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Jüdisches Museum Hohenems (c) Dietmar Walser / Jüdisches Museum

Jewish Museum Hohenems

For more than 25 years, the Jewish Museum Hohenems has collected examples of Jewish history in Vorarlberg and the Lake Constance area

The Jewish Museum Hohenems first opened at the Villa Heimann-Rosenthal in the centre of the old Jewish quarter in April of 1991. The permanent exhibition “From the Middle Ages to the Present” was completely redone in 2007 and presents interesting stories and anecdotes from the lives of the local Jewish people.

The exhibition focuses on people, with all their contradictions, subjective experiences, life plans, and customs. One such individual is Salomon Sulzer, the founder of modern synagogue music, but also hawkers and innkeepers, rabbis and teachers, salesmen and manufacturers, or people like the Rosenthal family, who built the house in which the museum is now housed in 1864. Modern audio guides and video stations make “the inside story” accessible for the first time.

Dedicated children’s exhibition
This exhibition is available in German, English and French for an international audience. The dedicated children’s exhibition by Monika Helfer and Barbara Steinitz enables insights into history for a young audience and is the starting point for a dialogue between the generations.

Jüdisches Museum Hohenems (c) Dietmar Walser / Jüdisches Museum
Jüdisches Viertel mit Jüdischem Museum Hohenems (c) Dietmar Walser, 2007

The Villa Heimann-Rosenthal, constructed in 1864, has been the site of the Jewish Museum in the former Jewish quarter of Hohenems since 1991

Current special exhibition

“Taxidermied Jews?”
History, Present and Future of Jewish Museums
26 June 2022 until 19 March 2023

When the then chairman of the Jewish Community, Paul Grosz, was asked many years ago what he thought of the establishment of a Jewish Museum, he asked a bitter counter-question. Whether Jews should be marveled at there “like taxidermied Indians“?

Today, there are over 120 Jewish museums worldwide. However, even the definition of their designating adjective is by no means uniform. There are those to whom the institution itself is a Jewish one, to others the institution’s topic is Judaism – from the most diverse perspectives. For some, the adjective “Jewish” is unambiguous, for others, it is not just ambiguous but even full of contradictions. The question of definitions and perspectives are decisive for content and practices of museums – and thus also on the sovereignty of interpretation of what is “Jewish” in a social public sphere. The exhibition illuminates the history and present of the institution “Jewish Museum,” its collections and its canon – and thus reflects the urgent question of its role in society in the future.

 

Jewish Museum Hohenems

  • Address/Contact
    Villa Heimann-Rosenthal
    Schweizer Straße 5, A-6845 Hohenems
    Tel. 0043 5576/73989-0
    office@jm-hohenems.at

  • Opening times
    Museum and café:
    Tuesday to Sunday and on holidays from 10 am – 5 pm

  • Entry
    Adults: €8.00/ Discounted: €5.00
    for school kids, apprentices, students, seniors, people with disabilities, civil servants, Ö1 Club members, those with the aha card, the EYCA youth card, the Vorarlberg family pass and for groups larger than 15

    Free entry: for children and young adults until the age of 19, for holders of a V-CARD (one time), ICOM members

    • Jüdisches Museum Hohenems

      Jewish Museum Hohenems

      The Jewish Museum is based in the Villa Heimann-Rosenthal, a historic location built during…

      Jewish Museum Hohenems
      Street: Schweizer Strasse 5
      Place: 6845 Hohenems
      Phone: +43 5576 739890
      Fax: +43 5576 77793
      E-Mail: office@jm-hohenems.at

      Jewish Museum Hohenems

      Description

      The Jewish Museum is based in the Villa Heimann-Rosenthal, a historic location built during the “Gründerzeit” period of the mid to late 19th century. Thanks to the careful renovation and preservation of this upper-class dwelling, together with the subtle, tasteful presentation of documents and showpieces, visitors are whisked away to a different era. The Jewish Museum is part of Hohenems’ Jewish Quarter, where the surviving buildings date from the late…

      all info

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