European Heritage Days at Leipzig: Reviving Jewish Music Traditions 

Notenspur Leipzig e.V., part of the EHL site Leipzig Musical Heritage, was awarded as one of two projects by the European Heritage Days. The shared initiative of the European Union and the Council of Europe supports innovative heritage actions that strengthen young people’s engagement with Europe’s shared cultural heritage and promote intercultural dialogue across borders. This year’s selected projects respond to the European Heritage Days 2026 theme, Heritage at Risk: Revive, Resist, Reimagine, by exploring new ways to connect communities with heritage through education, digital storytelling, music, and intergenerational exchange. 

Led by Notenspur Leipzig e.V., the project “Reviving Jewish Music Traditions in Leipzig” brings renewed visibility to the city’s Jewish musical heritage, much of which was destroyed or forgotten during the Nazi period. The Jewish population of 13 000 and 20 synagogues throughout the city before the war was reduced to 1 300 people (after regaining numbers from Eastern Europe) and 1 remaining synagogue today. Through concerts, guided tours, educational materials for schools and families, and an international cantorial exchange, the initiative reconnects authentic heritage sites with Jewish music traditions, reviving the once lively and broad Jewish music scene of Leipzig. 

The first events will be a guided tour and a small concert about and with music of composer Herman Berlinski on the European Heritage Day in Germany on September 13th. Born in Leipzig in 2010, the descendant of Polish Jews from Łódź had to flee the Nazi regime at the age of 23. His path took him via Poland and France to the USA, where he lived until his death in 2001. He was only able to rescue a handful of his compositions from Leipzig and Paris, the rest was left behind and destroyed. Berlinskis ties into Leipzig are very well knitted: here he went to school and showing unusual talent, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory from age 17 until graduation in 1932. He visited the services of his community’s orthodox synagogue and taught piano to the children of cantor Nahum Wilkomirsky. He listened to concerts in the liberal synagogue, in churches and concert halls. He met his future wife Sina Goldfein, also a pianist and a singer, who followed him to France. In 1981, at the age of 71, he returned to Leipzig for the first time, still feeling a strong connection to the city. 

The guided tour will follow Berlinskis footsteps from his flat to places of importance to him, to the former site of the Ez Chaim Synagogue, where it will finish with the performance of three of his works. The tour will walk alongside the Leipzig Music Arc, which, newly opened in early September, is also part of the European Route of Jewish Heritage. 

The next event of “Reviving Jewish Music Traditions in Leipzig” will be a second concert performed by La Chorale Le Chant Sacré from Strasbourg and cantors of the Institute of Traditional Jewish Liturgy in Leipzig in November at the only remaining synagogue of Leipzig. Both choir and cantors will meet and study together twice – once in Leipzig and once in Strasbourg. The third activity will be two brochures designed in cooperation between the history department of the University of Leipzig and Notenspur Leipzig e.V. to hand out to families and schools, including information about the Jewish musical heritage of Leipzig alongside games, riddles, quiz rallies and teaching materials.