Jewish Museum in Berlin (Jüdisches Museum)

The Jewish Museum has opened its new permanent exhibition. Visitors can follow the history of the Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day in a multimedia and interactive way and gain insights into the diversity of Jewish culture. You can also re-explore the axes in the basement of the Libeskind Building with the Garden of Exile and the installation “Fallen Leaves” by Menashe Kadishmann in the empty space of memory.

Opening hours

The building itself

The Jewish Museum Berlin is two buildings in one: the baroque Kollegienhaus, a former Prussian courthouse, and Daniel Libeskind’s zinc-clad extension, whose zigzag plan and slashed window openings opened to the public in 2001. The two are joined underground rather than above ground — a deliberate architectural argument, and the reason the site rewards slow looking.

What to see

• The Garden of Exile — forty-nine concrete pillars on sloping ground, planted with olive willow. The tilt is intentional and disorienting.
• The Holocaust Tower — an unheated concrete void lit only by a slit near the top.
• The Memory Void — home to Menashe Kadishman’s installation Shalechet (Fallen Leaves), thousands of iron faces covering the floor.
• The core exhibition — reopened in 2020, tracing Jewish life in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present through objects, testimony and interactive displays.

Photography here

The exterior architecture is the strongest photographic subject: the zinc skin changes tone completely between overcast and direct light, and the window slashes make hard graphic compositions from close in. Interior photography is restricted in places and rules change with the exhibition — check at the entrance rather than assuming.

One thing worth saying plainly: this is a memorial site as much as a museum. It is not an appropriate backdrop for celebratory portrait sessions, engagement shoots or fashion work. Photograph the architecture, not a pose in front of it.

Visiting

The museum is on Lindenstraße in Kreuzberg, a short walk from Hallesches Tor. Allow at least two hours for the core exhibition alone. For other architectural subjects in the city see our Museum Island guide.