At the same time, we need to ask for your understanding as we are at the beginning of our journey of building the Alfred Landecker Foundation into an organization that will have meaningful impact. Whilst we are not yet ready to review partnership opportunities and approve potential grants, I wanted to provide an update on the work that is happening behind the scenes to make this happen.
1. We will connect back to our roots: the life of Alfred Landecker as a German Jew and his death at German hands in 1942 during Nazi Rule.
This is the basis from which we will operate, meaning that we are committed to fighting Anti-Semitism, especially in Germany, pushing back against Holocaust revisionism, and promoting remembrance.
2. We will be impact-focused by strengthening democracy in western societies via behavioral sciences.
We aim to measure fundamental beliefs so that we can better understand the drivers for the decline of liberal values; the rise of populist nationalism; and the undermining of institutional stability and separation of powers we are currently witnessing. We see the reversal of these trends as an essential outcome of our work. Special attention will focus on the attitudes and trends amongst Millennials and Generation Z.
3. We will create an academic network that addresses key aspects in the protection of ethnic, religious and cultural minorities in an age of populist nationalism.
Our program will aim to build on the lessons learned from the collapse of European civilization in the 1930s: the emergence and proliferation of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, the decline in minority rights protection vested by the League of Nations, the subsequent World War, and the Holocaust committed in its shadow as the ultimate crime against humanity, seeking to murder all Jews, everywhere. We believe that in the context of rising populist majoritarianism, minority protection is emerging as one of the most relevant topics of critical relevance for western societies.
What happens next
We are guided by our commitments and principles and therefore will only consider project grants in the areas of books and documentation, exhibitions and films, or academic research that are part of broader initiatives in which we are involved. This means that we’re unable to support some of the proposals we have received to date, including those related to infrastructure projects. We look forward to being able to consider partnership proposals and applications for grants and funding projects which align with our principles and these guidelines once our team is in place.
In the meantime, may I suggest you check our website for further updates on the work of the Alfred Landecker Foundation.
Yours faithfully,
David Kamenetzky
Chairman of the Governing Council
Alfred Landecker Foundation