Chai OF – Jewish Life in Offenbach
A project under the aegis of the city of Offenbach am Main Municipal Office for Sport and Culture Management
The year 2021 marked the national anniversary year, “1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany.”
The small but at heart international and cosmopolitan city of Offenbach contributed to celebrations with a varied program of events promoting peaceful coexistence, tolerance, and an open society. But what is Jewish culture? What are Jewish music, food, traditions? What can be said about Offenbach’s own Jewish history and what does it actually mean to be Jewish?
In July 2021, in order to anchor the city’s Jewish history in public memory, Offenbach’s Municipal Office of Culture Management launched a digital map containing text, image, and audio about well- and lesser-known sites of Jewish life in Offenbach, as well as biographies of Jewish residents past and present. With only a smartphone, visitors could explore Jewish places in the center of Offenbach on a city walk that includes the former synagogue and today’s Capitol Theater as well as the memorial column at the old synagogue wall and the site of the former Jewish cemetery. The map remains online and new biographies and sites can be added on an ongoing basis.
Open air festival, 22–23 July 2021.
Alongside the website launch, a festival of art, performance, and music was held in the city center on 22 and 23 July 2021 titled “Chai OF – Offenbach Festival of Jewish Culture.”
Artists and performers from Germany and abroad were present at the sites on the digital map with music, performances, dance, and artistic interventions, as well as at the festival center in Büsing Park, where food stands were set up. The music showcased was as diverse as Jewish culture itself, and there was something for everyone from the works of singer-songwriter Daniel Kahn to rap by Ben Salomo, pop and electronica by LIRAZ and Mary Ocher, and classic klezmer by VAGABUND.
The project was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Kulturfond Frankfurt Rhine-Main, and the cultural foundation of Sparkasse Offenbach. Further supporters and partners include the Jewish Places project of the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Jewish Community of Offenbach, the Anne Frank Educational Center, the German Red Cross (DRK) theater project Meschugge Offenbach, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, and the Hesse Landeszentrale für politische Bildung.
The interactive map can be accessed at www.chai-of.de.
Point of contact:
The City of Offenbach am Main
Amt für Kultur- und Sportmanagement
Herrnstr. 61 63065
Offenbach am Main, Germany
E-Mail: kultur@offenbach.de
Telephone: 069 8065 2360