The Jewish Museum Munich provides an overview of Munich’s Jewish history and is part of the city's new Jewish Center located at Sankt-Jakobs-Platz in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is situated between the main synagogue Ohel Jakob

Ohel Jakob synagogue

The Ohel Jakob synagogue was built 2004-2006 as the new main synagogue of the Munich Jewish community, located at Sankt-Jakobs-Platz. The synagogue was inaugurated on November 9, 2006, on the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The opening ceremony was led by Charlotte Knobloch, President of...

 and the Jewish Community Center which is home to the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria and houses a public elementary school, a kindergarten, a youth center as well as a community auditorium and a kosher restaurant. The museum was built from 2004 until its inauguration on March 22, 2007 and is run by the city of Munich.

History

While there have been plans for a Jewish Museum dating back as far as 1928, the project did not gain significant momentum until the early 1980s when gallery owner Richard Grimm opened a private Jewish museum in a small space on Maximilianstraße. As the private collection gained popularity the need for a larger, public museum became apparent. However, Grimm's private museum closed after ten years for financial reasons and the Jewish community transferred the collection to a provisional exhibition space at Reichenbachstraße 27 where the Museum of the City of Munich presented exhibitions and events in collaboration with the City Archives, until the spring of 2006. It was then decided to build a municipal Jewish Museum as part of the new Jewish Center at Sankt-Jakobs-Platz.

As an alternative to the mandatory national military service, young Austrians have the opportunity to serve as Austrian Holocaust Memorial Servants

Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service

The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service / alternative service founded in 1992. Since 1998 it is part of the Austrian Service Abroad...

 at the Jewish Museum Munich.

Building

The Jewish Museum Munich is part of a complex consisting of three buildings and was designed by architects Rena Wandel-Hoefer and Wolfgang Lorch who were awarded the contract after an architecture competition on July 6, 2001.. The museum is designed as a freestanding cube with a transparent ground floor lobby. The two top floors house changing exhibitions, a learning center, and a library. The museum’s permanent exhibition is located on the lower level. It cost about US$18 million to build with funding provided by the city of Munich.

Exhibitions

The permanent exhibition provides an overview of Munich’s Jewish history with a special focus on the Jewish religion, its annual festivals and rites of passage (circumcision

Brit milah

The brit milah is a Jewish religious circumcision ceremony performed on 8-day old male infants by a mohel. The brit milah is followed by a celebratory meal .-Biblical references:...

, bar and bat mitzvah, marriage, death

Bereavement in Judaism

Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts...

).

External links

• Jewish Museum Munich website
• Jewish Museum on www.muenchenarchitektur.com