Jewish Museum Vienna

The Jewish Museum Vienna ( Company: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna, abbreviation JMW ) is a museum of Jewish history, Jewish culture and religion in Austria. The museum has two buildings, the Palais Eskeles in Dorotheergasse, and the Mizrachi Jews house space. The exhibition and events program explores the past and present of Jewish culture in Austria.

History

The first Jewish museum, founded in Vienna in 1895 was the world's first of its kind was worn by the "Society for the collection and preservation of art and historical monuments of Judaism ". The museum mainly focused on the culture and history of the Jews in Austria -Hungarian monarchy, especially in Vienna and Galicia, while the collections of objects from Palestine reflected more the political debate on Zionism at that time.

Before 1913, the museum was able to move with 3,400 objects in which the Talmud Torah School Divisions in Leopoldstadt, there had been several moves behind him. Immediately after the annexation of Austria to Germany by the Nazis in 1938, the museum was closed and distributes the objects to the Ethnology Museum, the Natural History Museum and other museums. The Natural History Museum used the new objects to the anti-Semitic exhibition " The physical and mental characteristics of the Jews" to make it. At the beginning of the 1950s, the bulk of the inventory of the Jewish Community Vienna was restituted ( ICG ). Other objects found then in the 1990's their way back into Jewish possession.

On December 31, 1964 a small Jewish museum in the then newly constructed Desider - Friedmann - yard was opened in the temple lane 3, which, however, was hardly noticed by the public. 1967, it was closed for renovations and will not reopen. Announced in 1986, the then Mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, at the opening of the exhibition "Vienna 1900 - Art, Architecture and Design" in New York starting a new Jewish Museum in Vienna. The founding committee was composed among others of well-known representatives of the Austrian Government, the City of Vienna, the Israeli Jewish Community Vienna ( ICG ), the Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein and Helmut Zilk.

Founded in 1988 as a limited company under the leadership of director Christian Cap the museum with the management of Max Berger Collection and the collection of ICG was responsible. 1993 gave the Austrian collector Martin Slack its around 5000 objects counting and a time from 1490 to 1946 spanning Antisemitika collection of the City of Vienna, so that they cataloged the collection and prepared for a major exhibition.

Palais Eskeles

In 1993, the Dorotheum auction house the museum, the Palais Eskeles in Dorotheergasse in Vienna. Julius H. Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European -Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam, has been appointed director of the museum. On November 24, opened in 1994, Paul Grosz, president of the Jewish Community Vienna, the Museum Library. Shortly thereafter, in 1995 and 1996, the Viennese architect office was eichinger or knechtl tasked more exhibition space to create, to enlarge the depot and to make a visitor café and a bookshop for literature in the premises of the Palais Eskeles. In 1998, the museum archive was opened to the public with his ever-growing collection of material about the history of the Jewish Vienna. On 25 October 2000, the second building of the Jewish Museum opened memorial at the unveiling of the Holocaust its doors on Jewish Square. The memorial at the Jewish Square to commemorate the Austrian Jewish victims of the Shoah.

At Judenplatz

The museum at the Jewish Square documented the social, cultural and religious life of the Jews of Vienna in the Middle Ages. It is located in the Mizrachi Jews house Square, the former heart of the Jewish community in medieval Vienna. The exhibition rooms, which were opened on 25 October 2000, are smaller than those in Dorotheergasse and modernized throughout, very bright with polished concrete elements and underground corridors that lead the visitor to the past 4.5 meters below street level foundation of the medieval synagogue. In recent years the museum on Jewish Square was the site of several contemporary art exhibitions with spiritual or specifically Jewish themes, such as installations of the remarkable Austrian artist Zenita Komad and several photo exhibitions, for example, a photo essay by Josef Polleross about Vienna's small but quite flourishing Jewish community.

Renovation

In November 2009, the long-standing ORF journalist Danielle Spera was appointed director of the museum. You came into office with July 2010. In interviews at the time of their appointment, they talked about their plans, the museum for a wider public be made available and to create spaces in which fears and prejudices are broken down and get to know non- Jews, both the traumatic past and the vibrant present of the Jewish community in Austria should. A particular concern was also to reach young people through targeted projects for schools, but also attracting more tourists. " Many things have normalized. But there are still enough people who have difficulties with the word " Jew " to pronounce, and say instead, " our Jewish fellow citizens ". I want to make the museum public, so people can get to know Judaism better, " Spera said in an interview. In order to meet the new orientation of the museum justice, Spera said immediately after taking office, the renovation of the premises in Dorotheergasse top priority. The procurement of funding from official Austrian authorities, as well as for donations to Jewish immigrants in the U.S. were started immediately. The work, which lasted from January to October 2011 included the complete renovation of the technical infrastructure of the museum, as well as modifications of the exhibition space and visitor facilities.

Hologram controversy

During renovation work in Dorotheergasse a set with glass holograms, which showed three-dimensional representations about the Jewish Daily Life in Ancient Vienna, was destroyed in the degradation. An employee of the museum photographed the destroyed holograms and sent them to blogging curators and local media. This was an international outcry resulted and critics thought that here important cultural artifacts would have been destroyed. The museum responded to the allegations with the opinion of a court-appointed expert who noted that the holograms would not be dismantled or removed can without damaging them, as they had been glued already about 15 years earlier. The museum also stated that there is a second set of these holograms, which has not yet been issued, exists and is in perfect condition. This is kept for future exhibitions in the depot.

Reopening

On 19 October 2011, the museum was reopened to great public interest in the new premises Dorotheergasse. The designed to reopen temporary exhibition " Bigger than life - 100 years of Hollywood ," which dealt with the Austrian- Jewish contribution to the U.S. film industry, became a public attraction. During the renovation work, the facade of the palace had been renewed. It was the purpose of the building with the help of a large light installation by the Austrian artist Kowanz in which the word "museum" is projected in Hebrew writing on the wall, highlighted. On the ground floor a bright, spacious foyer has been set up and a spacious exhibition room where the exhibition " Vienna. Jewish Museum. 21st Century " is. This room also houses the " Nancy Spero - Installation of Remembrance" wall frescoes. As of November 19, 2013, the new permanent exhibition "Our city in these premises! Jewish Vienna until now shown ". 25 years after its ( re-) creation and 20 years after his entry into the palace Eskeles the Jewish Museum Vienna sets new standards. On the second floor of the large room for events and the exhibition is being used " Our Town ". Even a small exhibition "From Alef to Tav - From beginning to end ," which documents the Jewish life cycle based on museum objects and everyday objects will be shown at this level.

Also the depot on the second floor has been completely remodeled and now houses the Judaica collection of the museum. There, individual objects are highlighted with windows on the display cases and explains each window is associated with a particular place, such as the " Leopoldstadt Temple " in Vienna. In the display cases in the middle of the room there are exhibits from Austrian and Viennese houses of worship, synagogues and other Jewish institutions, from the Jewish Museum prior to 1938 and to a small extent from private households. The exhibits in the side showcases concentrate on the period after 1945. Here are objects of Judaica Collection Max Berger with Austro- Hungarian focus, the collection of Eli star, which consists mainly of everyday objects from Eretz Israel, and new acquisitions and donations, which the history of the Jewish community in Vienna from 1945 documented to date. The collection of anti-Semitic objects of Martin Slack, which is also on display on the second floor, was positioned in the display cases that the object front page can only be viewed via mirrors on the back walls of the showcases. Thus, the viewer is forced to deal simultaneously with his own mirror image.

Number of

Since its reopening, the museum has seen a record number of visitors, both regular exhibitions, as well as his evening events such as book launches, artist talks and film screenings. Above all, the museum at the Jews could place their visitor numbers over the previous year doubled (2011: 28,000; 2010: 14,000 ), while even tripled the number of visitors at evening events. The total number of visitors of the two houses in 2011 was 59.471 and remained in 2012 with 22,000 visitors up alone in the first quarter. Currently, the Jewish Museum is one of the top 30 attractions in Vienna.

New permanent exhibition

The Jewish Museum Vienna is offering since November 19, 2013 its visitors the new permanent exhibition: "Our city! Jewish Vienna until today. " The journey begins with the year 1945 and leading up to the Vienna Jewish presence. Outlines the hard way a totally destroyed Jewish community, 1938 - was still the largest German -speaking and the third largest in Europe, up to its present manageable, but extremely vivid presence - seven years earlier.