Entrance Jewish Museum Copenhagen Denmark

The Danish Jewish Museum ( da, Dansk Jødisk Museum), in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

, sits inside the

Danish Royal Library The Royal Library ( da, Det Kongelige Bibliotek) in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the university library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries ...

’s old Galley House and exhibits Danish

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

historical artifacts and art. Designed by

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Daniel Libeskind, the building memorializes the story of

Danish Jews The history of the Jews in Denmark goes back to the 1600s. At present, the Jewish community of Denmark constitutes a small minority of about 6,000 persons within Danish society. The community's population peaked prior to the Holocaust at whi ...

who were saved from

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

persecution by their fellow Danes in October 1943. Construction of the Museum began in March 2003 and the museum opened in June 2004.

History

At the turn of the seventeenth century,

King Christian IV Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian monar ...

built Denmark's Royal Boat House, which was later renovated in 1906, during the construction of the adjacent Royal Library. In 1985, the Society for Danish Jewish History decided to establish a museum in Copenhagen dedicated to its namesake. It wasn't until the 1990s, however, that the organization met with Daniel Libeskind and the Royal Library site underwent another transformation. The renovation of the Boat House, executed by Fogh & Følner architects, began in July 2002, and construction of the Danish Jewish Museum ended in September 2003. In June 2004, the museum opened.

Concept

The Museum is the first official museum in

dedicated to a minority or immigrant group. Rather than concentrate on the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, the museum's board of directors, members of The Society for Danish Jewish History, decided to present the diversity and culture of the Jewish community in Denmark, to highlight the positive and unique aspects of the Jewish story, which dates back to approximately 400 years. Along with diversity, another theme explored in the museum is inclusiveness: the Danes including Jews in everyday society; the Jewish community opening up to the surrounding society; and consequently the museum reaching out to non-Jewish Danes and non-Jewish foreigners The museum's board had to take into consideration the level of knowledge possessed by the target audience. In particular, they had to find a balance between celebrated events, such as the

Rescue of the Danish Jews The Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many Danish citizens, managed to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden during the Second World War.Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

word Mitzvah, meaning “good deed.” According to the museum's website, the form of the building stands as a commentary on the artifacts and artworks it houses, paralleling how accompanying texts often illuminate different aspects of the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

. Libeskind describes the space as a “sort of text running within a frame made up of many other surfaces – walls, inner spaces, showcases, virtual perspectives.”

Content

Most of the items on display come from either the Royal Library's Judaica collection or are on loan from the Jewish Community in Copenhagen, ''Mosaiske Trossamfund''.

Awards

* American Architect Award, 2005

References

External links

Danish Jewish Museum, Website
{{Authority control Museums in Copenhagen Jewish museums Daniel Libeskind buildings Museums established in 2003