Jew in a Box

[sadie1263]

By Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press

"Are there still Jews in Germany?" "Are the Jews a chosen people?"

Nearly 70 years after the Holocaust, there is no more sensitive an issue in German life than the role of Jews. With fewer than 200,000 Jews among Germany's 82 million people, few Germans born after World War II know any Jews or much about them.

To help educate postwar generations, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Berlin features a Jewish man or woman seated inside a glass box for two hours a day through August to answer visitors' questions about Jews and Jewish life. The base of the box asks: "Are there still Jews in Germany?"

"A lot of our visitors don't know any Jews and have questions they want to ask," museum official Tina Luedecke said. "With this exhibition we offer an opportunity for those people to know more about Jews and Jewish life."

But not everybody thinks putting a Jew on display is the best way to build understanding and mutual respect.

Since the exhibit — "The Whole Truth, everything you wanted to know about Jews" — opened this month, the "Jew in the Box," as it is popularly known, has drawn sharp criticism within the Jewish community — especially in the city where the Nazis orchestrated the slaughter of 6 million Jews until Adolf Hitler's defeat in 1945.

"Why don't they give him a banana and a glass of water, turn up the heat and make the Jew feel really cozy in his glass box," prominent Berlin Jewish community figure Stephan Kramer told The Associated Press. "They actually asked me if I wanted to participate. But I told them I'm not available."

The exhibit is reminiscent of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann sitting in a glass booth at the 1961 trial in Israel which led to his execution. And it's certainly more provocative than British actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at a recent performance at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Eran Levy, an Israeli who has lived in Berlin for years, was horrified by the idea of presenting a Jew as a museum piece, even if to answer Germans' questions about Jewish life.

"It's a horrible thing to do — completely degrading and not helpful," he said. "The Jewish Museum absolutely missed the point if they wanted to do anything to improve the relations between Germans and Jews."

But several of the volunteers, including both German Jews and Israelis living in Berlin, said the experience in the box is little different from what they go through as Jews living in the country that produced the Nazis.

"With so few of us, you almost inevitably feel like an exhibition piece," volunteer Leeor Englander said. "Once you've been 'outed' as a Jew, you always have to be the expert and answer all questions regarding anything related to religion, Israel, the Holocaust and so on."

Museum curator Miriam Goldmann, who is Jewish, believes the exhibit's provocative "in your face" approach is the best way to overcome the emotional barriers and deal with a subject that remains painful for both Jews and non-Jews.

"We wanted to provoke, that's true, and some people may find the show outrageous or objectionable," Goldmann said. "But that's fine by us."

The provocative style is evident in other parts of the special exhibition, including some that openly raise many stereotypes of Jews widespread not only in Germany but elsewhere in Europe.

One includes a placard that asks "how you recognize a Jew?" It's next to an assortment of yarmulkes, black hats and women's hair covers hanging from the ceiling on thin threads. Another asks if Jews consider themselves the chosen people. It includes a poem by Jewish author Leonard Fein: "How odd of God to choose the Jews. But how on earth could we refuse?"

Yet another invites visitors to express their opinion to such questions as "are Jews particularly good looking, influential, intelligent, animal loving or business savvy?"
Despite the criticisms, the "Jew in the Box" has proven a big hit among visitors.

"I asked him about the feelings he has for his country and what he thinks about the conflict with Palestine, if he ever visited Palestine," visitor Panka Chirer-Geyer said. "I have Jewish roots and I've been to Palestine and realized how difficult it was there. I could not even mention that I have Jewish roots."

On a recent day this week, several visitors kept returning to ask questions of Ido Porat, a 33-year-old Israeli seated on a white bench with a pink cushion.
One woman wanted to know what to bring her hosts for a Shabbat dinner in Israel. Another asked why only Jewish men and not women wear yarmulkes. A third inquired about Judaism and homosexuality.

"I guess I should ask you about the relationship between Germans and Jews," visitor Diemut Poppen said to Porat. "We Germans have so many insecurities when it comes to Jews."

Viola Mohaupt-Zitfin, 53, asked if Porat felt welcome as a Jew living among Germans "considering our past and all that." Yes, Porat said, Germany is a good place to live, even as a Jew. But the country could do even more to come to terms with its Nazi past, he added. He advised the would-be traveler that anything is permissible to bring to a Shabbat dinner as long as it's not pork.

"I feel a bit like an animal in the zoo, but in reality that's what it's like being a Jew in Germany," Porat said. "You are a very interesting object to most people here."

todaynews.today.com/_news/2013/04/02/17571345-jew-in-the-box-exhibit-in-germany-stirs-controversy?lite

[Deleted]

It includes a poem by Jewish author Leonard Fein: "How odd of God to choose the Jews. But how on earth could we refuse?"


Read more: biglinmarshall.proboards.com/thread/5470/jew-box#ixzz2PqwMhIz7

The version I heard as a child was "How odd of God to choose the Jews. Oh no it's not, he knows what's what."

There's nothing so amusing as Jewish humour ....when told of course by a Jew.

I can understand why people are upset by the "Jew in a Box". It reinforces the idea that Jews are somehow apart from other people - and surely it is important for those with different cultural origins to emphasise their similarities with the rest of humanity rather than harking on about the differences?

[♫anna♫]

In pre war Germany there were about 500,000 Jews. Many of them had long since converted to Christianity like the great chess master Siegbert Tarrasch, but the racial mania of the nazis and some Zionists still classified these people as Jews. Most of the Jewish victims of the concentration camps were Yiddish speaking Jews from Poland and Russia.

In present day Germany there are about 100,000 Jews who are members of the Central council of Jews in Germany en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralrat_der_Juden_in_Deutschland . Many more non practicing Jews live in Germany too. There are many Jewish immigrants from Russia in Germany now. A good friend of mine in Frankfurt, Germany was disillusioned with Israel and immigrated to Germany. Germany makes every effort possible to make amends for the persecution of Jews in the past!

[DAS (formerly BushAdmirer)]

Anna - Do you know whether most Germans have made it a point to visit one of the extermination camps like Dachau?

When I visited Dachau about twenty years ago it seemed like most of the other people visiting were speaking English. I've often wondered whether German school kids are taken to a place like that for a first hand history lesson?

Even though I'm not Jewish, Gypsy, Gay, or Pole, touring Dachau had a lasting impression on me. I'd like to see as many kids and young adults as possible touring those camps and holocaust museums like the one in Washington DC.

[♫anna♫]

Apr 8, 2013 19:09:15 GMT DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) said:

Anna - Do you know whether most Germans have made it a point to visit one of the extermination camps like Dachau?

When I visited Dachau about twenty years ago it seemed like most of the other people visiting were speaking English. I've often wondered whether German school kids are taken to a place like that for a first hand history lesson?

Even though I'm not Jewish, Gypsy, Gay, or Pole, touring Dachau had a lasting impression on me. I'd like to see as many kids and young adults as possible touring those camps and holocaust museums like the one in Washington DC.

Hi Das,
I visited Dachau with my sister! I sometimes visit these concentration camps via YouTube also.
The belief that typhus was the number 1 killer in the concentration camps and not a plan of extermination is growing. Dave Cole's "Visit to Auschwitz" YouTube videos are widely viewed as are the YouTube video concentration camps documentaries that adher to the Nuremberg trial version of events.

In 1960 it was offically admitted that no one was gassed at Dachau, Belsen or any concentration camp in Germany. The alledged gas chamber at Dachau was never used as the sign in 4 languages confirms.

This was still a horrific crime typical of totalitarian systems! These people, with the exception of some common criminals, were illegally kidnapped and often had to do slave labor. The hygenic conditions were never acceptable by any means and towards the end of the war people were dying in masses from typhus and diptheria.

Not much is left of Dachau. It was burned down after the war to kill the typhus bugs and only a small part reconstructed. I read a German language document in the Dachau museum from a doctor, who wished to do human experiments on partisans, who were condemned to death. That was pretty disturbing.

[sadie1263]

I think sometimes you have to go to an extreme in order for people to face things. It's easy to "just not talk about" then face the reality. The more years that go by people forget details.....or don't talk about them.....it makes it easy for other people to diminish the horrors and eventually pass off as facts versions that are more favorable to other groups..........

[Deleted]

Anna, it may well be true that there were no mass exterminations at German concentration camps, but for the sake of accuracy, there were gas chambers in Germany:


The Nazi Euthanasia Centre at Bernburg (German: NS-Tötungsanstalt Bernburg) operated from 21 November 1940 to 30 July 1943 in a separate wing of the State Sanatorium and Mental Hospital (Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt) in Bernburg on the River Saale in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It was one of several euthanasia centres run by the Nazis under their official "Euthanasia Programme", later referred to after the war as Action T4. A total of 9,384 sick and handicapped people from 33 welfare institutions and nursing homes as well as around 5,000 prisoners from six concentration camps were killed here in a gas chamber using carbon monoxide gas.

[♫anna♫]

Apr 12, 2013 5:55:34 GMT @skylark said:

Anna, it may well be true that there were no mass exterminations at German concentration camps, but for the sake of accuracy, there were gas chambers in Germany:


The Nazi Euthanasia Centre at Bernburg (German: NS-Tötungsanstalt Bernburg) operated from 21 November 1940 to 30 July 1943 in a separate wing of the State Sanatorium and Mental Hospital (Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt) in Bernburg on the River Saale in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It was one of several euthanasia centres run by the Nazis under their official "Euthanasia Programme", later referred to after the war as Action T4. A total of 9,384 sick and handicapped people from 33 welfare institutions and nursing homes as well as around 5,000 prisoners from six concentration camps were killed here in a gas chamber using carbon monoxide gas.

Hi SkyLark,
The nazis made no big secret about what they called the Euthanasia program and it was approved with Hitler's signature. The mentally retarded were primarily targeted for "euthanasia" or murder in carbon monoxide gas chambers. I never heard about concentration camp prisoners being taken to Bernberg to be killed. I'll try to get facts on this when I get some spare time. The "Euthanasia program" was stopped after the Vatican protested against it.