The Jewish Museum vs. A Museum of Judaism

There’s no doubt that the millions that were shelled out to build the Judische Museum was worth it, however, I have a few caveats...

Entering in to the labyrinth of corridors, windows and weird angular corners, one is taken on a tour of three axes. The axis of Holocaust – short path; axis of exile – short of path; and the axis of “continuity” – takes you through the whole museum and is really the main exhibit. We then are taken on a very well done interactive tour of Jewish life in Germany from the (approx) 11th-12th centuries and on to a small exhibit on post-war Jewish life (I’ll get to that later).

Sprinkled throughout the museum are side exhibits attempting to explain different aspects of Jewish life. “Learn to write your name in Hebrew!” or “What is a Kippah?” or “Was is Schabbat?” Nice. More than nice, it’s eye opening and leads one to think “wait a minute… they’re assuming that the majority of visitors to the museum have never met Jews!” This might as well be the Field Museum or an exhibit at an ancient extinct culture.

I suppose the Germans have never been known to be terribly emotional people, and I agree with my friend Gideon’s reflection on the museum that they often have the tendency to completely over-document. Quantity wins out over Quality here.
I found myself trying to get a sense of feelings. (Yes, I know, me? Feelings?) What exactly is the message that they're trying to send about the German-Jewish relationship? Were the Jews from Mendelssohn to Einstein accepted Germans? Amos Elon basically contends that not really. My sense was that they wanted to shock German youth by showing that so many of those great advances in science, medicine, art, literature and philosophy can be attributed to… JEWS.
As we got to the section from 1933-45, it was rather straightforward. No big philosophical questions such as: How could this happen? Or, how did the Germany of Bildung and Kultur give way to the artless spiritless overarching sweep of Nazism.
Maybe its because they don’t know. That’s ok, I don’t know either. I can make an intellectual rationale, but truth is, is that it’s beyond my wildest comprehension.

The museum ends with a section telling the personal stories of 18 individuals who were born in the 1950s & 60s and remained in Europe. Was this an attempt to display Jewish life post-holocaust? Hopefully not, because in my limited experience with post-war Europe, I know that there are more stories out there ready to be told.


Contrast this museum with the national holocaust memorial in Berlin. Across and down a bit from the Reich/Bundstagg sits a massive square lined with over 2700 rectangular cement blocks of varying height. That’s it. An underground information center graces the Southern edge of the square, and the only plaque or explanation to be found were behavior instructions on the floor asking children not to run or play there. About a block away we found a sign pointing to the “Memorial for the murdered Jews” (in German) but nothing at the actually square.
Gideon maintains that “everyone knows what it is,” while Mara thought (and I agree) that at the very least they could put a sign or a plaque or something.