on.tour: Program

The Jewish Museum Berlin's Mobile Exhibition
German-Jewish History on.tour

1. The mobile exhibition "Discover JMB"

The mobile exhibition "Discover JMB" is set up for all teachers and pupils in the schoolyard or the school building. It consists of four red exhibiting cubes with integrated showcases showing selected objects from the Museum. Alongside exhibits on Jewish religion and persecution, everyday objects are also shown, many of them relating particularly to the lives young people.

The pupils can sit on the cubes and turn them this way and that, making their own discoveries about the objects and reading the texts about them. Through their experience with the exhibits and biographies, they learn about various facets of common history which they then present to one another.

This allows them impressive and varied insights into German-Jewish history, and Jewish religion and culture. Jewish festivals such as the Passover or the Jewish day of rest, the Shabbat, are used as examples.

Everyday and ceremonial objects demonstrate how religion and daily life are interwoven: for example kosher gummi bears carry the stamp of the rabbinate, showing that they've met the standards of  the dietary laws.

From the middle of the 19th century, scientific and technical inventions by Jews can illustrate the desire for recognition and equal opportunities on the one hand, but their reception reveals discrimination and banning of Jews from some professions on the other.

The stories of Julius Fromm's company and the Jew from rural southern Germany, Löb Strauss, offer an historical perspective. Their inventions establish a connection between German-Jewish history and the worlds of the school pupils. Our on.tour guides have much interesting information to pass on about the objects and are pleased to answer any questions on the theme.

2. "It Was As Simple As That"
Workshop on Jewish Childhood and Youth After 1945

"on.tour – The JMB Tours Schools" introduces to the classroom the exhibit "It Was As Simple As That" from the permanent collection. Jewish childhood and youth in Germany after 1945 is the core theme. To explore this theme, the Museum asked well-known and lesser-known, more religious and less religious Jews of different generations the question: "What was it actually like to grow up as a Jew in Germany after 1945?" They were asked to send in a photo and to tell a story of significance for them. The answers reveal an array of experiences: feelings of belonging and of not belonging, little ways to escape from everyday life, hopes and dreams. For example the young musician Ekaterina Kaufmann, who came from St. Petersburg to Germany with her family in 1990, tells of anti-Semitic hostility in Russia and of beginning anew in Germany.

The pupils are given iPods to listen to a selection of stories of childhood and youth over headphones. Having worked their way through Jewish biographies in the form of childhood and youth photos and interviews, they present the findings of their group to the rest of the class. In the discussion which ensues, they talk about the biographies and their own personal experiences.