Un/Visible. Four Kippahs and the Making of Jewish Life in Europe. English lecture by Itamar Ben Am

Name: Un/Visible. Four Kippahs and the Making of Jewish Life in Europe. English lecture by Itamar Ben Am
Start: 2026-06-23T17:15:00+02:00
Location: Goldschmidtstraße 28, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

Schedule

Tue, 23 Jun, 2026 at 05:15 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Goldschmidtstraße 28, 04103 Leipzig, Germany | Leipzig, SN

Since October 7 2023, European Jews’ sense of security has been shaken, and the question of »Jewish visibility« has become urgent: should one conceal one’s Jewishness or display it? This lecture proposes looking at the Jewish kippah not as a piece of Judaica, but as a Schicksalsobjekt that marks four different ways of being Jewish in Europe today: from the religious discretion of »privatized« Judaism, which keeps the kippah low-profile; through defiant kippah-wearing as a liberal protest against insecurity - a counter-private stance; through an open and confident presence that seeks to shape the public sphere, enacting public Judaism; and finally, the kippah as part of a distinctive dress that aims to build an alternative Ultra-Orthodox world - counter-public Judaism. These competing kippahs offer a concrete ground for thinking about the politics of visibility, security, citizenship, and Jewish space in contemporary Europe.
An event as part of Jewish Week Leipzig
Photo: Infografik "Kippa ist nicht gleich Kippa" aus dem Themenheft 2 "Sichtbarkeit jüdischen Lebens"
Weitere Infos: https://alltagskultur.dubnow.de/