Magdalena Gebhart presented her research at the GIF Young Scientists’ Meeting 

 

Magdalena Gebhart presented part of her research at the Young Scientists’ Meeting of the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF), which took place in Israel from 30 May to 1 June 2022. Under the title ‘Sovereignty, Entitlement, and Belonging. Jewish Legal Responses to Transition and Crisis in the 20th Century’, young researchers presented their work looking at developments in the diaspora as well as in early Israel.  

Her paper dealt with the historical context and implications of the works of two Jewish scholars, Isaak Heinemann and Botho Laserstein, in the interwar period. These works were not only giving a legal theoretical response to the crisis of the First World War but also tried to create a sense of belonging to a modern Jewish identity that provided a productive yet neglected contribution to European thought.

Magdalena Gebhart is a doctoral student in the Department for European and Comparative Legal History. She is currently working on the influences of the rediscovery of Jewish identity on legal thought in the interwar period.