May 2007
May Editorial
Munich has a new museum! That’s hardly unusual news in our culture-rich city, but this one is truly perking up our cultural landscape. In recent years, most of our new museums have sprung up as part of the marketing strategies of local economic powerhouses: the Hypo Kunsthalle, Siemensforum, and BMW Museum, for example. The new Jewish Museum on Jakobsplatz, however, owes its emergence—in metaphoric and financial terms—to the citizens of Munich. Even though the museum is part of the ensemble that includes the new synagogue and Jewish Community Center, it is above all an extension and counterpart to the nearby Stadtmuseum, which documents the history of all Munich citizens. For this reason, the new Jewish Museum is definitely not a Shoa Museum. Instead, it highlights the fact that Munich’s most economically and culturally important Jews—such as the Bernheimers, the Wallach brothers, or the Pringsheim family into which Thomas Mann married—were Münchner first and Jews second. That doesn’t mean that the history should be forgotten. Rather, it gives many museum visitors (and especially young people) the chance to explore a fascinating and meaningful culture outside of the Holocaust’s shadow.
