players, providing information and illustrating the historical development of Klezmermusic

The Symposium in conjunction with the exhibition was held on two Sundays:

Sunday 21 November 2004

10.00

Words of Welcome by Prof. Dr. Max Peter Baumann.

10.15

Heinrich C. Olmer:

“Jewish Life in Bamberg”

11.00

Prof. Dr. Klaus Guth

11.45

Prof. Dr. Heinz-Günter Schöttler

“Theological considerations on the christian-jewish dialogue”, an examination of a dictum by Pope John Paul III: “Linked on the basis of their own identity”.

14.00

Prof. Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

A Lecture on Dietrich Bonhoeffers view of the Jews, as expressed in his dictum: “Only those who cry out for the Jews are entitled to sing in the Gregorian mode”

14.45

Dr. Tim Becker

“Influences of Jewish philosophy on the musical aesthetic of the present day”.

15.30

Dr. Roland Simon-Schefer

“German-Jewish Symbiosis”

19.30.

“Musical contents of the Sabbath Service”, with selected extracts. The event was presented by Dr. med. Antje Deusel, Vicepresident of the Bamberg Jewish community, Cantor Martin Rudolph, Dimitry Braudo, director of the Synagogue choir, and members of the choir.

Sunday 28 November 2004

10.00

Prof. Max Peter Baumann

“Klezmer and Klezmorim in the age of globalisation”.

11.00

Markus Jüngling

“Assimilation and A-Topie in the Aesthetic of Jewish film makers”.

11.45

Prof. Dr. Martin Zenck

“Persecuted and suppressed history”.

Problems of its reintegration? An account of 15 years of exile research by Bamberg musical scholars, with compositions by Erich Itor Kahn and Stefan Wolpe.

14.00

Dr. Raphael Woebs

“Jewish tradition as mirrored in the New Music”.

14.45

Prof. Dr. Karl-Konrad Seufert

“Marc Chagall and the World of Jewish Life”.

15.30

Prof. Dr. Ortwin Beisbart

“To find a language: Literary means of escape from the silence about the Holocaust”.

16.15

Prof. Dr. Heinz Gockel

The Symposia were reported in the Fränkicher Tag. The lectures of 28 November were reported on the day before.

Klezmer Concerts entitled “A Tickle in the Heart” were provided by the Swing and Klezmer Trio, Cologne, with the New York teller of fairy stories Pesakh Fiszman. The first concert took place on Tuesday, 16 November at 20.00, and a Klezmer-Dance-Work-shop for school-children by the same group on Wednesday 17 November at 10am.

A detailed review of the Klezmer concert and the performances by the charismatic Fizman was printed in the Fränkischer Tag of 23 November 2004. According to the reviewer, Klezmermusic has its adherents in Bamberg. This was evident not only from the good attendance at the concert of 16 November, but also because it was decided to present further Klezmer days in February 2005.