The Jewish Museum In Berlin

In the heart of Berlin stands one of the most outstanding institutions within the European museum landscape. The mission of the Jewish museum is to allow people (with a specific attention to the new generations) to reflect on the Jewish past and present in Germany through immersive experiences. An exhibition that particularly stood out to us was INNER­LAND by Alexander Stublić, located in the Virtual Reality Media section of the museum.

Although this is a temporary installation, we believe that when sound, light, and visual technology come together to produce art, the implications are powerful and long lasting. The exhibition is set up represent a deconstructed orchestra that is reassembled to form new perspectives before the viewer. The concert recording is a piano concerto by Viktor Ullmann. Because of his parentsʼ Jewish ancestry, the composer was deported to the The resienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp in 1942, where he created a lot of his works. He was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. A project team from the Siemens Arts Program has made it their mission to raise awareness of the music of this composer, who was ostracized by the National Socialists and whose music was not well known until this exhibition. The Jewish Museum in Berlin continues to raise awareness for Jewish artists even after their passings.

An installation that also really struck us about Moses Mendelssohn. In mid-18th century Berlin, a process began which was to fundamentally change Jewish life throughout Germany: Jews moved out of the isolation in which they had been living, calling age-old traditions and ways of thinking into question and adopting the language, culture, and conventions of their surrounding environment. Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), the great philosopher of European Enlightenment, played a crucial role in furthering this development. I found Moses particularly interesting because he strove to create a world where there is tolerance and peace throughout all religions. Moses says, “What a happy world we would be living in if all people would embrace and practice the Truth that the best Christians and the best Jews have in common.” This quote supports Moses’ findings and philosophy in hopes of spreading a new generation of Jews. Moses is now known as the first Modern German Jew. The Jewish Museum of Berlin is a very modern Jewish museum which strives to keep up with the modern Jewish culture by learning and spreading knowledge about current and historical Jewish teachings.