The Arye Maimon-Institut für Geschichte der Juden

The Arye Maimon-Institut für Geschichte der Juden (Arye Maimon Institute for the History of the Jews - AMIGJ) is an academic institution at the University of Trier. It was founded in 1996/97 by Alfred Haverkamp (1937-2021), Professor of Medieval History. It is named after the German-Israeli historian Arye Maimon (born Herbert Fischer in 1903, died 1988).

The AMIGJ is dedicated to researching the history of the Jews, primarily in Central and Western Europe, with a focus on the Middle Ages and the early modern period. In doing so, it relies heavily on archival sources that have survived in various languages. It organises its research in third-party funded projects and has already been involved in numerous research networks at the University of Trier. The institute maintains a special library and extensive source documentation. Together with the Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden e. V. (GEGJ) it publishes the "Forschungen zur Geschichte der Juden" (Research into the history of Jews) series.

Major research contributions by the AMIGJ relate to:
- the settlement history of the Jews in the medieval imperial territory and adjoining areas (cf. the overview in the annotated map series, 2002);
- factors that shaped this history (rule and law, migration, persecutions and expulsions);
- relations between Christian and Jewish communities in everyday life and in exceptional situations at local level in towns and cities;
- sources on the history of the Jews in the empire and the question of how the tradition shapes today’s picture of Jewish life and Christian-Jewish relations in the past (cf. the academy project "Corpus der Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden im spätmittelalterlichen Reich" (Corpus of sources on the history of the Jews in the late medieval empire), 2006-2020);
- history of Jewish communities in the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period (15th and 16th centuries): How was it that everything did not collapse under the pressure of expulsions, persecutions and emigration?

• The objects of the "Arye Maimon-Institut für Geschichte der Juden" available on bavarikon

Exhibitions under the participation of the "Arye Maimon-Institut für Geschichte der Juden" available on bavarikon

• Regensburg and its Jewish Community in the Middle Ages