Misha Sidenberg | Charles University, Prague (original) (raw)

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Papers by Misha Sidenberg

Judaica Bohemiae, 2022

Does the past have a face? No doubt. One way to conceive it is as a succession of moments that be... more Does the past have a face? No doubt. One way to conceive it is as a succession of moments that become embedded in the consciousness and unconscious of each one of us, generally in an individualized way. By nature it is a protean and complex face, very personal and different for everyone, hardly reducible to a universal gallery of ‘icons’ à la pantheons of famous persons. In this sense, it is not a singular past, but a multitude of pasts, millions, if not billions, retained in the reservoirs of living memory, not an immutable imprint but one that is constantly transforming along with the vicissitudes of individual experience, the flux of emotions, perceptions, and moods.

Muzeum: Muzejní a vlastivědná práce , 2020

A report about the Spanish Synagogue, its reconstruction and the new permanent exhibition 'Jews i... more A report about the Spanish Synagogue, its reconstruction and the new permanent exhibition 'Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th-20th Centuries' by Michaela Sidenberg, Iveta Cermanová, Jana Šplíchalová
The Jewish Museum in Prague, one of the oldest public Judaic collections since 1906, has opened the new permanent exhibition Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th-20th Centuries in the Spanish Synagogue. After a year and a half long reconstruction, the exhibition features Jewish history in the Bohemian lands, with the help of priceless original objects as well as the use of digital technology. The exhibition has been awarded the Gloria Musaealis 2020 Special Prize in the Museum Project category.

Judaica Bohemiae LV-1, 2021

The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP), which focuses primarily on the cultural and social history of ... more The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP), which focuses primarily on the cultural and social history of Jews in the Bohemian/Czech lands, has several permanent exhibitions, two of which provide an extensive survey of the history of the Jewish community in the territory of what is now the Czech Republic from the beginnings of settlement in the 10 th century through to the present.

Proceedings, 2017

This paper examines the pedagogical legacy of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944), an avant-garde ... more This paper examines the pedagogical legacy of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944), an avant-garde artist and progressive art teacher of the interwar period. As a collaborative effort, it promotes an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis and interpretation of Friedl's teaching method, combining art history with education (Reform Pedagogy) and study into resilience (social pedagogy and developmental psychology). While incarcerated in the Terezín ghetto (1942-1944), Friedl organized children's art classes within which she used an experimental method based on her own schooling experience in Vienna and at the State Bauhaus in Weimar. Offering her students a perfect outlet for processing their traumatic experience by the means of creativity and self-expression, she became a perfect example of what would today be described as a resilience tutor. A group of collages and drawings will be shown and analyzed.

Judaica Bohemiae, 2020

The full version of this article appears in the latest issue of Judaica Bohemiae: Sidenberg, Mi... more The full version of this article appears in the latest issue of Judaica Bohemiae:
Sidenberg, Michaela: “Intimate Galleries: Photographic Albums from the Collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague”, in: Judaica Bohemiae, LV-2, Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague, 2020, pp. 69-80. The publication is available on the CEEOL platform under the following link:
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=917230
* * *
The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP) is generally acknowledged to rank among the leading world-class institutions of its kind. What makes its collection exceptional, however, is not just the early date of the Museum’s founding in 1906 (making it the third oldest public Judaica collection in the world). More decisive were the uncommon circumstances during the period of the so-called Central Jewish Museum (1942–1945), years that saw the collection greatly enhanced as objects were rescued from the systematic destruction of Jewish culture that was intrinsic to the genocide of European Jewry. Only now, almost eight decades later, are many of these objects receiving a proper evaluation. This text is just a brief introduction to the JMP’s collection of photographic albums. Although they are rather private and ephemeral in nature and outside the scope of the common classification criteria for ‘high art’, the albums afford us a singular source for the study of the history of Jewish emancipation in the Czech lands and the contributions of the Jewish population to the country’s cultural and social evolution as they were integrating into the majority society.

The paper outlines the collecting efforts undertaken by the Jewish Community in Prague and its Mu... more The paper outlines the collecting efforts undertaken by the Jewish Community in Prague and its Museum during the period of 1942–45 as a form of systematic rescue, analyzes the collection’s postwar role, and examines its importance for the preservation of the collective memory and identity of Czech Jewry. Special emphasis is put on the fate of the Prague Jewish Museum’s collection within the context of the turbulent political events of 1948 and 1968, which produced two major waves of emigration that resulted in significant material loss and eroded the integrity of the country’s Jewish cultural, intellectual, and spiritual wealth. Using as case studies a few select objects that went missing from the collection during the war and postwar years, only to resurface recently in public or private sales, the paper elaborates the problems of murky provenance, which have engendered the widespread contamination of today’s globalized art market, and examines the fragile boundary between rescue and misappropriation, and ransom and settlement, two basic dichotomies posing fundamental ethical problems. The process of restitution and repatriation is featured not only in the context of seeking justice but as a means of healing and preserving the memory of a community nearly decimated by the Nazi genocide and the Communist totalitarian regime that followed.

Judaica Bohemiae, 2022

Does the past have a face? No doubt. One way to conceive it is as a succession of moments that be... more Does the past have a face? No doubt. One way to conceive it is as a succession of moments that become embedded in the consciousness and unconscious of each one of us, generally in an individualized way. By nature it is a protean and complex face, very personal and different for everyone, hardly reducible to a universal gallery of ‘icons’ à la pantheons of famous persons. In this sense, it is not a singular past, but a multitude of pasts, millions, if not billions, retained in the reservoirs of living memory, not an immutable imprint but one that is constantly transforming along with the vicissitudes of individual experience, the flux of emotions, perceptions, and moods.

Muzeum: Muzejní a vlastivědná práce , 2020

A report about the Spanish Synagogue, its reconstruction and the new permanent exhibition 'Jews i... more A report about the Spanish Synagogue, its reconstruction and the new permanent exhibition 'Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th-20th Centuries' by Michaela Sidenberg, Iveta Cermanová, Jana Šplíchalová
The Jewish Museum in Prague, one of the oldest public Judaic collections since 1906, has opened the new permanent exhibition Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th-20th Centuries in the Spanish Synagogue. After a year and a half long reconstruction, the exhibition features Jewish history in the Bohemian lands, with the help of priceless original objects as well as the use of digital technology. The exhibition has been awarded the Gloria Musaealis 2020 Special Prize in the Museum Project category.

Judaica Bohemiae LV-1, 2021

The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP), which focuses primarily on the cultural and social history of ... more The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP), which focuses primarily on the cultural and social history of Jews in the Bohemian/Czech lands, has several permanent exhibitions, two of which provide an extensive survey of the history of the Jewish community in the territory of what is now the Czech Republic from the beginnings of settlement in the 10 th century through to the present.

Proceedings, 2017

This paper examines the pedagogical legacy of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944), an avant-garde ... more This paper examines the pedagogical legacy of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944), an avant-garde artist and progressive art teacher of the interwar period. As a collaborative effort, it promotes an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis and interpretation of Friedl's teaching method, combining art history with education (Reform Pedagogy) and study into resilience (social pedagogy and developmental psychology). While incarcerated in the Terezín ghetto (1942-1944), Friedl organized children's art classes within which she used an experimental method based on her own schooling experience in Vienna and at the State Bauhaus in Weimar. Offering her students a perfect outlet for processing their traumatic experience by the means of creativity and self-expression, she became a perfect example of what would today be described as a resilience tutor. A group of collages and drawings will be shown and analyzed.

Judaica Bohemiae, 2020

The full version of this article appears in the latest issue of Judaica Bohemiae: Sidenberg, Mi... more The full version of this article appears in the latest issue of Judaica Bohemiae:
Sidenberg, Michaela: “Intimate Galleries: Photographic Albums from the Collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague”, in: Judaica Bohemiae, LV-2, Prague: Jewish Museum in Prague, 2020, pp. 69-80. The publication is available on the CEEOL platform under the following link:
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=917230
* * *
The Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP) is generally acknowledged to rank among the leading world-class institutions of its kind. What makes its collection exceptional, however, is not just the early date of the Museum’s founding in 1906 (making it the third oldest public Judaica collection in the world). More decisive were the uncommon circumstances during the period of the so-called Central Jewish Museum (1942–1945), years that saw the collection greatly enhanced as objects were rescued from the systematic destruction of Jewish culture that was intrinsic to the genocide of European Jewry. Only now, almost eight decades later, are many of these objects receiving a proper evaluation. This text is just a brief introduction to the JMP’s collection of photographic albums. Although they are rather private and ephemeral in nature and outside the scope of the common classification criteria for ‘high art’, the albums afford us a singular source for the study of the history of Jewish emancipation in the Czech lands and the contributions of the Jewish population to the country’s cultural and social evolution as they were integrating into the majority society.

The paper outlines the collecting efforts undertaken by the Jewish Community in Prague and its Mu... more The paper outlines the collecting efforts undertaken by the Jewish Community in Prague and its Museum during the period of 1942–45 as a form of systematic rescue, analyzes the collection’s postwar role, and examines its importance for the preservation of the collective memory and identity of Czech Jewry. Special emphasis is put on the fate of the Prague Jewish Museum’s collection within the context of the turbulent political events of 1948 and 1968, which produced two major waves of emigration that resulted in significant material loss and eroded the integrity of the country’s Jewish cultural, intellectual, and spiritual wealth. Using as case studies a few select objects that went missing from the collection during the war and postwar years, only to resurface recently in public or private sales, the paper elaborates the problems of murky provenance, which have engendered the widespread contamination of today’s globalized art market, and examines the fragile boundary between rescue and misappropriation, and ransom and settlement, two basic dichotomies posing fundamental ethical problems. The process of restitution and repatriation is featured not only in the context of seeking justice but as a means of healing and preserving the memory of a community nearly decimated by the Nazi genocide and the Communist totalitarian regime that followed.