To mark the centenary of Gustav Mahler's death, one thematic focus of the Yearbook deals with the life, work and legacy of this musician of Jewish extraction in the context of culture and social politics. Another thematic focus here is early research on the Holocaust, an area of inquiry whose image in recent years has fundamentally changed. These focal areas are expanded by papers dealing with questions of political history, legal history, cultural restitution and the critique of post-modern philosophy.The regular sections of the Yearbook feature articles on Günther Anders, Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Lea Goldberg, the language question in Simon Dubnow's thinking, and the participation of Jewish anarchists in the Munich Soviet Republic (Räterepublik) of 1919.
Dan Diner ist Professor emeritus für Moderne Geschichte an der Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Von 1999 bis 2014 war er Direktor des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur und Professor am Historischen Seminar der Universität Leipzig.