Blogerim

Employees of the Jewish Museum Berlin answer the question.

“My word of the year is ‘diversity’. I haven’t heard or read anything so often this year. Most often at panel discussions, and sometimes seen on the street.”
Julia Jürgens, Events
(editor’s note: See the video documentation on the series of events ‘Visions of Belonging’)

“My word: Besucherfroschung (visitor frogging) – a nice typo that … lept out at me several times while I was editing an academic article on the subject of Besucherforschung (visitor research).”
Christiane Birkert, Visitor Research

“The word Augenscheinseinnahme (visual inspection). I came upon this term while I was researching the Auschwitz trial: it referred to the local inspections at Auschwitz with which the court examined the content of witness statements for their veracity.”
Monika Flores Martínez, Exhibitions

“A corrective – that is, a critical observer – is something everyone needs.”
Katrin Möller, Marketing

“My word of the year is ‘bio-clip-boom,’ which came up in a lecture by Geoffrey Hartman at the Preserving Survivors’ Memories Conference, and it captured for me the intensity of audio-visual self-creation in the era of facebook, youtube, blogs, etc.”
Katharina Obens, Visitor Research
(editor’s note: A brief report on the conference can be found here.)

Employees of the Jewish Museum Berlin answer the question.

“Leo Scheuer’s prayer capsule. He prayed with it his entire life, even during the 15 months that he spent buried in a hole in the ground hiding from the German occupiers.”
Monika Flores Martínez, Exhibitions
(editor’s note: In her blog post from 22. November 2012 Monika Flores Martínez described what she felt while she worked on the presentation of this object in a display case.)

“My thing of the year is a sign with “Forbidden Entrance” written on it, seen in a Viennese stairwell.”
Kai Gruzdz, Library

“My thing of the year is Macrolon – a fabulous material that’s not only light and easy to work with but that also inspires unlimited creativity!”
Katrin Strube, Collection Management

“My thing of the year is a medieval ‘Jewish pig’ statue on a church in Bad Wimpfen. It drew attention in the press after the diocese it belongs to produced a replica and placed the original statue in the state museum there, as a cultural heritage piece. It’s an anti-Jewish caricature, and yet, because it’s historical, deserves protection, raising the question: how much public money should be spent on its restoration?
Naomi Lubrich, Media

Employees of the Jewish Museum Berlin answer the question.

“My public events of the year were the Olympic and the Paralympic Games in London. (An extra: black-striped cross-eyes the next morning.) There were incomparably more pictures of the Paralympics than ever before: the photos of people sprinting with artificial legs had a particular symbolic power for me: flying over hurdles!”
Ines Rösler, Collections
(editor’s note: Our blog posting for the 31. August 2012 was dedicated to Ludwig Guttmann, father of the Paralympics.)

“For me the discussion about the bestowal of the Adorno Prize on Judith Butler was the event of the year, because the verbal chasm between Butler’s style of argumentation and the colloquial style of the critics who questioned her worthiness to receive the prize deeply dismayed me. A few meals with friends during those late summer weeks threatened to turn into evenings of heated discussion, with all the charm of a plenary assembly for ASTA.”
Mirjam Wenzel, Media
(editor’s note: Four days after the Adorno Prize event, on 15. September 2012, a long-planned panel discussion with Judith Butler and Micha Brumlik discussed “Does Zionism Belong to Judaism?”)

“My event of 2012: the Good Friday procession in Perpignan with its bells and drums.”
Johannes Rinke, Visitor Services

The Gregorian calendar, according to which we are now counting the year 2013, begins on circumcisio domini, the day on which Jesus was circumcised. Last year, the act of circumcision was at the center of a political debate which discussed the relationship between non-Jewish Germans, German Jews and Muslims and Jews in Germany. The editors of the Jewish Museum’s website nominate the so-called circumcision debate as the event of the year 2012.

“One event of 2012 is still visible all over the city in 2013: The bancruptcy of the drugstore chain “Schlecker.” Empty store windows on every corner promising better quality of life in the neighborhood. But most will likely end up being storerooms for fitted kitchens.”
Martina Lüdicke, Exhibitions