SPACE AND SPACIOUSNESS
- AN EXHIBITION ABOUT JEWS IN DENMARK

The opening exhibition of the Danish Jewish Museum is a broad presentation of Jewish life in Denmark through 400 years, and is a selection from the museum’s own collection. The exhibition was put together in close dialogue with Daniel Libeskind’s architecture; it is an exploration of three rooms. In the first room, spatiality is explored; the second room is the Danish room, and the third is the Jewish room.

Cultural spaciousness is both demanding and rewarding: creativity, debate, identity crises and ambitions have been fixed ingredients in Danish-Jewish life. Spaciousness is also diversity, because there are countless ways of uniting the Danish with the Jewish.

The following are in-depth texts about the Danish-Jewish experience – from the first immigrants in the seventeenth century until today. The texts follow the order of the exhibition, so they may be used both before and after your visit. You can also read more about the five themes in the museum’s folders.

The five parts of the museum
Libeskind’s design of the museum rests on five concepts from the traditional Jewish world of ideas. In the exhibition, they have been made to correspond with the five dimensions of the Jewish experience in Denmark.

Exodus   Going out from Egypt  Arrivals
Wilderness  The desert wandering Standpoints
The Giving of the Law Receiving the Law  Traditions
The Promised Land  The Promised Land Promised lands
Mitzvah   The good deed  Mitzvah

Exhibition design: Kvorning design & communication

The opening exhibition presents all the facets of Danish-Jewish life through 400 years: from the Jewish upper middle classes to the working class and from Orthodox Judaism to assimilation. The showcases hold great works of Danish-Jewish artisanship as well as simple everyday items, each with their own story. The emphasis is on personal angles and surprising detail.

The dynamics of a mixed culture such as the Jewish is becoming more and more typical for the entire modern society. With this exhibition, the Danish Jewish Museum will give its audience the chance to reflect itself in a minority culture and think about who they are as Danes and citizens of the world.