A.J. Goldmann is a writer based between Munich and Berlin. His articles about European and Jewish culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The Guardian.
A.J. Goldmann
By A.J. Goldmann
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News Demjanjuk’s Long Road to Justice Nears a Murky End
The day I arrive in Munich is dismal and gray. One of the jewels in Germany’s crown, the Bavarian capital does not impress on a day like this. Rather, the Glockenspiel at Marienplatz, and the elegant shopping boulevard Maximilianstrasse seem dull and lifeless. Inside, the beer halls are bustling. No wonder — they are the…
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News At the Death Camps, Muslim Leaders Grapple With Jews’ Pain
It was a perfect summer day at the Dachau concentration camp. The clear skies and pleasant breeze seemed almost offensive. And there, beneath the main monument, a bronze sculpture of writhing bodies intermeshed with barbed wire, was an uncommon sight: a group of Muslims leaders prostrate in prayer. At the end of the service, prayer…
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Culture Measuring Mahler, in Search of a Jewish Temperament
This article originally appeared in the August 23, 2002 edition of the Forward. We are reprinting it today in honor of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth. As a small ensemble of Viennese musicians, along with his own daughter Andrea, played examples of Jewish folk music and Judenpolkas, Philip Bohlman, associate professor in the…
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News New Kind of Passion in an ‘Alpine Jerusalem’
It was during the intermission in Oberammergau’s controversial, once-in-a-decade Passion play that I met Jesus for a cup of coffee. A public relations man at the Münchner Volkstheater when he’s not onstage, Frederick Mayet, 30, has the long, dark-blond hair and bushy beard of a Nordic Jesus portrait hanging on the wall of a rectory…
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Culture Obsessively Self-Filming His Vicissitudes
In February 2006, Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann traveled to Berlin to present his film, “Paper Dolls,” at the Berlin International Film Festival. One evening, he went in pursuit of the nightlife for which the city is justly famous, and met Andreas Merk, a German choreographer, at the electronic music mecca, Berghain. What started as…
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Culture Brutal on the Beach
Israeli choreographer Nir de Volff is one of the most promising newcomers on Berlin’s vibrant dance scene. Early in December 2009, expectations ran high for the premiere of “Maktot,” his dissection of the social complexities of beach culture. His previous creation, a site-specific dance in Berlin’s iconic Neue Synagoge called “Action!” had a successful run…
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Culture Berlin Jews and Jazz
Celebrations for the 70th birthday of legendary jazz label Blue Note Records are taking place at an unlikely venue. The Jewish Museum Berlin is tooting its horn with an exhibition of photographs by two of Blue Note’s Jewish photographers, Francis Wolff and Jimmy Katz. Wolff, a Berlin native, helped found the label in 1939, along…
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Culture Taking the A Train to ‘The Fourth Reich’
In 2008, the German city of Munich celebrated its 850th birthday amid much fanfare, and various cultural institutions were asked to mark the occasion. When the recently opened Jewish Museum was approached, it reacted with ambivalence. Indeed, for nearly half the history of Munich — more than 400 years — Jews were excluded from taking…
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