Jüdischer Salon im Grünen Salon

When people talk about “relations” between Germany and Israel, it quickly becomes statist – or black and white. Then it’s all about “pro” and “anti”, about perpetrators and victims, about political positions and statements that often sound like empty words. However, this has little to do with the lives of Israelis and Germans who actually encounter each other in their everyday lives. Their stories often tell of interpersonal relationships and emotions, personal connections and shared experiences.

“What do you think of when you think of Israel? What do you think of when you think of Germany?” – are the two questions that Dr. Alexandra Nocke and Teresa Schäfer ask as part of their book “Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst. Germany. Israel. Insights.” asked their interview partners. One of the contributors to the book was soprano Alma Sadé, who spoke with Alexandra Nocke on this evening about her very personal view of Germany and Israel. It is about green spaces in nowhere land, freedom and ficus trees on the boulevards in Tel Aviv, but also about the existential break after October 7, 2023. In the Jewish Salon, Alexandra Nocke and Alma Sadé present surprising perspectives on relations between Israelis and Germans and look at what separates and connects them, the unusual and the supposedly typical.

 

Soprano Alma Sadé was born Alma Saddeh Moshonov in 1981 into a renowned family of artists in Tel Aviv. After a school internship at the Tel Aviv Opera House, she moved to New York and completed four years of vocal studies at the Mannes College of Music. She was then engaged by the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and impressed with her vocal and linguistic versatility. She has sung classical operas and operettas in German, French and Italian. She has been a permanent member of the ensemble at the Komische Oper in Berlin as a soloist since 2014/2015 and has taken on roles in The Marriage of Figaro, West Side Story and Anatevka, among others. Alma Sadé lives in Berlin.

Alexandra Nocke conceives and curates exhibitions, books and cultural events. She works as a cultural scientist and curator in Germany and Israel on issues of identity development in contemporary Israeli society and on art and culture in Israel with a focus on photography. Her doctoral thesis was published under the title The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity (2009). She was responsible for the projects Wir sind hier – Türkisch-deutsches Leben 1990. Fotografien von Ergun Çağatay (2021), for the traveling exhibition Israelis & Germans (2015) and Insight: Micha Bar-Am’s Israel (2011) by Magnum photographer Micha Bar-Am. Alexandra Nocke lives with her family in Berlin.