Anna Wnuk - Berlin Research Plan

In such a heterogenic city as Berlin the sphere of ethnicity seems to be quite visible and also challenging and exciting. My interests in ethnicity in Berlin especially concern in Jewish culture. I would like to explore ethnicity especially in the city space (architecture) but also among people – inhabitants of Berlin.
Berlin is the specific city, its history is strongly related to Jewish culture and also nowadays we can observe some traces of this past interaction. At the same time in Berlin still live Jewish people and establish a new community. Therefore I would like to research how the Jewish past and the present create contemporary reality of the city.
I would like to examine some former Jewish district (ex. Oranienburger Strasse, Prenzlauer Berg which is now gentrified area and it could be interesting to view how it changes), to find for example Jewish street names, restaurants, shops as well as visit some places which commemorate Jewish culture, such as Jewish Museum Berlin and Holocaust Memorial by Peter Eisenman. What interests me the most is how these places interweave with surrounding area, how contemporary Berlin inhabitants perceive these past traces, are they visible for them, are some monuments significant, maybe some not?
Also important for me, is to scrutinize contemporary Berlin’s Jewish community, its places and people (for example Jewish Community Centre, New Synagogue Berlin - Centrum Judaicum Foundation) in order to study how Jewish and other nationalities/ethnic groups of people live together and how they deal with their traditions. For now I have some questions to consider and I hope I could find more information on some issues, for example: Does the Jewish community lives isolated or maybe they are quite integrated with Germans? Do they want to emphasize their culture background and if yes in what way?
Moreover it seems to be inspiring to examine how such ethnic diversity, in this case Jewish culture, influences on the city space and perhaps generates new places where different cultures merge each other. Such an example perhaps could be the Kreuzberg district which is known as “little Istanbul” and as well there is Jewish synagogue.
Due to the time limitations of the project I do not know if it is possible to carry out my whole research plan, but at least I would like to deal with part of this. My methods of research will be probably: observation, short interviews with inhabitants (ex. passer-bys) and photos.