Last addition 11.3.2025
Photograph: Ekko von Schwichow, Berlin
Photograph: Ekko von Schwichow, Berlin
I studied History of Religions and Philology at Amsterdam University (UvA), focusing on Ancient History and Cuneiform. This resulted in a dissertation that traced historical pathways leading to the making of the Old Testament (The Topography of Remembrance. The Dead, Tradition, and Collective Memory in Mesopotamia. Leiden: Brill 1995).
My research interests focus on collective memory patterns versus long-term perceptions, with a particular emphasis on religious minorities in Europe. I published on the institutionalization of Islam in Europe, European perceptions of Jews and Muslims, Ahmadiyya mission, mosque archives, and a remarkable Jewish-Muslim encounter in interwar Berlin. Ahmadiyya mission was placed in the wider field of German-Indian religious entanglements. Research into the Russian-Muslim POW Camp of Weinberge (1914-1918) cleared the beginnings of Muslim engagement in Germany.
I am affiliated with the Erlangen Research Center for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen. www.ezire.fau.de/ueber-das-ezire/team/assoziierte-mitglieder/gerdien-jonker/ The current research collaboration with the Department of Global Religions at the University of Erfurt enables me to reconstruct the history of the Oriental Institute in Berlin.
My research interests focus on collective memory patterns versus long-term perceptions, with a particular emphasis on religious minorities in Europe. I published on the institutionalization of Islam in Europe, European perceptions of Jews and Muslims, Ahmadiyya mission, mosque archives, and a remarkable Jewish-Muslim encounter in interwar Berlin. Ahmadiyya mission was placed in the wider field of German-Indian religious entanglements. Research into the Russian-Muslim POW Camp of Weinberge (1914-1918) cleared the beginnings of Muslim engagement in Germany.
I am affiliated with the Erlangen Research Center for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen. www.ezire.fau.de/ueber-das-ezire/team/assoziierte-mitglieder/gerdien-jonker/ The current research collaboration with the Department of Global Religions at the University of Erfurt enables me to reconstruct the history of the Oriental Institute in Berlin.
