Jewish Museum Frankfurt

The Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main is the oldest independent Jewish Museum in the Federal Republic of Germany. It was opened by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl on 9 November 1988, the 50th anniversary of the November Pogrom.

The Jewish Museum collects, preserves and communicates the nine-hundred-year-old Jewish history and culture of the City of Frankfurt from a European perspective. It has a permanent exhibition at two venues: the Museum Judengasse at Battonstraße 47 focuses on the theme of the history and culture of Jews in Frankfurt during the early modern period; the Jewish Museum in the Rothschildpalais at Untermainkai 14/15 presents Jewish history and culture since 1800. This museum has been closed for refurbishment and expansion since 20 July 2015. It is scheduled to re-open in 2019.

The focus of the collection is on the areas ceremonial culture, fine arts and family history. The museum has extensive holdings related to the Rothschild family and the Anne Frank family which will be presented in the new permanent exhibition. The Ludwig Meidner Archive is responsible for the estates of the artists Ludwig Meidner, Jacob Steinhardt, Henry Gowa and others. In addition, the museum has an extensive library as well as a document and photograph collection related to German-Jewish history and culture.

A museum of Jewish antiquities existed in Frankfurt even before the foundation of today’s museum. It was opened in 1922 and was one of the first of its kind in Germany, showing mainly Jewish cult items. In 1938 the museum was destroyed by the National Socialists; only a few of the objects have been preserved in Frankfurt.

After the Second World War, former Jewish Frankfurt citizens who had emigrated to London proposed that a commission be set up to carry out research on the history of Frankfurt’s Jews. Later, plans were conceived to found a Jewish Museum. In 1988 that museum opened in two classical villas on the Untermainkai, across the Main from the Schaumainkai. The villa at no. 14 was built for the banker Simon Moritz von Bethmann, and the one at no. 15 for Joseph Isaak Speyer. No. 14 was acquired by Mayer Carl von Rothschild in 1846, and became known as the Rothschild Palace. Both buildings were acquired by the city of Frankfurt in 1928. After the Second World War they served as the main site of the municipal and university library, and later as an outpost of the Historical Museum. From 2015 - 2018 the building will undergo fundamental reconstruction work and an extension will be added.

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