Jewish Museum Berlin 'Jew in a Box' Exhibit Ridiculous

By Sally Burnette on April 16, 2013

If you haven’t heard about the Jewish Museum Berlin’s new exhibit “The Whole Truth… Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jews,” not-so-affectionately called “Jew in a Box” by critics, it’s a special exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin that addresses the thirty most common questions people have asked about Jews since the museum opened.  One of the sections of this exhibit features an actual German Jew sitting in a glass box answering people’s questions.

I had read about this a few weeks ago and couldn’t believe it, so when I was in Berlin, I made it a point to see it for myself.  And…okay.  I’ll try and start with a good thing: yes, there is an opportunity for Germans to talk to a bona fide, self-proclaimed Jew.  And the rest of the exhibit is pretty informative and accessible to people of all ages.  But, if the whole point is to present “the whole truth” about Jews, how is a dude in a box remotely authentic?  The museum is further alienating the people whose culture they’re trying to make familiar by treating the culture as something exotic or weird that needs to be in a museum.

Whoa, Jews wear hats?! So exotic!

My first reaction to seeing a person in this context inside a glass box was reminiscent of footage I had seen of the Jerusalem trial of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, which Benjamin Weinthal talks about in his article about the exhibit.

That aside, I think we all remember what happened last time German Jews were put under scrutiny in a metaphorical glass box, right?  The population of Jews in Germany is so small now that they don’t really need help feeling more estranged, more like an exhibit in a museum, than they already do.  What if, instead of making Jewishness some abstract fetish, the Jewish Museum Berlin humanized Jews by referring Germans to Jewish cultural centers?   “Jews will be happy to answer questions without sitting in a glass box.”

 

Further reading:

Voice of America

CBC News

The New Yorker

Jezebel

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