Special Exhibitions and Cultural Program in January, February and March 2012

Special Exhibitions

How German is it? 30 Artists’ Notion of Home

Celebrating Ten Years of the Jewish Museum Berlin

Is there such a thing as a national identity? How do they see themselves, the citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany and the people from other countries who live in Berlin, Munich, or Frankfurt – whether they grew up in West or East Germany, whatever religion they practice, whether their origins are Russian, Turkish, or something else? The exhibition shows works by thirty artists on these themes. Eight works were commissioned exclusively for the exhibition and created by the following artists: Azra Akšamija, Arnold Dreyblatt, Via Lewandowsky and Durs Grünbein, Anny and Sibel Öztürk, Julian Rosefeldt, Misha Shenbrot, Lilli Engel and Raffael Rheinsberg, and Paul Brody.

When: until 29 January 2012

Where: Old Building, first level

Admission: 4 €, reduced rate 2 euros

Berlin Transit: Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s

The New Special Exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin

After the First World War, Berlin was a place of refuge and a way station for tens of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe, most of them refugees from Russia, Lithuania, and Galicia, escaping war, pogroms, or revolution. The city remained a center of Jewish migration in Europe for more than a decade.

Jewish culture in Berlin blossomed with the community of Eastern European migrants, at home in many languages and with diverse networks. The exhibition invites visitors to explore the traces and fragments left by this multifaceted chapter of Berlin’s migratory history – through photos, books, audios, family mementos, paintings, and films from this period.

The exhibition by the Jewish Museum Berlin Foundation and the research project "Charlottengrad and Scheunenviertel: Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s" at the Eastern Europe Institute of the Free University of Berlin.

Opening: 22 March 2012, 7 pm

Running time: 23 March to 15 July 2012

Where: Old Building, first level

Admission: 4 €, reduced rate 2 euros

A lavishly illustrated exhibition catalog supplemented by 11 essays by renowned academics will be published by Wallstein Publishers.

The exhibition will commence with a symposium and conclude with a concert by Jascha Nemtsov and Tehila Nini Goldstein.

When: 24 March 2012

Program Surrounding the Special Exhibition "How German is it?"

Weimar – the Future Jerusalem?

Panel Discussion with the Activists of the "Medinat Weimar" Committee

Moderated by Cilly Kugelmann

The art action "Medinat Weimar" by Ronen Eidelman campaigns for the establishment of a Jewish state in Thuringia. The installation in the "How German is it?" exhibition overthrows the distinction between exhibition and public space, between art action and political campaign. "Medinat Weimar" considers itself a solution to political conflicts, be they in Israel or the state of Thuringia.

When: 14 January 2012, 3 pm

Where: Old Building, first level, Education room

Admission: free

Through Kreuzberg with Arnold Dreyblatt

Part of the Series "On Home Territory. Walks with Artists from the Exhibition through their Home Districts"

The American artist Arnold Dreyblatt first came to Berlin in 1983 and from here went on numerous journeys in search of his family’s roots in Eastern Europe. What he found on these journeys flowed into the installation "My Baggage," a multimedia work on the history of his family with the stations White Russia, Berlin, and the USA. On this walk, the artist visits spots of particular significance to him and his historical research.

When: 22 January 2012, 11 am

Meeting point: Mariannenplatz, foyer of the "Künstlerhaus Bethanien"

Cost: 7 €, reduced rate 5 euros

Bookings for (non-journalists) on tel. +49 (0)30 25993 488 or reservierung@jmberlin.de

Monday Movies

Neukölln Unlimited

Documentary film by Agostino Imondi und Dietmar Ratsch (D 2010, 96 mins)

Away from the usual clichés about immigrants in problem areas, this documentary tells of the everyday lives of siblings Hassan, Lial, and Maradonna, who fight for their family’s right to stay in Germany.

When: Monday 9 January 2012, 7.30 pm

Deutschland 09

13 Short Films on the State of the Nation

Series of films with contributions by Fatih Akin, Wolfgang Becker, Sylke Enders, Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler, Romuald Karmakar, Nicolette Krebitz, Dani Levy, Angela Schanelec, Hans Steinbichler, Isabelle Stever, Tom Tykwer, and Hans Weingartner (D 2009, 152 mins).

"The film ‘Deutschland 09’ unites a good dozen individual cinematic viewpoints on what we see as home now, today – and how we find our way, lose it, and become entangled." (Tom Tykwer)

When: Monday 23 January 2012, 7.30 pm

The following applies to all events in the Monday Movies series:

Where: Auditorium on ground level

Admission free with seat ticket only (available at the cash desk).

Ticket reservation (for non-journalists) on tel. +49 (0)30 25993 488 or reservierung@jmberlin.de

Long Museum Night

Special Public Tour through the Permanent Exhibition:

Frederick the Great "Each after his own fashion...?"

The focus of the 30th Long Museum Night is Frederick the Great’s 300th birthday. The Jewish Museum Berlin is dedicating a new tour to this theme, exploring Frederick the Great’s contradictory immigration and religious politics and the ensuing discussion amongst Prussian Jews on ways of bringing their Judaism into line with the requirements of the Prussian state. A concluding look at the work of art entitled "Alien" by Candice Breitz invites examination of the "outsider" theme.

When: 28 January 2012, 6.30 to 10 pm every half hour

Duration: 30 to 40 minutes. Numbers are limited.

The Jewish Museum is open until 2 am on Long Museum Night

Admission: from 6 pm with the Long Museum Night ticket, 15 €, reduced rate 10 euros

Ticket reservation (for non-journalists) at www.museumsportal-berlin.de

Cultural Program

Giorgio Sacerdoti: "Falls wir uns nicht wiedersehen..." (In case we never meet again...)

Book Presentation with the Author

Over 100 letters from the years 1938 to 1945 are the focus of this book on the fate of the Klein family from Cologne. The family’s emigration to the Netherlands did not save them – only the daughter, Ilse, who had left for Paris back in 1933, survived. Giorgio Sacerdoti, professor for human rights in Milan, is Ilse Klein’s eldest son. Over a period of many years, he collected letters, documents, and information on the fate of his mother’s family. The letters bear witness to a life of persecution – and they document lives that often ended in annihilation as traps frequently awaited Jewish-German immigrants also in the countries to which they fled.

Moderation and introduction by the historian Ernst Piper.

A cooperation with the Italian Culture Institute in Berlin.

When: 16 January 2012, 7.30 pm

Where: Old Building, second level, Great hall

Admission: free

Jochanan Shelliem: Begegnung mit einem Mörder (Encounter with a murderer)

Audio Book Presentation with the Author and the Actor Jürgen Holtz

Adolf Eichmann was captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960. In the police interrogation before the trial, he presented himself as a humanist and a philosemite, in Jerusalem as an obedient bureaucrat. Jochanan Shelliem combines previously unreleased live recordings from the Israeli police interrogation with original sounds from Argentina. An audio document of great force and intensity.

With words of welcome by Andreas-Peter Weber (program director at Deutschlandradio) and an introduction by Monika Künzel (managing editor at Deutschlandradio). The actor Jürgen Holtz reads statements of contemporary witnesses.

A cooperation with "Der Audio Verlag," Berlin.

When: 27 January 2012, 7.30 pm

Where: Old Building, ground level, Auditorium

Cost: 5 €, reduced rate 3 euros

Bookings (for non-journalists) on tel. +49 (0)30 25993 488 or reservierung@jmberlin.de

"Welchen der Steine du hebst" (Which of the stones you lift)

Cinematic Commemorations of the Holocaust

Book Presentation with the Editors Claudia Bruns, Asal Dardan, and Anette Dietrich

Public commemoration of the Holocaust occurs through film media more today than ever before. The anthology "Which of the stones you lift" deals extensively with cinematic commemorations of the Holocaust from the beginnings to the present day. The contributions are concerned with examples of film that throw a critical light on iconographic patterns, that include commemorative politics, and that raise questions about the possibilities and limits of commemoration: How has the cinematic commemoration of persecution and Nazi mass murders changed in the course of over 60 years? Alongside European Jews, the anthology also considers other victim groups such as Sinti and Roma (gypsy groups), blacks, and homosexuals.

Introduction by the cultural scientist Thomas Macho on the representation of violence. Including film clips, analyses, and concluded by a reception.

The project was sponsored by the Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future Foundation.

When: 5 March 2012, 7.30 pm

Where: Old Building, ground level, Auditorium

Admission: free

Zeruya Shalev: "Für den Rest des Lebens" (For the rest of our lives)

Book Presentation with the Author and the Actress Maria Schrader

The bestseller author Zeruya Shalev tells in her new novel of our fateful connection to place, time, and above all the family into which we are born. The greater the centrifugal forces of anger, disappointment and grief, the more we are drawn to them. The novel’s protagonist hopes to adopt a child and start anew. But her dream threatens to blast exactly what it is supposed to save – her family.

In cooperation with the Literaturhandlung.

When: 19 March 2012, 7.30 pm

Where: Old Building, second level, Great hall

Cost: 9 €, reduced rate 7 euros

Ticket reservation (for non-journalists) at the Literaturhandlung on tel. +49 (0)30 8824 250