Our Cultural Program in August 2017

In the 1950s and 1960s, style icons like Grace Kelly wore the headscarf as a fashion accessory. Today, religious context is the main reason why women cover their hair.

These traditions go back to ancient times, when status and fashion determined which women were veiled. Hair is still regarded as too intimate to be shown publicly by many cultures. Today, women in Judaism and Islam find new ways to combine their religious traditions with a modern lifestyle. Conflicts in masculine societies are inevitable; the boundaries of what is acceptable are under constant negotiation.

13 July – 27 August 2017

Art and Encounter Project The Blue Room

Twenty artists and art fans from 12 nations—a large number of whom have refugee backgrounds—have met in a room painted blue in the museum's baroque old building every week since the beginning of this year to get to artistic grips with the theme "Dialog." The results of this exciting art and encounter project will now be shown in the The Blue Room for six weeks.

The project is supported by the Friends of the Jewish Museum Berlin.

Summer Vacation Treasure Hunt 2.0

App through the Museum

From 20 July Every Thursday During the Summer Holidays, 10 am to 3 pm

Our rally begins right at the heart of the universe – what do the sun, the moon, and the earth have to do with our calendar? And why does the year 5778 begin already in September? The Actionbound App has plenty of exciting puzzles to solve and new discoveries in store for you. Following the treasure hunt, you will create your own calendar to remind you of important birthdays and future plans – and of this fun day spent at the Jewish Museum Berlin!

For children of 7–10 years

5 August, 6 pm | Cultural Summer Program | Reading in German

Incredibly Clever: Iris Berben Reads Paula Buber

Paula Buber's almost unknown work should be understood against the backdrop of the radical upheaval of her epoch. In close collaboration with her husband, Martin Buber, she was involved in the design of some of his most famous works. A self-proclaimed "philozionist," she already published her own works in 1901. Under the pseudonym Georg Munk, she wrote stories and the novel Muckensturm which portrays the beginnings of Nazism in a small German town.

In the presence of Paula Buber's great-granddaughter, Tamar Goldschmidt, actress Iris Berben will read selected texts and previously unpublished letters. Katharina Baur, literary scholar, will tell of this unusual woman's life.

13 August, 11 am | Cultural Summer Program

Jazz in the Garden: ILLAY

ILLAY comes from Israel, lives in Berlin, and finds inspiration wherever joy encounters melancholy. Cellist and singer ILLAY's haunting lyrics and unusual compositions create music that invite you to dance as much as to contemplate. She will be bringing her band, a selection of her favorite songs, and a foretaste of her first solo album.

With activities for children: During the concert the children can bake Matzah.

Next date for Jazz in the Garden during the Cultural Summer Program: 27 August – Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik: Alfama

14 August, 7 pm | Monday Movies

Preview: A Bag of Marbles

Directed by Christian Duguay, France, Czech Republic, Canada 2017, 110 min, cinema launch on 17 August 2017. German version.

Joseph Joffo's life story A Bag of Marbles is school literature in France. The moving film adaptation tells of Joseph and Maurice, the brothers from Paris who defy resistance entering the unoccupied zone of southern France during their flight in 1941.

The performance of the two young actors Dorian Le Clech and Batyste Fleurial Palmieri, who play alongside renowned colleagues such as Patrick Bruel (The First Name) and Christian Clavier (Monsi€ Claude and his Daughters), is particularly impressive.

A cooperation with Weltkino Filmverleih.

19 August, from 6 pm | Cultural Summer Program

Long Museum Night: Jewy & Daring!

On Long Museum Night, we will celebrate women and men who have defied rigid social roles – with express tours through the exhibition Cherchez la femme and a peek behind the scenes.

Meet the photographers Ellen Auerbach and Yva, Felice Schragenheim aka Jaguar from Aimée and Jaguar, and the first female rabbi, Regina Jonas. "Einstein of Sex" Magnus Hirschfeld also explored the boundaries of gender and identity. In the Glass Courtyard, we will show scenes from the highly-acclaimed Amazon series Transparent and ask ourselves what makes the Pfeffermans' story so "jewy, queer, daring and political." Zohar Melin Ezra and Afek Testa Launer bring their new documentary series Spectrums to Berlin, which shows portraits of people from the transgender community in Israel.

Screenings and talks in the Glass Courtyard in German and English

27 August, 11 am | Cultural Summer Program

Jazz in the Garden: Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik | Alfama

The singer, poet, and discoverer Noëmi Waysfeld is deeply familiar with the songs of exiles and uprooted people throughout Europe, and alternates effortlessly between cultures, repertoires, and languages. The album Alfama is her latest adventure.

Born in Paris, Waysfeld and her congenial Trio Blik journey with us to Lisbon and reinterpret the longing of Fado – in Yiddish.

With activities for children: During the concert the children can bake Matzah and paint like Charlotte Salomon.

30 August, 7 pm | Book Presentation and Discussion | Academy Program

The Muslim and the Jew. A Story of Rescue in Berlin

In Der Muslim und die Jüdin (The Muslim and the Jew), Ronen Steinke tells how the Egyptian physician Mohammed Helmy managed to save his young Jewish patient Anna Boros from deportation in Berlin. Helmy, who lived in Berlin until his death in 1982, was honored for this by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial as one of 25,000 Righteous Among the Nations, who succeeded in saving Jews during World War II.

To reconstruct the true story, Steinke, editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, talked to the descendants of Helmy and Boros and researched in family archives in Cairo and New York.

A cooperation with Berlin Verlag.

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