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Readers of our blog may be interested to learn that from 5 May to 3 September, the Museum in the Kulturbrauerei is hosting the exhibition Shalom. 3 Photographers Look at Germany. Holger Biermann | Rafael Herlich | Benyamin Reich. Here is a snippet from the exhibition announcement:

A kosher food store in Berlin, a rabbi’s family with a new-born, police officers standing guard at a Frankfurt synagogue – scenes from everyday Jewish life in Germany. These photographs by Holger Biermann, Rafael Herlich and Benyamin Reich from 2000 to 2015 document Jewish life and culture from different perspectives – not only showing children in a Talmud School or practicing Jews celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but also anti- Semitic graffiti daubed on a synagogue.

The exhibition encourages visitors to engage with the question: How far is Jewish life taken for granted as a normal part of German society 70 years after the Shoah?

Opening times: Tues-Sun 10 am–6 pm, Thurs 10 am–8 pm
Free admission

More information, on supplementary offerings for example, can be found on the website of the Museum in the Kulturbrauerei (in German).

One hundred and sixty-one years ago today Sigmund Freud was born. In honor of his birthday we would like to recommend a video by Nurit Yedlin, which discusses the founder of psychoanalysis with the aid of a miniature version of Freud’s study in Vienna.

A film by Nurit Yedlin, Tel Aviv, 2016

For 47 years Freud treated his patients in the study reproduced here, before emigrating to London via Paris with his family after the Nazi annexation of Austria in June of 1938.

If you’re in a more playful mood you can address the question of what you actually see when you lie on that couch — in an online game on our website that we developed here at the Jewish Museum Berlin for a past exhibition on psychoanalysis. You will find further documentation of that show as well as publications on Freud and his work at www.jmberlin.de/en/sigmund-freud

Have fun browsing!

Of Persian fairy tales and female self-determination

Artist Mandana Moghaddam standing next to her sculpture Chelgis I in the exhibition Cherchez la femme. Wig, Burqa, Wimple; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Yves Sucksdorff

In the course of the new exhibition Cherchez la femme – which deals with the covering of women within the idea of the monotheism of the three leading religions – we spoke with Iranian artist Mandana Moghaddam. Her artwork Chelgis (pronounced “Gelgis”) contributes to the concept of the exhibition in an impressive way and further stimulates the viewers’ own contemplation on the subject. Just in time for the exhibition’s opening we conducted a short interview with Mandana Moghaddam:

Dear Ms. Moghaddam, would you tell us a little bit about your artwork and the story of Chelgis?

I began my work by thinking of contemporary womens’ issues, examining them from different angles. When I drew the first sketch I saw the story of Chelgis – which means “40 braids” – right in front of me. → continue reading