Jewish Museums

The article examines the interwar period in the life and work of two architects, Usher Chiter (1899–1967) and Elyukim Maltz (1898–1973), both graduates of the Odessa School of Architecture.During that time the architects were doing work for the Mendele Moicher Sforim All-Ukrainian Museum of Jewish Proletarian Culture in Odessa. Based on documents and visual materials from a number of museums and archives located in Ukraine, Russia and Israel, as well as on private collections (including those of families of architects from Moscow, where Chiter and Maltz moved in the late 1920s),the author attempts to trace and reconstruct the two architects’ research expeditions across the former Pale of Jewish Settlement. A total of seven field trips were conducted in Podolia and the Soviet part of Volhynia – with the aim of collecting materials and exhibition items for the museum and of making nature drawings and watercolors showing Jewish sites, such as synagogues, cemeteries and residential buildings. This empirical approach exemplifies the method of preserving and representing disintegrating Jewish shtetls, commonly practised during the interwar period. The work of both architects is viewed through the prism of musealization of Jewish heritage in the early Soviet period which was closely connected to the formation of state ideology and its transition from «building of the national identity» to class paradigm and atheistic upbringing.

This essay looks at post 2005 restitution exhibitions of art believed or known to be owned by Jews stolen during National Socialist times in order to examine complex questions and layered relationships involving private property, public institutions and museum display.

Examining a selection of modern urban spaces, this article describes how
the history of medieval Ashkenazi Jewry is displayed in Germany today, as well as
who displays it and for whom. The preoccupation of Germany with its Jewish past
is not trivial; it is an institutionalized trend designed not only to teach the public
about local medieval history, but also to educate it to re-include medieval Jews into
its history.

Light is an essential element for the sustenance of life. It aids vision and thus functionality to the living creatures. Along with the functional aspects of Light, there are psychological and spiritual connotations of light and its counterpart darkness. People perceive light and darkness in many ways but commonly as positive and negative components respectively. In Architecture lighting is used for the functional purposes, however, in few cases it is also used for psychological reasons. Jewish Musuem Berlin is one such example where light and darkness is employed to convey the misery of historical past. This paper discusses the interpretation of light and dark on the psychological and spiritual dimensions across various cultures and subsequently narrates the design elements of Jewish Museum and psychological employment of light in its architecture in detail. The paper is based on the Authors visit to Germany in an DAAD aided exchange program in the year 2008. All the photographs are taken by the Author himself.

The paper presents matters of contemporary Jewish architecture in relation with the works of one of its most important creators – architect Daniel Libeskind. In times when identity, continuity of life and traditions, and community values are estranged due to globalization, cultural consumerism, and financial power and interests, people cherish significantly less the hidden significances and the sacred aspects of life, of the objects around them, and of the human milieu in which they live. In this context, sometimes, architecture has a role of purification – for the mind, for the soul, and even for the body – but only for those who understand and believe its message, and in this way, learn how to detach themselves from the profane in which they live, leaving behind the secular and entering the sacred: the fascinating, pure, and complex architectural space. This means in both literally, as well as metaphorically terms, passing through architecture, as an intermediary space between the profane and the sacred, in a place that sometimes exists out of the time. Analysing Libeskind's buildings and their symbolic meanings we identify three models of creation, in Jewish contemporary architecture, using memory as an identitary source and resource.

The interview with Antony Polonsky focuses on the history of Polish-Jewish studies as a research field, analyzed from the time of its initiation at the turn of the 1980s until year 2014. Antony Polonsky is the chief historian of the main exhibition of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, as well as the editor-in-chief of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, a yearly research journal. He is also a co-founder of the first research institutions focused of the field of Polish-Jewish studies, and a co-initiator of the first academic events in this field. In the conversation, Polonsky discusses the context of the creation of the Polin Mu-seum's main exhibition, including the impact of politics on this exhibition's final form. Afterwards, he recounts the history of the beginnings of Polish-Jewish studies, including the Orchard Lake meeting (1979) and the conference at Columbia University (1983). Polonsky gives a detailed account of the course and the outcomes of the Polish-Jewish studies conference in Oxford in 1984, which he co-organized. He also analyses the 1980s Polish political opposition circles' reactions to the presence of antisemitic narratives in the opposition's discourse. The last section of the conversation focuses on the presence within the field of Polish-Jewish studies of narratives that are apologetic towards the Polish nationalist discourse.

The present article attempts to analyse and interpret the structure of windows in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind and constructed in 1989–1999. Elongated, narrow, irregular window openings arranged at different angles like a tangle of cuts and grooves span the entire structure and resemble Hebrew letters and the kabbalistic notion of the “scattered alphabet”, which functions in Jewish tradition as a visual metaphor.
The assumption of such a perspective of interpretation, based on the visual form of the building which was, in its principle, meant to partially refer to the Holocaust, leads to the hypothesis that the chosen motifs of letter-shaped windows (the scattered alphabet) is connected to the kabbalistic postulate of the “repair of the world”, known in Jewish tradition as tikkun olam. The characteristic chaotic arrangement of the window openings is not, as it might be assumed, simply a symbol of the civilisational “fragmentation” resulting from the Holocaust. On the contrary, the design manifestly embodies the nostalgia for the mythical (and messianic) times of harmony, order and regularity, as well as the longing for clear structure and symbiosis. This manifests in the kabbalistic interpretation of the motif of letter-windows understood as a mystical (or even theurgical) element of restoration. Concentration, contemplation, perception and consideration of the forms and shapes of the letters is a notion known from the Kabbalah; in this case architectural references to Jewish Artur Kamczycki
mysticism are more than just a strategy for interpretation, but a declarative assumption made by the architect himself. Libeskind’s design in Berlin, therefore, involves the matter of language as the elementary material and instrument of salvation, while the context of the Kabbalah ought to be regarded as a certain symptom or a specific modality shaping new meanings manifested by the work of art that this museum undoubtedly is.

The full version of this article appears in the latest issue of Judaica Bohemiae:
Sidenberg, Michaela: “Intimate Galleries: Photographic Albums from the Collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague”, in: Judaica Bohemiae, LV-2, Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague, 2020, pp. 69-80. The publication is available on the CEEOL platform under the following link:
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=917230
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The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP) is generally acknowledged to rank among the leading world-class institutions of its kind. What makes its collection exceptional, however, is not just the early date of the Museum’s founding in 1906 (making it the third oldest public Judaica collection in the world). More decisive were the uncommon circumstances during the period of the so-called Central Jewish Museum (1942–1945), years that saw the collection greatly enhanced as objects were rescued from the systematic destruction of Jewish culture that was intrinsic to the genocide of European Jewry. Only now, almost eight decades later, are many of these objects receiving a proper evaluation. This text is just a brief introduction to the JMP’s collection of photographic albums. Although they are rather private and ephemeral in nature and outside the scope of the common classification criteria for ‘high art’, the albums afford us a singular source for the study of the history of Jewish emancipation in the Czech lands and the contributions of the Jewish population to the country’s cultural and social evolution as they were integrating into the majority society.

The article explores the phenomenon of «Jewish museum»; provides its definition and typology; analyzes the exposition principles of the museums of Jewish history and culture; studies methods, ways and forms of visualization of the images of national history and cultural identity of the Jewish civilization. In the foundation of the article lies the studying of the world’s experience of museum construction; research of museum business of Ukraine; author’s own experience in designing the interiors of edifices for the Jewish community and creation of exhibitions for the museums of the Jewish organizations of the city of Kharkov, conducted in years 2001-2006. Kotlyar E. On Problem of Jewish Museum: Definitions, Typology, Methodology and Practices of Exhibition Design // The Bulletin of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. – Kharkiv, 2006. – #12. – P. 64-94. Котляр Е. Еврейский музей: дефиниции, типология, методология и практика экспозиционного проектирования. К постановке проблемы // Вісник Харківської державної академії дизайну і мистецтв. – Харків: ХДАДМ, 2006. – № 12. – С. 64-94.

The Jewish Museum at the Jewish Religious community in L'viv/Lwów/Lemberg was envisioned in 1910 by the local Judaica collector, Maksymilian Goldstein. A group of Jewish intellectuals unrelated to Goldstein managed to carry out such a project in 1925–34. The museum was located in the Community House, its exhibits included ritual objects from L'viv synagogues and homes, as well as secular artifacts made by Jewish artists. It displayed also a collection of ketubbot, mainly of Italian origin, photographs of architectural landmarks and tombstones, sketches for synagogue murals, and objects of folk art, including children’s masks for Purim and paper-cuts.
The Communal House was expropriated by the Soviets in 1939 and in the postwar period its assets were dispersed among other L'viv museums. Only in 2001 the building was transferred to the reestablished Jewish religious congregation, while the collections remained in the storages of their new holders. Unfortunately, the owners of the building did not do enough to preserve the Community House. Its roof partially collapsed, water flooded the building, and it was virtually abandoned.
A new initiative group, formed in 2013, is intending use the advantage of L'viv as a European tourist destination, to restore the edifice and regenerate the Jewish museum on its original premises. This project may be carried out only through a joined effort by the Jewish organizations in Ukraine, association of Lviv descendants abroad, Lviv museums willing to expose artifacts preserved in their vaults, the religious congregation, the municipality, and other interested bodies.

In principle, a Jewish Museum in Berlin is unlike any other museum. It bears and asserts a set of memories and historical pressures that distinguish its space in the city. [...] As a temporary component of the architectural space, Mischa Kuball’s installation res.o.nant resided at the Jewish Museum from November 2017–September 2019. The catalogue that followed the closing of the installation, co-published by Sternberg Press and theJewish Museum Berlin, is comprised of many contributions through five thematic sections: Space of Experience, Void, Sound Space, Light, and Urban Space. Twenty-two thinkers, artists, and writers examine and interpret Kuball’s work in the context of the Jewish Museum Berlin.

Full Article Here: https://brill.com/RART

Pieta as an Artistic response to the Holocaust in the Works of Jewish and Non-Jewish Female Artists The paper I would like to read out today was written on the basis of a chapter from my book about the Jewish Museum Berlin, which I wrote for my postdoctoral degree obtained at the University of Warsaw. The book was published in Polish in 2015 by the Adam Mickiewicz University Press and I have high hopes of it being translated into English. 2 In 1988 Berlin authorities held a contest for the project of the Jewish Museum commemorating 2000 years of the German-Jewish history, with Daniel Libeskind being selected as the winner.

The article studies the pre-War period in the life and work of two architects, Usher Chiter (1899-1967) and Elyukim Maltz (1898-1973), both graduates of the Odessa School of Architecture. The time span in question was bound up with work done by the architects for the Mendele Mocher Sforim All-Ukrainian Museum of Jewish Proletarian Culture in Odessa. Based on documents and visual materials from a number of museums and archives located in Ukraine, Russia, and Israel, as well as on private collections, including those of the architects’ families living in Moscow, where Chiter and Maltz had moved in the late 1920s, we have attempted to trace and reconstruct the architects’ artistic research expeditions along the former Pale of Jewish Settlement. A total of seven field trips took place in parts of Western Ukraine – to Podolia and Volhynia – with the aim of collecting materials and exhibition items for the museum and of making original drawings and water colors from nature showing views of Jewish landmarks, such as synagogues, cemeteries, and residential housing construction. Six of these trips have been successfully dated with precision; we have also been able to trace the particularly extensive and productive research expedition of 1927, including an exact fragment of the expedition’s itinerary, in connection with surviving letters, as well as  original works and reproduced copies. The architects did not limit themselves to the «Jewish quarter» alone; they also documented other sites, beginning with fortress-type building construction.
Dozens of views of Khmelnik, Izyaslav, Medzhibozh, Starokonstantinov, Novokonstantinov, Polonnoe, Berdichev, and other towns convey architectural images from a receding Jewish past; some of these compositions have appeared in other primary sources, while others are unique. These studies from nature evidence a method of preserving and representing the disintegrating milieu of Jewish shtetls, which was widespread in the pre-War period. The works also demonstrate the art education and training characteristic of architects of the old school.

The article follows the process of the formation of Jewish article collections in pre-Revolutionary Russia and Eastern Galicia (Lvov), the story of collecting and study of the landmarks of Jewish art in the 1920-30s, the opening of Jewish museums, the later fate of their collections, their predicament to date, and the search and discovery of lost materials in our days.
(Котляр Евгений. Еврейские музеи и коллекции первой трети XX века: судьба и следы художественного наследия (Львов – Санкт-Петербург – Одесса – Киев) // Вісник Харківської державної академії дизайну і мистецтв. – Харків: ХДАДМ, 2009. – № 12 (Сходознавчі студії. Випуск 2). – С.113-133.)

Livorno _ Fortezza Vecchia, con Carlo Pepi, Flavio Fergonzi, Laura  Moreschini, Corrado La Fauci. Centenario, il 12 luglio 2020, per i 136 anni dalla nascita di Amedeo Modigliani, con il patrocinio del Comune di Livorno e dell'Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mar Tirreno Settentrionale. Relazione del critico ed esperto d'arte Laura Moreschini, "Amedeo Modigliani, ipotesi per una mostra ideale". Del professore ordinario di Storia dell'Arte Contemporanea presso la Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Flavio Fergonzi, "Modigliani, qualche problema aperto". Del critico d'arte e collezionista Carlo Pepi, "Le origini dell'arte di Amedeo".

The small-scale Jewish museums in Chișinău (Moldova), Odessa (Ukraine), Lviv (Ukraine), and Minsk (Belarus) narrate the history of once flourishing Jewish communities, and document their disappearance. Their permanent collections, which consist of the private belongings that emigrating Jewish families gave them in the early 1990s, are the basis for their exhibitions. These museums opened in the early 2000s under the auspices of local Jewish cultural and charitable organizations. They are not state museums and lack a solid financial foundation and stable professional curatorial team. Much depends on the personal vision of their directors. Despite both limited exhibition space and locations not frequented by tourists, these museums are important agents of memory and identity for local Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, as well as for international visitors.

From tablet to table, from scroll to scroll-writes Amos and Fania Oz in their wonderful essay 1 on Jewish textual traditions. The pun relates the Tablets of the Ten Commandments with tablets, and the scrolls that comprise the Five Books of Moses with the scrolling on computer surfaces. The meeting of these notions is not just a word-play, it points out very important developments hallmarking a new era in the access of cultural heritage. The heritage of Judaism (texts, objects, audio and video files) is made digitally available with multiple intentions and methodologies, in various points of the world. Talmud and hyperlinks The Jewish world's quick reception of internet technology and digitization was probably made easier by the fact that the methodology of browsing and acquiring information on the internet is similar to the practice of traditional Jewish text learning. Similarly to a typical corpus on internet, the Talmud is a multidimensional text, not to be read in a linear manner. Hyperlinks connect the textual bodies and contents so that the reader can freely follow them according to his or her individual interest and knowledge. 2 In the Talmud, this is traditionally solved by a special multi-column layout that engulfs the main text. In digital humanities this is made possible by linked open data, which is capable of connecting content preserved in different heritage institutions and interpret them together. It also offers an explanatory practice to the presented objects that follows a similar method of studying the Talmud. Perhaps it is due to the strong textual tradition of Judaism that while digitization and online publishing of Hebrew texts were among the first ones, the world of tangible Judaica (Jewish objects) preserved in museums has only experienced a digital breakthrough in recent years. We are facing the same delay here that had already been seen in connection with the collection and the scholarly analysis of Jewish tangible heritage. It only commenced at the end of the 19th century, well after the research of our textual legacy. Along with the collections developed the infrastructure of academic studies focused on interpreting them. This happened after the first Jewish Museums were opened

BALAZS FENYES - NORBERT GLESZER
TOUCHING THE RIGHTEOUS
The Concept of the Holy, the Clean and the Unclean in
the Manifestations of the Veneration of Tzadikim
In the everyday practice of religious life, Judaism accentuates upon activity.
Perception appearing in the honouring of Tzaddikim is an excellent example of
how models can be proposed and can be followed in the execution of religious
commandments. However, it is impossible to understand touching and the role
of the Tzaddik, disregarding other forms of perception. In certain rites, the adepts
not only touch the Tzaddik, they even taste the food blessed by the latter. Kissing
the Tzadik's hand is firmly interwoven with the seeing of his face, the guidance,
reinforcement of faith and reassurance given by his gestures and words. The experimentation
of the holy during the contact with the Tzadik, reinterprets categories
like clean and unclean, touchable and untouchable. The Tzadik's perception
signifies mediation in the contact with the Eternal, helps to experience the nonmaterial
world and, at the same time, it represents the norms, values and models
of behaviour of a given community.

Honored with the title “La Madre de Israel” (“Mother of Israel”), Thessaloniki, or Salonica historically, had for centuries been the most populous city of Sephardic Jewry in the world. The city’s centuries-long Jewish character was fractured in 1943, when the Nazis began deporting Jews to concentration camps. Given the city’s intense “Jewishness”, the establishment of a Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki was highly anticipated.
Initially named the Museum of the Jewish Presence of Thessaloniki, the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki was founded by the city’s Jewish Community, exhibiting artifacts and photographic displays that present the centuries-long history of the Jews in Thessaloniki. This chapter focuses on the introductory display of the Museum, which is dedicated to the old Jewish Necropolis of Thessaloniki that was destroyed by the Nazis in 1942. Monumental stones and inscriptions from the cemetery are exhibited, accompanied by photographs taken in the period between 1915- 1917 by a British medical officer, Hugh Fawcett. Reproduced on large canvases, these photographs portray the ziyara, the tradition of pilgrimage to the graves of holy figures. Focusing on the photographs displayed, it discusses how they affect the way the overall permanent exhibition of the Museum, and especially the Holocaust gallery, is interpreted. For the conclusion, the implied narrative is examined in relation to the discourse on Salonican Jewry and the Holocaust and how this has developed during the last few decades.

E l reciclaje o desarrollo de obra contemporánea sobre edificios antiguos es una práctica que necesariamente producirá adeptos y detractores según los grados y el estilo de intervención. No obstante, parece haber una amplia mayoría que coincide con que las adiciones modernas deben dejar constancia de su época y no buscar disfrazarse de un ropaje añejo para mezclarse con el edificio que las acoge. Por un lado hay quienes prefieren una intervención adusta, que rescate cánones, proporciones, volúmenes y ritmos de los edificios antiguos y que fusione estos elementos en un matrimonio dialogante y circunspecto. Por el otro, hay quienes prefieren los contrastes marcados que dejen inequívoca huella de la época a la que pertenecen los distintos componentes de los edificios, que presenten evidencia de la colisión de diferentes tiempos, estilos y materiales.

Focusing on object as agent of faith or identity, the inaugural exhibition of the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum (GCJM) shines a light on everyday objects that facilitate contemporary Jewish identity in its varied forms.  Contributors, Jewish residents of Greensboro, North Carolina, were prompted to “share about a personal object imbued with significance” to them as a Jew.  Moving beyond the universally identifiable objects to the particular, these household objects, their stories and the stories of their keepers are the content for a living archive that makes up the opening exhibition of the GCJM, 36+2.

Abstrakt: Przedmiotem rozmowy z Antonym Polonskym jest historia pola badań studiów polsko-żydow-skich od momentu, kiedy powstały na przełomie lat siedemdziesiątych i osiemdziesiątych XX wieku, aż po rok 2014. Antony Polonsky jest głównym historykiem wystawy stałej Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich Polin i redaktorem naczelnym rocznika naukowego "Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry", był też współtwórcą pierwszych ośrodków studiów polsko-żydowskich i współorganizatorem pierwszych konferencji nauko-wych w tej dziedzinie. W przytoczonej rozmowie A. Polonsky opowiada o kontekście powstania wystawy głównej Muzeum Polin, w tym o wpływach politycznych na kształt tej wystawy. Tematem rozmowy jest też historia początków pola badawczego studiów polsko-żydowskich, włącznie ze spotkaniem w Orchard Lake (1979) i konferencją na Uniwersytecie Columbia (1983). Ze szczegółami relacjonowany jest przebieg i skutki konferencji studiów polsko-żydowskich w Oksfordzie (1984), którą rozmówca współorganizował. Polonsky przedstawia dalej reakcje polskich środowisk opozycji politycznej na obecność narracji anty-semickich w dyskursie opozycji w latach osiemdziesiątych. Ostatnia część rozmowy dotyczy obecności narracji apologetycznych wobec polskiego dyskursu nacjonalistycznego w obrębie pola badań studiów polsko-żydowskich. Wyrażenia kluczowe: muzeum żydowskie; studia polsko-żydowskie; polska historia Żydów; polska histo-ria współczesna.

Abstrakt: Otwarte w 2013 roku warszawskie Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN stanęło pośrodku terenu dawnego nazistowskiego getta warszawskiego, zburzonego podczas jego likwidacji w 1943 roku, naprzeciw powstałego w roku 1948 Pomnika Bohaterów i Męczenników Getta; jednocześnie pośrodku terenu dawnej, dziewiętnastowiecznej warszawskiej dzielnicy żydowskiej i pośrodku powojennego modernistycznego osied-la Muranów, zaplanowanego jako osiedle-pomnik zburzonego getta. Zlokalizowane w tym miejscu muzeum przedstawia się jako "muzeum życia", opowiadające "tysiącletnią historię" polskich Żydów, a niebędące insty-tucją skoncentrowaną na historii Zagłady Żydów i historii polskiego antysemityzmu. Artykuł zawiera krytyczną analizę kuratorskich i architektonicznych strategii przyjętych przez twórców Mu-zeum w procesie umieszczania środowiska miejskiego w roli elementu narracji historycznej, komunikowanej przez budynek Muzeum i przez jego wystawę główną. Szczegółowej analizie poddawane są dwa kluczowe dla projektu Muzeum wnętrza architektoniczne: główny hall wejściowy oraz przestrzeń "żydowskiej ulicy" stanowiąca fragment dwóch galerii wystawy głównej, poświęconych historii Żydów w Polsce międzywo-jennej oraz historii Zagłady. Analiza struktury projektowej tych dwóch wnętrz służy próbie sformułowa-nia odpowiedzi na pytanie badawcze dotyczące właściwości fizyczno-symbolicznych materialnej substancji zniszczonego getta w odniesieniu do narracji abstrahującej od historii jego zniszczenia oraz dotyczące odpo-wiedzialności projektantów wynikającej z decyzji o umieszczeniu narracji historycznej w fizycznej przestrze-ni, w której wydarzyła się historia będąca tej narracji przedmiotem.

The Nazis’ persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust included the creation of prisoner hierarchies that forced victims to cooperate with their persecutors. Many in the camps and ghettos came to hold so-called “privileged” positions, and their behavior has often been judged as self-serving and harmful to fellow inmates. Such controversial figures constitute an intrinsically important, frequently misunderstood, and often taboo aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on Primo Levi’s concept of the “grey zone,” this study analyzes the passing of moral judgment on “privileged” Jews as represented by writers, such as Raul Hilberg, and in films, including Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Negotiating the problems and potentialities of “representing the unrepresentable,” this book engages with issues that are fundamental to present-day attempts to understand the Holocaust and deeply relevant to reflections on human nature.