Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture Online

The distinct formulistic and ritualized nature of medieval legal culture was both the starting point for and a constitutive element of the  more judaico (Lat. “according to Jewish custom”) form of oath, with which Jews were put under oath in legal proceedings from the early Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were used by Christian courts with the intention of forcing Jews to make truthful statements without recourse to Christian formulas. The different formulations of the oath reflect the limits of the integrati…

Form of advertising graphic which was largely developed in the early 20th century by graphic artist and designer Lucian Bernhard (1883–1972), wherein the depiction is consistently limited to the item being promoted and the brand name. This look, characterized by a starkly reduced visual language and two-dimensional colors, is particularly present in Bernhard’s early work. This direction of commercial art, which became known as Plakatstil (poster style), achieved a pioneering significance, especially during the interwar period in Germany in connection with …

Between 1860 and 1940 the city of Odessa in southern Ukraine developed an innovative and influential literary output and an extensive range of Jewish periodicals in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. Nearly all of the significant Jewish writers and poets who were either born in Odessa or migrated to it felt a particular connection to the city. Even those writers who later turned their backs on Odessa as the political, cultural, and economic climate became more hostile often retained a loving…

A Central Collecting Point of the American military government in Germany established in Offenbach in 1946 and tasked with the identification and restitution of stolen Jewish cultural assets. Over three million books and ritual items of Jewish provenance, which had been stolen from across Europe for institutions of the National Socialist Judenforschung and discovered by the American army in its advance into territory of the German Reich, were collected in the Offenbach Archival Depot. The staff of the depot transferred the objects to their count…

Imprecisely employed term for the socio-critical musical theatre of the composer Jacques Offenbach beginning in 1855. The impact of the Offenbachiaden is among the most powerful of any of the stage innovations of the 19th century. Dressed in the musical garb of a combination of different modes of expression, they satirized the social phenomena and cultural developments of their time to timeless effect. Jacques Offenbach and his work represent the potential for advancement as well as the innovative capabilities of a…