Please join us for our annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration. In addition to our yearly rituals, we are privileged to welcome Sabine von Mering for a special talk titled “Pastors, Spies, Assassins: Is this a “Bonhoeffer Moment”?. In this talk, Professor von Mering will tell the story of her grandfather, who in 1934 became a member of the “Confessing Church”, an organization of Protestant pastors co-founded by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In that context she will discuss the controversy around the recent film “Bonhoeffer. Pastor, Spy, Assassin” (2024), produced and heavily promoted by Christian Nationalists, and consider the lessons to be drawn for the present moment.
We will also be blessed with a special video from our beloved Rabbi Michelle and Hazzan Elias direct from Poland as they are leading our members on a March of the Living journey. We are with them in spirit on this most solemn and inspirational day and wish them safe travels.
About The Speaker
Sabine von Mering is Professor of German and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University. She holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of California, Davis. Together with Monika Hübscher, she co-edited Antisemitism on Social Media (Routledge, 2022). The updated German translation, Antisemitismus in den Sozialen Medien was published with Verlag Barbara Budrich in May 2024). Previous co-edited volumes include Right-Wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US (2013) and Russian-Jewish Emigrants After the Cold War: Perspectives from Germany, Israel, Canada, and the United States (2006). She also co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism (2025) and is currently working on the connection between climate denial and right-wing extremism. Since the beginning of the pandemic she has been hosting the popular CGES Online Webinar series.
