Why Are Jewish Museums So Boring?
LEIBOWITZ, WENDY
Why Are Jewish Museums So Boring? WENDY LEIBOWITZ We showed this article to several Jewish museum directors who found it "terrible," "destructive" and "unfair." They also urged us not to publish...
...Israeli folk dancing could be held in the sculpture garden...
...In Frankfurt, where Jews numbered 28,000 before the war and number 5,000 today, this museum has a special significance...
...the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam draws thousands of visitors each year...
...Beth Hatefutsoth celebrates the life of the Jewish people in the Diaspora...
...This will show the attack on the Hadassah Hospital convoy in Jerusalem," she said hesitantly...
...A real catered affair...
...The Holocaust, ancient Israel, Hadassah, Dreyfus—it's a hodgepodge...
...It is also often the only Jewish site that Christian pilgrims visit in Israel, and I think it shares the best of Jewish life...
...At Beth Hatefutsoth, you can see elaborate dioramas depicting synagogues of the past, listen to debates on Jewish philosophical issues, and try to trace the origins of your family name using a computer...
...At the very least, some of these techniques could be used to draw people toward a deeper consideration of Jewish culture...
...Yet these commemorate one tragic chapter in Jewish history...
...Perhaps the new museum on the Mall will educate and inspire the way these two other museums do, but I doubt it...
...Today's greatest realistic hope for a good Jewish museum in the Diaspora may be in Germany, of all places...
...While emphasizing that the museum's educational children's programs were quite strong, and that the museum has mounted some good exhibits in the past, the person admitted that "the museum is a serious place...
...On the contrary, I know that after paying a high entrance fee, I will be staring at medieval circumcision implements...
...What they need," said a person who used to be associated with New York's Jewish Museum, "is a unifying exhibit that would attempt to explain why all these disparate, isolated rooms are under one roof...
...London's Jewish Museum is typical...
...I came away not having learned anything about Jewish life in England except that Jews are afraid someone is going to blow up their museum...
...When you check your coat in the cloakroom, could a Jewish tailor make alterations...
...Shouldn't all Jewish museums...
...First of all," said a customer at the Second Avenue Deli, "a Jewish museum should have very good food...
...The curator explains, "This museum is as much for non-Jews as for Jews...
...I feel I should go, not because I expect a Jewish museum to be more interesting or beautiful than a flower market...
...Do I go because I want to support the Jewish community by-paying a scalper's price for a ticket...
...For lively exhibits on Jewish life, one need look no further than Beth Hatefutsoth, the "House of the Diaspora" in Tel Aviv...
...The final room of the museum contains a deathly white plaster version of George Segal's sculpture, The Holocaust...
...If they had filmed one of my Hadassah chapter meetings," she snorted, "you'd have really seen sparks fly...
...Jewish museums are as heavy as Jewish food," said an art dealer in New York, an avid museum-goer, who has visited the Jewish Museum twice in 30 years...
...I wonder how Christians would feel if they came to a Christian museum and stood behind a red felt rope to look at a Christmas tree...
...The exhibits are part propaganda, part fundraisers, part teachers...
...We are explaining a way of life that may be completely foreign to our visitors...
...This museum will mean "Am Yisrael C/ia/"—the people of Israel live...
...Our museum will focus on'Frankfurt from a Jewish perspective...
...But this is not a reason not to have a museum...
...They also urged us not to publish it...
...It will be housed in a palace that used to belong to the Rothschild family...
...But in my view, the trend in Jewish museums is not toward sharing the joys and strengths of Jewish life, nor exploring the depth of Jewish faith, culture, history, intellectual endeavors or achievements in any field...
...I had to consciously reassure myself that Judaism was not dead...
...This is the museum that bills itself as "the largest institution in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to preserving and interpreting Jewish culture...
...The collection is presided over by a delightful, friendly curator who activates a video presentation on Jewish life...
...Its director, Eli Ben-Gal, refuses to refer to the Diaspora Museum as a museum, since "a museum holds objects of value belonging to a dead culture...
...The lady sighed, bored...
...It's like looking through a distorted mirror: "Is this what Jews are...
...Wc waited for something to be attacked...
...But menorahs, mezuzahs and candlesticks look the same across the Atlantic as they do in the colonies...
...We don't know how to see ourselves as others sec us...
...Do I go because I hate flower markets...
...This museum is making us miss the flower market, you know...
...And of course, if you happen to be Jewish, and already know what thc\ holidays are, the museum doesn't address itself to you...
...Pine tree, circa 8th century," the catalog would read...
...Where is the rest of it...
...While I think it is important never to forget the past— and the Holocaust casts a dark and inescapable shadow over the Jewish present—I am uncomfortable at the expense and narrow subject matter of these museums...
...The director, Georg Heuberger, seems aware of the pitfalls and challenges of such a museum...
...the display is not aesthetically pleasing...
...See "Thank You, Wendy Leibowitz...
...An older lady stopped and watched the movie with me...
...It's not very lively...
...The text is not well written...
...If it were, I would not be looking through thick glass at Torah bells ("finials," said the catalog), thinking that they look exactly like the ones wc use today in our temple...
...The mind reels...
...How could Jewish life be infused into a Jewish museum...
...I have no intention of setting foot in it...
...It will show Jewish life in Frankfurt in all its richness, symbolizing the fact that Jewish life is not something that belongs to the past, or a shameful part of German history...
...I guess I also feel oddly grateful that places should bother to have Jewish museums at all, especially since they are usually so boring...
...It consists of one room containing many valuable objects that are pretty in a "temple gift shop" sort of way...
...I wandered through and stopped to watch a video, which was running continuously without any label or narration to explain what it was supposed to illustrate...
...Instead, New York City will erect a SI50 million museum to commemorate the Holocaust...
...They look like remnants of a dead culture, carefully preserved for archaeologists and tourists to look at and wonder about the people, long ago, who used these things for their ancient tribal rites...
...After several devastatingly disappointing visits to Jewish museums in different cities, I still maintain a shred of hope that someday a Jewish museum will mount an exhibit that might touch me in some way...
...In D.C., this memorial will be located on the Mall, near two gems of museums dedicated to African and Asian art...
...Later this year, the city of Frankfurt will open the first Jewish museum in Germany...
...When I find myself in a city with a Jewish museum, I feel obligated to 'go and see it, usually over the vociferous protests of my traveling companions, who accompany mc muttering, "This stupid religion...
...Similarly, Washington, D.C., is spending S100 million for a national museum dedicated to the victims of the Nazis...
...On my last visit to the Jewish Museum in New York, all they had was a display of old pottery sherds called "Israel in Antiquity," a room full of coins and five rooms of photographs of Hadassah projects, paid for by—surprise—Hadassah...
...When I came out of the museum, I was excited and wanted to learn more about my people's history...
...You could have Woody Allen movies showing continuously," said someone on line to see "New York Stories...
...The video shows Orthodox Jews dressed in medieval ghetto style celebrating various holidays...
...So we asked an expert, Tom L. Freudenheim, assistant secretary of museums of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to respond...
...It is true at times that we don't present Jewish tradition on a high aesthetic level," he acknowledged...
...It is a pile of dead bodies with one figure standing at a barbed wire fence...
...The residence was partially destroyed by bombing during World War II, but will be completely restored for the Jewish museum...
...It u important for non-Jews to be exposed to Jewish culture, even if it's only to Orthodox Jewish culture...
...I subject myself to the ordeal because I am intrigued by the idea of Judaism under glass...
...The exhibits on display in Toledo, Spain and in Rome are static: pottery, coins and menorahs again...
...Paris recently erected a memorial to the Holocaust in the Marais quarter...
...No, doctors and nurses continued to smile and drive around Jerusalem...
...origin unclear...
...But if the exhibits are weak, doesn't that worthy idea backfire...
...The Jewish museum, surrounded by the green lawns of Tel Aviv University, is a center of Jewish life...
...Used to celebrate ancient birth rite...
...I left, disgusted and depressed...
...He asked to remain anonymous because he said he would be "crucified" for his criticism of the museum...
...The most interesting aspect of the museum for me was the elaborate security system visitors must pass through to enter the building, including two heavy sets of metal doois and an intimidating intercom...
Vol. 14 • October 1989 • No. 6
