Now that the museum has reopened, an exhibition is on display until 27. June, nearly 650 square meters of "The Female Side of God" will be on display at the Jewish Museum.
Please note that you must book a time slot ticket for your visit.
This exhibition is a further development and expansion of the exhibition of the same name that was on view at the Jewish Museum Hohenems in 2017. The Frankfurt version of this exhibition, which was on view for a short time at the opening of the remodeled and expanded Jewish Museum in October 2020, now foregrounds the visuality of the theme and connects the cultural-historical traces of female elements in the concepts of God of the three monotheistic religions with representations in the visual arts. In doing so, it traces a cultural-historical arc not previously undertaken, from ancient archaeological figurines to medieval Hebrew Bible illustrations, Renaissance Madonna paintings, and interpretations by renowned contemporary artists.
The starting point of the exhibition The Feminine Side of God is formed by archaeological artefacts from ancient Israel in which female conceptions of deity and the powers, qualities and desires attributed to them are expressed. In the Hebrew Bible, these female deities are mentioned primarily as idolatrous. At the same time, it includes passages in which abilities are personified and portrayed as female. The "Shechina" in particular is regarded as directly divine, understood in rabbinic Judaism as the "indwelling of God on earth" and described by Jewish mysticism as a creative facet of the one God. This conception forms the center of the exhibition, which addresses the rediscovery of the largely unknown tradition of female conceptions of God in the mirror of contemporary art.
