Jewish Museum Hohenems

The Jewish Museum Hohenems first opened at the Villa Heimann-Rosenthal in the centre of the old Jewish quarter in April of 1991. The permanent exhibition “From the Middle Ages to the Present” was completely redone in 2007 and presents interesting stories and anecdotes from the lives of the local Jewish people.

The exhibition focuses on people, with all their contradictions, subjective experiences, life plans, and customs. One such individual is Salomon Sulzer, the founder of modern synagogue music, but also hawkers and innkeepers, rabbis and teachers, salesmen and manufacturers, or people like the Rosenthal family, who built the house in which the museum is now housed in 1864. Modern audio guides and video stations make “the inside story” accessible for the first time.

Dedicated children’s exhibition
This exhibition is available in German, English and French for an international audience. The dedicated children’s exhibition by Monika Helfer and Barbara Steinitz enables insights into history for a young audience and is the starting point for a dialogue between the generations.

Current special exhibition

Yalla. Arab-Jewish Encounters
September 29, 2024 – August 24, 2025

The history of Arab-Jewish culture(s) and coexistence goes back centuries, to the pre-Islamic tribal societies populating Arabia. A long history of relations – sometimes romanticized, sometimes forgotten, even repressed and demonized – is waiting to be discovered, such as Jewish life under the Islamic rule of what are now the Arab countries as well as on the Iberian Peninsula (al-Andalus), in the Ottoman Empire, and under the influence of European colonial interests.

• More information on the current exhibition