Press Invitation, 22 July 2016

26 February - 31 July

Special Exhibition

No Compromises! The Art of Boris Lurie

The Jewish Museum Berlin is dedicating a major retrospective show to Boris Lurie and his radical artistic examination of the 20th century. Lurie is an artist who demanded political relevance from art and the art market. His much-discussed and controversial works accuse society of shirking coming to terms with its crimes against humanity by packing evidence of them between advertising and everyday banalities. His collages confront the viewer with the experience of persecution and prison camp in the Nazi era, provoking "horror and fascination" (Volkhard Knigge). For Lurie’s work reveals disgust toward a humanity that proved itself capable of exiling and murdering millions as well as revulsion against a self-satisfied art market more interested in financial profit than in artistic expression. His drawings, however, strike a different tone. In "War Series" of 1946, Lurie created an initial inventory of his own experience of persecution and camp imprisonment during the Nazi regime while his "Dancehall Series" of the 1950s and 60s depicts poetic images of his time.

Location: Old Building, first level

Opening Hours: Mon 10 am - 10 pm, Tue - Sun 10 am - 8 pm

Admission: with the museum ticket (8 €, reduced 3 euros)

17 July- 14 August

Special Exhibition

Transcending Tradition - Jewish Mathematicians in German Academic Culture

"Transcending Tradition" presents the lives and works of Jewish mathematicians in Germany. The exhibition is based on new historical research and many previously unpublished documents - starting from the legal and political equality of Jewish citizens in the 19th century to the persecution and expulsion during the Nazi era.

In cooperation with the Technical University Berlin and the History Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt.

The exhibition will be predominantly in English and is held as part of the "7th Congress of the eurospean Mathematical Society."

Location: Libeskind Building, ground level, Eric F. Ross Gallery

Opening Hours: Mon 10 am - 10 pm, Tue - Sun 10 am - 8 pm

Admission: with the museum ticket (8 €, reduced 3 euros)

3 July

Summer Party

This year’s cultural summer program is all about Eastern eurospean and Yiddish culture. At the summer party, a traditional Jewish cabaret follows the "Chernivtsi - Berlin" path, children search for the hole in the bagel at the bakery, the Aletchko quartet plays a wild mix of Yiddish songs, Russian melodies, and flamenco guitar and the "Drei Kantoren" entertain with sacred and secular verve. Be it matryoshka mask-making, souvenir photo-taking, or Yiddish word puzzle-solving - visitors great and small are invited to join the fun in the garden! As culinary accompaniment, the Masel Topf team will be offering "unkosher delights" and Polish Thursday Dinners specialties from its Polish pop-up-fusion cuisine. At the Wolfarth chocolate stand, you can design your own personal ice-cream creation!

Location: Museum Garden

Time: 2 - 7 pm

Admission: free

4 July

Elio Petri - A Quiet Place in the Country

Drama / horror, Italy, 1968, 102 min

Silver Bear winner at the 1969 Berlinale

English original soundtrack with German subtitles

Leonardo Ferri (played by Franco Nero) needs peace and quiet to work on his art. So he moves to the countryside, into a house where a woman was killed during the war - but being there also does not solve the problem, in fact he becomes even more nervous, uncontrolled, and unpredictable. A far too little known masterpiece by Italian director Elio Petri - part horror show in stark atonal sounds, part social grotesque of a sometimes disconcerting, melancholy kind. Like Boris Lurie, Petri holds a distorting mirror up to both the art world, numbed through self reference, and the dull bourgeoisie that worships only the here and now.

Location: Old Building, first level, Education Room

Time: 7.30 pm

Admission: free

6 July

Discussion and Reading as Part of the Series "New German Stories"

Kinder der Befreiung - Perspektiven Schwarzer Deutscher der Nachkriegsgeneration

(Children of the liberation - The perspectives of black Germans of the postwar generation)

The contribution of black soldiers in the liberation of Germany from fascism in World War II is an almost forgotten part of German history and American-German relations. The biographies and voices of black Germans of the post-war generation that are united in the "Kinder der Befreiung" volume give this marginalized history visibility and create alternatives to the dominant narratives.

The editor Marion Kraft and the authors Ika Hügel-Marshall and Judy Gummich provide insight into the experiences of the post-war generation and their parents, into the causes and effects of racism, and into the diverse reality of black people in Germany today.

Moderation: Serpil Polat (Jewish Museum Berlin)

Location: W. Michael Blumenthal Academy, Hall

Time: 7 pm

Admission: free

7 July

Herzl reloaded - It’s No Fairytale

Staged Reading with the Authors and Heio von Stetten as Theodor Herzl

"Dear Dr. Herzl, … you would be hopelessly lost in Israel of today."

What does Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism, still have to say to us today? In a fictitious e-mail exchange, Doron Rabinovici, author and historian who was born in Tel Aviv and lives in Vienna, and his friend Natan Sznaider, who was born in Germany and teaches sociology in Tel Aviv, enter into a trialog with Herzl the visionary, who died in 1904. Rabinovici and Sznaider put Herzl on the spot. How much does his work "The Jewish State" correspond to today’s Israel? Is there such a thing as a Jewish society? How do tradition and start-up modernity merge in Israel? And what is the significance of the memory of the Shoah?

An exciting exchange of views on Judaism, the Israeli present, and the Jewish Diaspora.

A cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation

Live Streaming via Voice Republic: You can listen to this event live and can follow it through our audio recordings: https://voicerepublic.com/talks/herzl-reloaded

Location: Old Building, second level, Great Hall

Time: 7 pm

Admission: free

9 July

Christian Berkel Reads "Tevye the Dairyman"

A Revival on the 100th Anniversary of Sholem Alejchem’s Death

Poor in money but rich in daughters, the dairyman Tevye from the shtetl of Anatevka dreams of an existence without hardship. But in the end he stands alone - a refugee among thousands with nothing but his faith in God and his unwavering humor.

Sholem Alejchem established his reputation as one of the greatest tragicomedians of world literature with "Tevye the Dairyman." Yiddish story of destiny and at the same time historical portent, the novel belongs to the canon of the modern age. Tevye found worldwide fame with the musical adaptation "Anatevka / Fiddler on the roof." Following the reading, Tal Hever-Chybowski, head of the Paris Yiddish Center, and Armin Eidherr, translator of the book, will discuss the significance of the work beyond the shtetl romance.

A cooperation with Manesse Verlag

Location: Glass Courtyard

Time: 6 - 8 pm

Admission: 8 €, reduced rate 6 euros

11 July

Tim Blake Nelson - The Grey Zone

Drama, USA, 2001, 108 min

English original soundtrack with German subtitles

Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944: In the perfectly organized system of the concentration camp, so-called "Sonderkommandos" consisting of Jewish prisoners usher their fellow inmates into the gas chambers. They are forced to lead their fellow sufferers to death for small privileges in their everyday life. This wins them a little more time before they too fall victim to the camp commandant Muhsfeldt’s killing machine. Given this certainty and the excruciating burden of complicity, they plan an armed rebellion in total secrecy - the only one in the history of Auschwitz.

Location: Old Building, first level, Education Room

Time: 7.30 pm

Admission: free

14 July

El Gusto

Film Showing and Discussion with the German-Algerian Musician Momo Djender in German

Documentary, Algeria, France, Ireland, 2012, 88 min

French/Arabic original soundtrack with English subtitles

An exceptional band revival, a homage to tolerance and hope, and a declaration of love to the traditional Algerian Chaâbi music - in "El Gusto," the filmmaker Safinez Bousbia, who was born in Algiers and raised in Switzerland, tells of Jewish and Muslim musicians, who were separated by the history of Algeria 50 years ago. Intrigued by an old photo of the band, Bousbia goes in search of the now 70- to 100-year-olds and reunites them for a concert together. The musicians prove - with their love of Chaâbi and their unwavering friendship - that it’s never too late to overcome borders and to fulfill your dreams.

An event as part of the series: "Jews in Islamic Countries"

Location: W. Michael Blumenthal Academy, Hall

Time: 7 pm

Admission: free

17 July

Jazz in the Garden

Shira Z. Carmel and her Brasserie - Cabaret jazz

On July 17, the musical discovery "Shira Z. Carmel and her Brasserie" will have the Museum Garden swaying to the beat. Shira Z. Carmel is a versatile artist from Jerusalem who explores the sparkle and depths of all things human in her music. Be they in English, Hebrew or Yiddish, Carmel’s songs are about life and death, war and peace, the artistic and the banal, and express the different sides of her Israeli-Jewish identity. She is coming to the museum with her latest musical adventure - Shira Z. Carmel and her Brasserie is an avant-groove-brass band, dancing on the fine line between jazz, art, and pop. In this unusual ensemble, Carmel the singer-songwriter presents her whole musical spectrum from Amy Winehouse covers to Yiddish poems from Birobidzhan set to music.

Location: Museum Garden (in bad weather in the Glass Courtyard)

Time: 11 am - 1 pm

Admission: free

17 July

Keynote

Opening of the Exhibition "Transcending Tradition - Jewish Mathematicians in German-Speaking Academic Culture

The science historian Liba Taub (Cambridge) elucidates the connections between ancient poetry and mathematics in her talk "Mathematics and Culture in Ancient Greece: Poetry, Pythagoreanism and Ancient Jewish Accounts of the Development of Philosophy". The talk will be in English.

Location: Old Building, second, Great Hall

Time: 4 pm

Admission: free

31 July

Jazz in the Garden

Bester Quartet - Klezmer jazz

The Bester Quartet from Krakow is one of the strongest voices of Jewish music in eurospe. The four Bester Quartet musicians are our Jazz in the Garden guests on Sunday 31 July.

As key players in the Radical Jewish Culture series, the four classically-trained Bester Quartet musicians are dedicated to improvisation at the highest level, coupled with rousing compositions and arrangements of traditional melodies. The quartet has already produced eight CDs on John Zorn’s "Tzadik" label and the ninth is eagerly awaited. Look forward to a band famed for its dynamic performances, this time featuring a little Friendship Day surprise.

Location: Museum Garden (in bad weather in the Glass Courtyard)

Time: 11 am - 1 pm

Admission: free