Year Book, 1999

The Leo Baeck Institute, which has offices in London, New York, and Jerusalem, has a long and distinguished history. It was founded in 1955 for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Central European Jewry and named in honor of the man who was the last representative figure of German Jewry in Germany during the Nazi period. TheYear Book was established the following year and has since then gained a world-wide reputation for the consistently high quality of its volumes. In 1956, with the exception of the Holocaust history, scholarship of the centuries of German-speaking Jewry and its vital role in Central European history was almost extinguished. It is in no small measure due to the Year Book's editors and its international contributors, Jewish and non-Jewish scholars alike, that the study of Central European Jewry, from early modern times to the postwar period, its impact on European history and the history overseas, flourishes.