The articles in this volume originated from a symposium organized in 1994 by the Franz Rosenzweig Research Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The aim was to elaborate a methodological framework for research into German-Jewish intercultural identity, centering on an attempt to define the 'intercultural space' between two cultures. This space proves to be the condition both of potential cultural renewal and of the real catastrophes occurring in the context of intercultural encounter. The problem of intercultural translation needs to be seen in terms of the theory and practice of dialogue across this space, inasfar as the locus of this problem is situated in the 'space' between translatability and untranslatability.