My visit to the Jewish Museum began somewhat inauspiciously. Lured by the prospect of chicken soup (aka Jewish penicillin) to get me over the flu, I headed straight for the cafe, only to find that there wasn’t any.
“Where better to experience Jewish culinary traditions from around the world than at the Jewish Museum cafe?” says the website. This unhappy episode set the tone for my visit to the museum.
Much has been made of the new Jewish Museum, which opened on 17 March after a £10m redevelopment.
The museum – the only one in London dedicated to a minority group – has great ambitions: engaging with people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths; exploring contemporary social issues relating to immigration and settlement; taking a stand against racism and building interfaith understanding and connections.
The redevelopment has tripled the museum’s space, enabling it to showcase its world-class collections and provide an inspirational place for people to explore Jewish culture, heritage and identity – not least in the context of British history.
The collections and the museum’s ethos draw on its two former manifestations: the Jewish Museum, which was established in 1932 to explore the practice of Judaism in England; and the London Museum of Jewish Life in Finchley, which was founded in 1983.
Its original aim was to rescue and preserve the disappearing heritage of London’s East End – the heartland of Jewish settlement in Britain – but it was later expanded to reflect the diverse roots and social history of London Jews, including the experiences of refugees from Nazism. The museum also developed an acclaimed programme of Holocaust and anti-racist education.
Between 1995 and 2007, what had become the combined Jewish Museum was spread across two locations. The new museum marks the bringing together of these collections, activities and displays at the single, expanded and refurbished Camden site.
Much of the space is dedicated to the new 100-seat auditorium, the education space, the cafe, shop and a changing exhibitions gallery. (The first exhibition, on Hebrew manuscripts, opens on 25 June.) There appears to be little room left to display the collections.
The ground floor features the Welcome Gallery, a permanent multimedia display that introduces several Jews living in Britain today.
They include a fourth-generation smoked-salmon manufacturer, a taxi-driver, a sixth-former and an ex-army engineer, commended for her action during the London bombings of 2005. The display is intended to highlight the diversity of their backgrounds, experiences and opinions.
Faith and practice
The first- and second-floor displays are dedicated to the history of Jews in Britain – one of the country’s oldest minorities – from the earliest known settlement of 1066 through to the present day.
Star features include the evocation of a Jewish East End street (permeated by the smell of chicken soup from a typical immigrant kitchen) and a number of other poignant displays.
These include those about the 10,000 unaccompanied children who came to Britain on the Kindertransport in the 1930s, and stories of the other immigrants who have arrived from all over the world, including Iran, Iraq and India.
The interactives include a map exploring the history of Jewish settlement around the UK; dressing up for the Yiddish theatre, karaoke and wedding photos; and a discovery table in the Living Community display.
Judaism: a Living Faith showcases the museum’s outstanding collection of Jewish ceremonial art and explores Judaism as a living religious tradition, and its ethics and values. The gallery looks at Jewish religious practice and traditions in the home and synagogue.
Familiar objects include magnificent Torah decorations; silver Hanukah lamps and Passover plates. This gallery has an interactive Torah display, films featuring families celebrating Jewish festivals and a model synagogue.
The Holocaust Gallery is dedicated to the story of Auschwitz survivor, Leon Greenman. He was born in London’s East End, but lived with his family in the Netherlands.
Unable to prove their British nationality, Leon’s wife and son were murdered at Auschwitz. He survived six concentration camps and, until his death in 2008, spoke to thousands of young people as a witness of the Holocaust. Filmed testimonies from four other survivors who settled in Britain are included in the display.
Like the personal accounts in the Wellcome Gallery, the Holocaust testimonies are among the most effective in the museum. It’s not just because of their immediacy, but the fact that the museum provides enough space and somewhere to sit, allowing you to take them in properly.
Elsewhere, the crowding of the galleries prevents you from doing that. The displays in the old Jewish Museum were enhanced by their intimacy, but I found that many of the spaces in the new museum were too tight.
Visitor experience
Maintaining and improving on its visitor numbers is going to be important for the museum, which needs to double its attendance from 30,000 to 65,000 a year. Its success will depend on the quality of the visitor experience, as well as effective income generation.
Having gone in and out of the museum a couple of times on the same day, no one either offered to sell me a ticket or check that I had one. On my second visit to the cafe, I bought an expensive cup of tea that had been made with curdled soya milk.
Aspects of the museum’s management need improving: its communications are poor, its frontline staff need better training, and its housekeeping could be improved: the women’s lavatory was a mess – the floor was wet and all the towels had run out. Also, the entrance hall was stacked high with cardboard boxes.
Some of the museum’s tone also bothered me. I found various passages of interpretation, designed “to engage visitors of all ages”, patronising.
This had a lot to do with poorly conceived questions such as: “Can you guess what [19th-century shoppers] need to buy from the peddler?” and: “Imagine you are a parent forced to send your children away to safety. How do you think you would feel? What would you pack for them to take?”
Whether or not the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow set the standard for museums dealing with religion and culture, the new Jewish Museum begs a number of questions about what such institutions might, or might not, be able to achieve.
An overriding characteristic of the museum is a pervasive poignancy: there is little that either questions or is critical of Judaism today. The Jewish Museum has a long way to go before it’s likely to engage with people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths.
Sara Selwood is an independent consultant
Cost £10m
Main funder Heritage Lottery Fund £4.2m
Exhibition design Event
Architects Long & Kentish
Lighting DHA Design
Display cases Meyvaert
AV Centre Screen Productions
Exhibition fit-out Realm Projects
IT interactives Atacama
Display case Click Netherfield
“Where better to experience Jewish culinary traditions from around the world than at the Jewish Museum cafe?” says the website. This unhappy episode set the tone for my visit to the museum.
Much has been made of the new Jewish Museum, which opened on 17 March after a £10m redevelopment.
The museum – the only one in London dedicated to a minority group – has great ambitions: engaging with people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths; exploring contemporary social issues relating to immigration and settlement; taking a stand against racism and building interfaith understanding and connections.
The redevelopment has tripled the museum’s space, enabling it to showcase its world-class collections and provide an inspirational place for people to explore Jewish culture, heritage and identity – not least in the context of British history.
The collections and the museum’s ethos draw on its two former manifestations: the Jewish Museum, which was established in 1932 to explore the practice of Judaism in England; and the London Museum of Jewish Life in Finchley, which was founded in 1983.
Its original aim was to rescue and preserve the disappearing heritage of London’s East End – the heartland of Jewish settlement in Britain – but it was later expanded to reflect the diverse roots and social history of London Jews, including the experiences of refugees from Nazism. The museum also developed an acclaimed programme of Holocaust and anti-racist education.
Between 1995 and 2007, what had become the combined Jewish Museum was spread across two locations. The new museum marks the bringing together of these collections, activities and displays at the single, expanded and refurbished Camden site.
Much of the space is dedicated to the new 100-seat auditorium, the education space, the cafe, shop and a changing exhibitions gallery. (The first exhibition, on Hebrew manuscripts, opens on 25 June.) There appears to be little room left to display the collections.
The ground floor features the Welcome Gallery, a permanent multimedia display that introduces several Jews living in Britain today.
They include a fourth-generation smoked-salmon manufacturer, a taxi-driver, a sixth-former and an ex-army engineer, commended for her action during the London bombings of 2005. The display is intended to highlight the diversity of their backgrounds, experiences and opinions.
Faith and practice
The first- and second-floor displays are dedicated to the history of Jews in Britain – one of the country’s oldest minorities – from the earliest known settlement of 1066 through to the present day.
Star features include the evocation of a Jewish East End street (permeated by the smell of chicken soup from a typical immigrant kitchen) and a number of other poignant displays.
These include those about the 10,000 unaccompanied children who came to Britain on the Kindertransport in the 1930s, and stories of the other immigrants who have arrived from all over the world, including Iran, Iraq and India.
The interactives include a map exploring the history of Jewish settlement around the UK; dressing up for the Yiddish theatre, karaoke and wedding photos; and a discovery table in the Living Community display.
Judaism: a Living Faith showcases the museum’s outstanding collection of Jewish ceremonial art and explores Judaism as a living religious tradition, and its ethics and values. The gallery looks at Jewish religious practice and traditions in the home and synagogue.
Familiar objects include magnificent Torah decorations; silver Hanukah lamps and Passover plates. This gallery has an interactive Torah display, films featuring families celebrating Jewish festivals and a model synagogue.
The Holocaust Gallery is dedicated to the story of Auschwitz survivor, Leon Greenman. He was born in London’s East End, but lived with his family in the Netherlands.
Unable to prove their British nationality, Leon’s wife and son were murdered at Auschwitz. He survived six concentration camps and, until his death in 2008, spoke to thousands of young people as a witness of the Holocaust. Filmed testimonies from four other survivors who settled in Britain are included in the display.
Like the personal accounts in the Wellcome Gallery, the Holocaust testimonies are among the most effective in the museum. It’s not just because of their immediacy, but the fact that the museum provides enough space and somewhere to sit, allowing you to take them in properly.
Elsewhere, the crowding of the galleries prevents you from doing that. The displays in the old Jewish Museum were enhanced by their intimacy, but I found that many of the spaces in the new museum were too tight.
Visitor experience
Maintaining and improving on its visitor numbers is going to be important for the museum, which needs to double its attendance from 30,000 to 65,000 a year. Its success will depend on the quality of the visitor experience, as well as effective income generation.
Having gone in and out of the museum a couple of times on the same day, no one either offered to sell me a ticket or check that I had one. On my second visit to the cafe, I bought an expensive cup of tea that had been made with curdled soya milk.
Aspects of the museum’s management need improving: its communications are poor, its frontline staff need better training, and its housekeeping could be improved: the women’s lavatory was a mess – the floor was wet and all the towels had run out. Also, the entrance hall was stacked high with cardboard boxes.
Some of the museum’s tone also bothered me. I found various passages of interpretation, designed “to engage visitors of all ages”, patronising.
This had a lot to do with poorly conceived questions such as: “Can you guess what [19th-century shoppers] need to buy from the peddler?” and: “Imagine you are a parent forced to send your children away to safety. How do you think you would feel? What would you pack for them to take?”
Whether or not the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow set the standard for museums dealing with religion and culture, the new Jewish Museum begs a number of questions about what such institutions might, or might not, be able to achieve.
An overriding characteristic of the museum is a pervasive poignancy: there is little that either questions or is critical of Judaism today. The Jewish Museum has a long way to go before it’s likely to engage with people of all ages, backgrounds and faiths.
Sara Selwood is an independent consultant
Project data
Cost £10m
Main funder Heritage Lottery Fund £4.2m
Exhibition design Event
Architects Long & Kentish
Lighting DHA Design
Display cases Meyvaert
AV Centre Screen Productions
Exhibition fit-out Realm Projects
IT interactives Atacama
Display case Click Netherfield
