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Benjamín de Tudela, Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Maimonides, Groucho Marx, Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Itzhak Perlman, Barbra Streisand, King David and David Ben Gurion
are some of the varied characters that one finds in the Jewish museum biggest in the world. 4,000 years of history are synthesized in 7,000 square meters of the center inaugurated in Tel Aviv after a decade of planning and an investment of more than 85 million euros.
With sophisticated technological resources, including 21 interactive systems, and 40 films made for the occasion, the
UNA-Museum of the Jewish people
explains its culture and history in all its complexity and scope.
"It is the most complete Jewish museum in the world and the only one that tells the entire history of the Jewish people from the Bible to the present day with all their communities and cultures," says its spokesperson, Revital Blumenfeld.
Leonard Cohen's guitar Sal Emergui
From Abraham to Steven Spielberg
passing through the Kingdom of Judea, the studies of Babylon, the memory of Sepharad, the hilarious monologues of
Woody Allen and the Nobel Prizes
, the visitor takes a historical and cultural tour on three floors in which the air conditioning eases the obligation to wear masks indoors again in Israel.
The visit begins in the present from the third floor called The Mosaic: Modern Jewish Identity and Culture.
"People of different origin, religious or sexual orientation tell us what it means to them to be Jewish", comments the deputy director of sales and analysis of ANU (We, in Hebrew),
Dina Ergas Guez
, before digitized monologues of families from all over the world .
According to EL MUNDO, "the museum seeks to break stereotypes and make the visitor understand, whether Jewish or not, that the Jewish people is not a uniform and static bloc."
Isaac Bashevis's typewriter, Sal Emergui
As early as the late nineteenth century,
Mark Twain
wrote that the contributions of Jews to 'the list of great names in the world in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are out of proportion to the weakness of their (demographic) numbers ”.
The museum space reserved for the Jewish contribution to the culture of the East (for example, the Egyptian
Leyla Murad, the Iraqi Salima Murad and the Moroccan Zohra Al Fassia
) and the West stand out. Along with singers like Arik Einstein who composed the Israeli soundtrack, a collage showcases universal figures. “Some express their Jewish identity in some way and some do not. We speak, for example, of
Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkel or Amy Winehouse
», points out Ergas.
Hollywood cannot be explained without the decisive initial input from
Ashkenazi
immigrants
.
«They say, I don't know if it is joking or seriously, that the Jews from Europe who fled the persecutions and helped found what we know today as Hollywood wanted to make films to find a happy ending that many of their relatives did not have.
We see many love films with a happy ending, comedy ... », he adds.
Sitting on a replica of the sofa from
the Seinfeld series
, rescuing The Crazy Adventures of
Rabbi Jacob
or classifying jokes according to the region and time recall one of the most identifying facets of the Jewish people: humor.
On many occasions, his subtle and desperate shield in the face of tragedies.
Along with quotes about Jews from characters like
Leon Tolstoy or Jean-Paul Sartre,
there are more than 500 original objects like the guitar of Leonard Cohen and Gene Simmons (co-leader of Kiss and born Chaim Witz),
Isaac's
typewriter
Bashevis Singer,
the first edition of
Kafka's
Metamorphosis
, the mythical judge
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's
necklace
, a dress by fashion designer
Alber Elbaz
and even a model
of Spielberg's
ET
doll
.
Before a gallery of Jewish feminist leaders, Ergas points out that she shows how they made a place for themselves and broke the glass ceiling to get ahead.
In the museum, located where the one of the Diaspora was in the University of Tel Aviv, Sefarad receives a wide room that reproduces synagogues and neighborhoods of the time that bring the visitor closer to the poetry and wisdom of
Maimonides, Gabirol or Nahmanides
and away of the Kingdom that expelled the Jews in 1492.
The culinary and cultural concept of the Jewish mother, so often taken to the movies, shines on an interactive screen that details the recipes of the Hebrews throughout history and the map.
"I came yesterday and as I liked it, I thought my daughter would be interested because it has attractive themes of culture or history and is presented in an ideal way for young people accustomed to technology", Shoshi Geva tells us while her daughter Tamar admits:
"There are things about music and art that we did not learn in school and did not know.
After a trip to history on the second floor, the first is the last of the cultural walk and is dedicated to exploring Jewish identity by telling what is entitled Foundations: a common core, a universal message.
Blumenfeld
explains that the museum's website allows disabled people to go through it through a robot. And he reveals: «If someone comes and has their genealogical tree registered, they can know through our application if, for example, they have a family relationship with Einstein and also tell him that at that very moment on another floor of the museum there is an uncle of his that not even he I knew it existed.
In recent years, there has been a growing tension between the two great centers of world Judaism made up of 15 million people:
Israel (almost 7 million) and the US (almost 6).
«It is a pluralistic museum that gives space to all trends.
They visit us from lay people to ultra-Orthodox.
Due to the coronavirus we have not received foreign tourists yet, "he concludes at the gates of the modern construction that surrounds the old premise: two Jews, three opinions.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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