Purpose

The Minna-James-Heineman Foundation was originally founded in 1928 by Dannie and Hettie Heineman, with the sole purpose of providing single elderly Jewish women in Hanover with a home and provisions. After the Hitler regime took power in 1933, the building was seized by the Nazis and its occupants were interned.

In 1951, the Minna-James-Heineman Foundation was founded anew. Its original activities, however, were not resumed. Instead, the Foundation’s purpose was redirected towards another area with which Dannie Heineman was concerned: the natural sciences, with an emphasis on mathematics, physics, and medicine. Another of the founder’s wishes was to foster and strengthen new links between the United States, Israel, and Germany. Although the Foundation is an independent organization, much of its funding is channeled to science and medical projects involving the cooperation of scientists from the Max Planck Society in Germany, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, or the Heineman Medical Research Center in the U.S. In addition, the Foundation supports a number of awards and grants, including the Dannie Heineman Award at the Academy of Sciences at Gottingen, the Dannie Heineman Grant for Doctoral Candidates, the Dannie Heineman Student Grant, and, since 1996, the James Heineman Research Award. The Foundation’s current activities continue to be based around Dannie Heineman’s notion that “people can no longer escape people; and that borders erected in the name of the sanctity of nationhood only perpetuate human folly by hindering international cooperation and the peaceful pursuits of man.”