College for the Science of Judaism

The Berlin-based Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (HWJ) existed as an academic research and study institution from 1872 to 1942. Its purpose was to enable students of all faiths to conduct impartial research on Judaism.

For the summer semester 1930/31, 109 regular students were counted and the library comprised about 55,000, later even 60,000 books. Rabbi Nathan Peter Levinson was one of the last students (along with Leo Trepp and Leo Baeck). In an obituary for one of his teachers, he writes:

"Jews were no longer allowed to visit theaters, cinemas, cafés and, of course, universities at that time. The synagogues had been destroyed in November 1938. Thus the Lehranstalt remained almost the only place where Jews could engage in intellectual activity. Formerly the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, it had been deprived of its university status. [...] In fact, this college was an island within a surging sea. Outside was the violence, the terror, the intimidation, the disenfranchisement. Within the walls and teaching institution, one felt as if one were in another world, the world of the spirit, which cannot be conquered."

After the relocation of the university to London had failed due to the severe repressions of the National Socialists, the institution had to be closed on July 19, 1942. During the time of the GDR, the building served as a residential building until it was acquired by the Central Council of Jews in Germany in 1999.