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“8 Facts” about the Jewish Feast of Dedication

Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

1
The history of the Jewish Festival of Lights is about the one temple in Jerusalem. To be precise, about its re-consecration (“Hanukkah”) in the year 164 B.C.E. after it had stood for many years under Syrian-Greek control.

2
During this period of foreign rule, two groups were in conflict: on the one side was the Seleucid Empire under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, while on the other side were the courageous Maccabees led by the priest Mattathias and his sons. → continue reading

View of a room of the exhibition GOLEM; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Yves Sucksdorff

Laura (23), Romania, architecture student

What is your impression of the exhibition?

The exhibition is fascinating and creepy at the same time. It makes you believe that the creatures displayed are real. Therefore, the atmosphere is very intense.

Which object or room has impressed you the most?

The room with the mirrors impressed me a lot. First, we were just playing around, which was fun. I could see myself and my friend in the mirror at the same time. But when I think of it now, it could be a metaphor for “looking beyond yourself.”

Do you know a sort of “Golem” from today?

As children, we have toys, dolls, and sometimes imaginary friends. We can talk to them and make them do what we want them to do.

Edgar (49), Germany, computer science

What was your impression of the exhibition? → continue reading

“on.tour” in Prison

Guides discussing exhibition cubes and hands-on material with inmates; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Svea Pietschmann

I had hardly returned from the summer holidays this year when I went straight to “jail!” But don’t worry, my criminal record still has zero entries. Rather, my visit to prison occurred in the context of our so-called “Prison Week.” This was where our mobile education initiative, “on.tour – The JMB tours schools,” visited the juvenile detention centers at Plötzensee and Neustrelitz. These two days gave me the opportunity to gain insight into the young prisoners’ everyday lives. The experiences I had there were incredibly interesting and corrected some ideas I had previously had about correctional facilities.

Cold – grey – dreary: when you think of jail, it’s not the most inviting pictures that come to mind. I was all the more astonished then, when I walked into the juvenile detention center at Neustrelitz. → continue reading