Since our inception, we have welcomed well over 1,500 choristers, soloists and cantors from all over the world to Berlin and experienced unforgettable musical moments with them.
With great humility, we are once again very happy that Berlin is on its way to once again becoming a center for Jewish liturgical music.
After all that has been done to Jewish people, the Jewish world and Jewish culture in and from this city, this cannot be taken for granted. You are the Managing Director of the Berlin-Brandenburg Retail Association.
How do you deal with this historical responsibility? The Handelsverband Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. (HBB) is an association of companies and, in addition to its actual activities as an economic, professional and employers’ association, has been committed for years to a culture of remembrance, especially in the retail sector, and to Jewish life and Jewish culture in Berlin.
Bearing in mind that Berlin’s retail sector was largely shaped by Jewish companies and merchants until the Nazi era and that this entrepreneurship was completely destroyed in the Shoah, we are facing up to our historical responsibility.
In 1933, less than 1% of Germany’s inhabitants were Jewish.
But 25% of all retailers and around 75% of all department store owners were Jewish merchants.
This is another reason why the HBB regularly commemorated the Reich Pogrom Night of 1938 with poster, shop window and art campaigns, the name of which is derived from the numerous smashed shop windows and looted stores What is the special relationship between merchants and synagogue music? We have consistently embraced a cultural asset that was almost completely wiped out by the Shoah: synagogal music.
As the main sponsor and partner, the Berlin-Brandenburg Merchants’ Association and its members have been supporting the Synagogal Ensemble Berlin since 2007 and the “Louis Lewandowski Festival – World Festival of Synagogue Music” since 2011, which has become the largest musical event of its kind in the world.
Naturally, the merchants are delighted that the festival is also one of the reasons for Sunday shopping in Berlin.
The Louis Lewandowski Festival credibly conveys the image of the new tolerant Berlin to the world, as a capital with a lively Jewish culture and as a capital that faces up to its historical responsibility.