The Institutum Judaicum was a special academic course for Protestant theologians who desired to prepare themselves for missionary work among the Jews.
The great interest which Franz Delitzsch took in the conversion of the Jews to Christianity prompted him to establish a similar course at the University of Leipzig in 1886, and another was founded by Prof. Hermann L. Strack in Berlin the same year.
The Berlin institute has published Strack's "Introduction to the Talmud," his editions of some tractates of the Mishnah, and a monograph on the blood accusation.
After the death of Strack, the Institutum Judaicum lessened its missionary drive and shifted its focus to research on post-biblical Judaism.
Under pressure by Jewish scholars such as Joachim Jeremias, research was contextualized under the aim of understanding Christian-Jewish relations in the wake of 20th century anti-Semitism and the consequences of World War II.