From the Genizah to Goitein - On the „Arab Question“ of Jewish Orientalists
Lecture and discussion with Markus Kirchhoff (Leipzig)

The Orientalist Shlomo Dov (Fritz) Goitein (1900-1985), who was born in Upper Franconia and worked for many years in Jerusalem and later in the United States, revolutionised research into the text fragments from the Cairo Genizah. In his work „A Mediterranean Society“ (5 volumes, 1967-1988), he focused on Jewish - and also Muslim - social and everyday history in Egypt and neighbouring countries from the 9th to the 13th century. At the same time, as a contemporary of the Shoah and the founding of the state of Israel, he also explicitly reflected on modern Jewish-Arab relations. The lecture compares his position with the ideas and visions of Jewish orientalists of the 19th century and the 1920s in this regard.

Dr Markus Kirchhoff

Studied Modern History, Communication Studies and German Studies in Essen and Dublin; MA 1995. From 1996 to 1999 doctoral student and lecturer at the Department 1 of History at the University of Essen-Duisburg, where he completed his doctorate in 2003 under Dan Diner with the dissertation »Text zu Land. Palestine in scientific discourse 1865-1920«. From 1999 to 2007 and again since 2025 research associate at the Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture in Leipzig. In the meantime, from 2007 to 2024, team and editorial manager of the project »Encyclopaedia of Jewish Cultures« of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.

Supporting programme for the exhibition „The Tomorrowlanders. Jewish explorers and adventurers in search of the familiar in the foreign“ | 16 November 2025 to 4 October 2026