Joseph Carlebach Prize

To commemorate the life and work of Dr. Joseph Carlebach (1883–1942), Universität Hamburg awards this prize to young researchers for outstanding scholarly contributions on Jewish history, religion, and culture. Joseph Carlebach was the last chief rabbi in Altona and Hamburg until his deportation to Riga in 1941.

Since the first award was conferred in 2004, the Joseph Carlebach Prize has kept Carlebach’s name alive and, at the same time, honored his daughter, Prof. Dr. Miriam Gillis-Carlebach, for her tireless efforts at understanding, cooperation, and collective memory. The Joseph Carlebach Prize honors outstanding scholarly contributions in Hamburg, especially course papers, final academic theses, and dissertations.

Target group:

Students and doctoral researchers

Prize amount:

€3,000 (can be distributed among more than one recipient depending on the type of contribution)

Guidelines:

See the guidelines for criteria and conditions.

Application call:

Current calls will be posted here in Fall/Winter 2024.

Applying

Contributions and/or authors must be nominated. You cannot apply for yourself.
All researchers at Universität Hamburg are eligible to submit nominations.
Contributions must have been completed no more than 2 years ago.
Nominations must be justified in detail and must include information about the candidate(s). Furthermore, you must include a copy of the work, a CV with current contact details for the nominee, and evaluations by supervising professor(s).

Past prize recipients:

2018: Dr. Viola Alianov-Rautenberg (Department of History) for her dissertation: “Liftmenschen in the Levant: A Gender History of the German-Jewish Immigration to Palestine/Eretz Israel 1933-1939“
Vivien Rönneburg (Master of Education in Secondary Education) for her master’s thesis “Vom Grindel nach Manhattan—Identität und Zugehörigkeit in den Memoiren jüdischer Auswanderer im Nationalsozialismus“

2016: Dr. Jutta Braden (Department of History) for her monograph “Konvertiten aus dem Judentum in Hamburg 1603 bis 1760. Esdras Edzardis Stiftung zur Bekehrung der Juden von 1667”
Dr. Inka Le-Huu (Department of History) for her dissertation “Die sociale Emanzipation der Juden. Jüdisch-christliche Begegnungen im Hamburger Bürgertum (1830–1871)“

2014: Lea Wohl von Haselberg (Department of Languages, Literature and Media) for her dissertation “Und nach dem Holocaust? Jüdische Spielfilmfiguren im (west-)deutschen Film und Fernsehen nach 1945“
Özlem Alagöz, Fabian Boehlke, Viktoria Wilke, Nikolas Odinius, and Thomas Rost (Department of History) for their seminar paper “Stolpersteine im Grindelviertel. Vom Namen zur Biographie“

2012: Dr. Beate Meyer (Department of History) for her monograph “Tödliche Gratwanderung—Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland zwischen Hoffnung, Zwang, Selbstbehauptung und Verstrickung (1939-1945)“
Sebastian Schirrmeister (Department of Languages, Literature and Media) for his master’s thesis “Das Gastspiel—Friedrich Lobe und das hebräische Theater 1933-1950“
2010: Arne Offermanns (Department of Languages, Literature and Media), “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Ernst Lissauer und Walter A. Berendsohn 1935-1937; Einführung, Edition, Kommentar“

2008: Katharina Kraske (Department of Language, Literature and Media II) for her master’s thesis on remembering Auschwitz: “Auschwitz erinnern. Shoah-Darstellungen in der italienischen Literatur”
2006: Dr. Christine Müller (Department of Education) for her dissertation: “Zur Bedeutung von Religion für jüdische Jugendliche in Deutschland”
Dr. Sandra Konrad (Department of Education) for her dissertation: “’Everybody has one’s own Holocaust’. Eine internationale Studie über die Auswirkungen des Holocausts auf jüdische Frauen dreier Generationen”
2004: Dr. Christina Pareigis (Department of Languages, Literature and Media) for her dissertation: “’trogt zikh a gezank‘. Jiddische Liedlyrik aus den Jahren 1939—1945”
Kadye Molodovsky, Yitzhak Katzenelson, Mordechaj Gebirtig, Jorun Poettering (Department of History) for her master’s thesis: “Hamburger Sefarden im atlantischen Zuckerhandel des 17. Jahrhunderts”

Joseph Carlebach Prize 2023

^{Photo: Binne Sörine Krüger}

The Joseph Carlebach Prize 2023 was awarded to Dr. Kevin Drews (second from right) for his dissertation “Inmitten der Extreme. Ästhetik und Politik bei Walter Benjamin und Salomo Friedlaender” and Iris-Christiane Stavenhagen (left) for her master’s thesis “Die christliche Rezeption der jüdischen Haskala im 18. Jahrhundert am Beispiel Johann Balthasar Kölbele und August Wilhelm Hupel.“ The respective supervisors, Prof. Dr. Martin Jörg Schäfer (right) and Prof. Dr. Ze’ev Strauss (second from left), and the vice president for studies and teaching, Prof. Dr. Susanne Rupp (center) congratulated the prizewinners.