Jewish religion, migration and emancipation

In four rooms and with six different (video) guides, the museum tells about Jewish life in everyday life and on the holiday, in history and in the present. One focus is Switzerland.

For centuries, Jews here were courted and oppressed, integrated and expelled. A signet ring from late antiquity, documents from the Middle Ages, publications from the early modern period and household objects from the 18th and 19th centuries show their lives before legal equality. The many community foundations thereafter provide insight testifying to a strengthening self-confidence. Testimonials by Theodor Herzl recall how the visionary presented his idea of a "Jewish state" in Basel in 1897. Objects from Jews seeking asylum in Switzerland illustrate the ambivalent attitude of "neutral" Switzerland at the time of German National Socialism. Today, diversity characterizes life inside and outside the numerous Jewish communities in Switzerland.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.