What was “Jewish” about the Old Jewish Museum of Vienna?
- The Jewish museums established in the fin-de-siècle Habsburg Empire postulated the unity of “the Jewish people,” with custodians constructing an “us” (Jews) in distinction to the “other” (non-Jews). In the difference-oriented frenzy of the time, Jewish identity was predominantly presented as Central European, enlightened, not overly religious, and middle-class. Then, when the Viennese Jewish Museum opened its doors in 1895, the painters Isidor Kaufmann and David Kohn created an installation called “Die Gute Stube” (The Parlor). This exhibit housed books, furniture, as well as decorative and ritual objects of the kind that were thought to be found in typical Eastern European Jewish households. However, as this article argues, this attempted visualization of the essence of Judaism and the range of Jewish life worlds promoted a paradigmatic stereotype with which Jewish museums would have to struggle for decades to come.
Author details: | Felicitas Heimann-JelinekGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-650283 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-65028 |
ISBN: | 978-3-86956-574-3 |
ISSN: | 1614-6492 |
ISSN: | 1862-7684 |
Title of parent work (German): | PaRDeS |
Publisher: | Universitätsverlag Potsdam |
Place of publishing: | Potsdam |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2024/03/22 |
Publication year: | 2024 |
Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Publishing institution: | Universitätsverlag Potsdam |
Release date: | 2024/07/30 |
Issue: | 29 |
Number of pages: | 10 |
First page: | 125 |
Last Page: | 134 |
RVK - Regensburg classification: | BD 1680 |
Organizational units: | Extern / Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e. V. |
Extern / Extern | |
DDC classification: | 2 Religion / 20 Religion / 200 Religion |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Universitätsverlag Potsdam |
Open Access / Diamond Open-Access | |
Collection(s): | Universität Potsdam / Zeitschriften / PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V., ISSN 1862-7684 / PaRDeS (2023) 29 / Contemporary Austrian Perspectives |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |