JMB Journal 18:
Light
The world began with light. And light plays a prominent role in Judaism: it symbolizes the distinction between the sacred and the profane, between knowledge and error. The lighting of a flame is an elementary component of many Jewish rituals.
Light is also the element of two installations that you can currently experience at Jewish Museum Berlin: Both the work res·o·nant by Mischa Kuball in the axes of the Libeskind Building and the walk-in installation Ganzfeld “Aural” by internationally renowned light artist James Turrell. It is no coincidence that we have dedicated our new JMB Journal to the topic of light.
Read about the light in the history of creation, in religion and science, in art and architecture; find out how Jewish rituals can be challenging when it comes to purchasing candles - or when one isn’t allowed to ignite light at all.
In this issue, for our photo series Night Shift, we have portrayed those people who work when it gets dark: the guards and the police who protect the museum at night. In addition, we present the large-scale project Object Days, in which Jews from all over Germany tell their migration stories with the help of souvenirs they have brought with them.
With texts by Peter Schäfer, Michal Friedlander, Léontine Meijer-van Mensch, Thomas de Padova, Hans Wilderotter, Julia Voss, Detlev Weitz, Urs Schreiner and Lenka Reinerová and with photos by Stephan Pramme.
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Discover three image series on the theme of light
Night Shift
They are the first people that any visitors to the Jewish Museum Berlin encounter: the security guards and the police who protect the building and the people inside. But even after all the visitors have long since the premises, the offices empty and the lights have turned off, they are still there. Night at the museum.
Photo Series Night Shift
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“My favorite place at the museum is the main entrance.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“‘What’s the best way to Baden-Württemberg?’ People ask us the strangest things.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“Our main job? Watching, watching, watching.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“Two teenagers tried to sneak into the Garden of Exile one night. They must have thought we wouldn’t see them.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“Actually, one cannot get lost within the Libeskind building.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“When you start to get tired? Coffee helps, or fresh air, or talking with colleagues.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“Lighting is centrally controlled in the exhibition rooms.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
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“There are motion detectors in the basement, the light goes on automatically.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“My favorite place at the museum is the main entrance. There you meet visitors from all over the world, since the museum is truly a meeting place. The first tour buses start arriving early in the morning. I tell the visitors they have to be patient until the museum opens, and I answer their questions. At night, the only people who come by are people out for a lonely stroll, or tired partygoers.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“‘What’s the best way to Baden-Württemberg?’ People ask us the strangest things. If someone comes by at night we observe them.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“After my first night shift I'm dead tired. At home I take my dog for a walk. Outside the city, that's where I can relax.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“At night the only visitor is the fox. He does his shift, just like we do. Precisely at 3:30 am. he always slinks through the garden.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“Two teenagers tried to sneak into the Garden of Exile one night. They must have thought we wouldn’t see them. Then they apologized. We left it at that, or else they would have had a criminal record.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“Actually, one cannot get lost within the Libeskind building. Nonetheless in the beginning it's tricky to find your way around!”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“When you start to get tired? Coffee helps, or fresh air, or talking with colleagues.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“We do the inspection rounds alone. Some of us have been known to come back looking pretty pale! At night your senses are particularly keen. In some rooms you have to be careful about what goes on in your head.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“Lighting is centrally controlled in the exhibition rooms. We have no influence at night, it stays dark. But we have flashlights and radio.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
“At night we check all the rooms. The technology rooms, heating rooms, computer server rooms, the storage depots, and the exhibition space. If water dripped anywhere, for example, and collections got wet, that would be a disaster.”
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme
At the Silversmith’s Workshop
Lamps for ritual use were and still are often wrought very ornately. In 2003, the Jewish Museum Berlin commissioned a silversmith in Hanau to make a Hanukkah menorah using a design from over a century ago.
Photo series At the Silversmith’s Workshop
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The Hanukkah menorah and its more than one-hundred-year-old design on paper.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
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The production of such an artwork is a complex process. Foundryman Mr. Ehrlich first makes a mold from dark sand in which he casts the front and back of the models. This creates a cavity in the sand bed that will later be filled with silver.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Many steps are required beforehand: for example, sprinkling coal dust and shaping powder over the mold.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Mr. Ehrlich sprays a fine mist of water into the sand mold.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Small channels, known as sprues, are carved into the sand mold.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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The silver, heated to over 1000 ºC, is poured into the cavity through these sprues. After it has cooled, Mr. Ehrlich removes the finished casting and passes it on to the silversmith Oswald.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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This is where the Hanukkah menorah is refined: They file away the edges and seams...
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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... and solder the pieces together. Finally, all the individual parts are polished.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Here, one of the workers is tracing the pattern with a hammer and punch to ensure the details on the back are clear.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Some decorations on the menorah are plated in gold.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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Last but not least, all the parts are put together.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
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After four days of work in the foundry and at silversmith's workshop, our Hanukkah menorah is ready.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
The Hanukkah menorah and its more than one-hundred-year-old design on paper.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
The production of such an artwork is a complex process. Foundryman Mr. Ehrlich first makes a mold from dark sand in which he casts the front and back of the models. This creates a cavity in the sand bed that will later be filled with silver.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
Many steps are required beforehand: for example, sprinkling coal dust and shaping powder over the mold.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
The silver, heated to over 1000 ºC, is poured into the cavity through these sprues. After it has cooled, Mr. Ehrlich removes the finished casting and passes it on to the silversmith Oswald.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
This is where the Hanukkah menorah is refined: They file away the edges and seams...
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
... and solder the pieces together. Finally, all the individual parts are polished.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
Here, one of the workers is tracing the pattern with a hammer and punch to ensure the details on the back are clear.
Photo: Gabriele Schwark
The Lamp in Focus
The search term “lamp” produces over 300 results in our online collection, from Hanukkah candlesticks and advertising stamps from the firm Lüsterhaus Weinschenk & Co. to light fittings from about 1910.
There is a lithography from the nineteenth century, lots of lamps and – the odd one out – the Claire Lampel collection.Claire Lampel collection. More than anything else, though, you can find photographs in which the lamp is not only a source of light but a silent observer – presumably not something intended by the photographer. Oh the stories these lamps could tell!
Photo series The Lamp in Focus
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Boris Schmerling with his son Grigroy, the governess Marie Iwanowna Mamayeff, and the large floor lamp that snuck into the picture to allow the unknown photographer to take this shot.
Berlin 1936, Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Günter Nobel
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The Oppler family around the living room table, about 1900, presumably Nuremberg. This cozy image of the family sitting together is composed so that everyone can be seen – even Aunty Lamp: though not invited, she’s always the center of attention.
Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Dr Fortunatus Schnyder-Rubensohn
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How often do you actually read a book together with your loved ones? By the light of a table lamp? Readers are a popular motif – not least because of the obvious light source, which makes it easier for the photographer. Pictured here are Karl Plessner with his daughter Caroline Lesser and a table lamp: three candlesticks with a fabric shade and tassels.
Berlin, around 1915, Jewish Museum Berlin
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Family portrait, or the lamp as a placeholder. Erna Wittkowsky with her son Heinz Ludwig, Berlin, about 1931. In terms of its visual composition, the table lamp with its flowery shade takes the place of a third figure in this image: perhaps that of the father, who was presumably taking the photograph, since Paul Wittkowsky had a lab for amat€ photography. A fourth family member– probably the son Gert – is immortalized as a picture within the picture, and held in the lamp’s embrace.
Berlin around 1931, Jewish Museum Berlin
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Herbert Sonnenfeld, Portrait of a Woman Reading, Berlin, about 1937. This lamp made of parchment, although large, is a rather understated companion: unadorned and not too bright. The real source of light in this image is unidentifiable. Is it a spotlight shining upwards from her left? And another, from the bottom at the front? In any case, several lights are at play here.
Berlin around 1937, Jewish Museum Berlin, purchased with funds provided by Stiftung DKLB
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In the 1950s, lamps were no longer needed as a light source for photographs, which could now be illuminated with a flash. But they nevertheless remained as silent observers. “Watch out for the lamp! We still need it to play table tennis!” Edith Drabkin and an unknown man on a sofa on New Year's Eve.
Stockholm 1957, Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Walter Frankenstein and sons
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Edith Drabkin playing ping pong with a familiar lamp.
Stockholm, about 1960, Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Walter Frankenstein and sons
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Rarely does the lamp occupy center stage, self-assured and entirely alone. This image was taken by the artist Rita Ostrovska in her parents’ apartment in Kyiv the day before their departure for Germany. Was the newspaper wrapped around the body of the lamp for protection during transport? Or did the lamp stay behind? If only it could talk!
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Rita Ostrovska
Boris Schmerling with his son Grigroy, the governess Marie Iwanowna Mamayeff, and the large floor lamp that snuck into the picture to allow the unknown photographer to take this shot.
Berlin 1936, Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Günter Nobel
The Oppler family around the living room table, about 1900, presumably Nuremberg. This cozy image of the family sitting together is composed so that everyone can be seen – even Aunty Lamp: though not invited, she’s always the center of attention.
Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Dr Fortunatus Schnyder-Rubensohn
How often do you actually read a book together with your loved ones? By the light of a table lamp? Readers are a popular motif – not least because of the obvious light source, which makes it easier for the photographer. Pictured here are Karl Plessner with his daughter Caroline Lesser and a table lamp: three candlesticks with a fabric shade and tassels.
Berlin, around 1915, Jewish Museum Berlin
Family portrait, or the lamp as a placeholder. Erna Wittkowsky with her son Heinz Ludwig, Berlin, about 1931. In terms of its visual composition, the table lamp with its flowery shade takes the place of a third figure in this image: perhaps that of the father, who was presumably taking the photograph, since Paul Wittkowsky had a lab for amat€ photography. A fourth family member– probably the son Gert – is immortalized as a picture within the picture, and held in the lamp’s embrace.
Berlin around 1931, Jewish Museum Berlin
Herbert Sonnenfeld, Portrait of a Woman Reading, Berlin, about 1937. This lamp made of parchment, although large, is a rather understated companion: unadorned and not too bright. The real source of light in this image is unidentifiable. Is it a spotlight shining upwards from her left? And another, from the bottom at the front? In any case, several lights are at play here.
Berlin around 1937, Jewish Museum Berlin, purchased with funds provided by Stiftung DKLB
In the 1950s, lamps were no longer needed as a light source for photographs, which could now be illuminated with a flash. But they nevertheless remained as silent observers. “Watch out for the lamp! We still need it to play table tennis!” Edith Drabkin and an unknown man on a sofa on New Year's Eve.
Stockholm 1957, Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Walter Frankenstein and sons
Edith Drabkin playing ping pong with a familiar lamp.
Stockholm, about 1960, Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Walter Frankenstein and sons
Rarely does the lamp occupy center stage, self-assured and entirely alone. This image was taken by the artist Rita Ostrovska in her parents’ apartment in Kyiv the day before their departure for Germany. Was the newspaper wrapped around the body of the lamp for protection during transport? Or did the lamp stay behind? If only it could talk!
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Rita Ostrovska
