Russian Jewish museum of Tolerance opens

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Published on Jul 16, 2022
The world's largest Jewish Museum has opened in Moscow to widespread praise from politicians and Jewish leaders, giving cause for hope with regard to contemporary Russia's view of the Jewish people.

The Russian Jewish Museum of Tolerance, which cost around fifty million USD, was underwritten by some of Russia's richest and most powerful people, including billionaire oligarch Viktor Vekelsberg, and President Vladimir Putin, whose government openly supports Jews, and who donated a month's salary towards the project.

It features a large number of interactive displays which transport visitors into different Jewish identities, including a virtual Odessa cafÃ©, where it is possible to talk to famous deceased writers.

Another innovative element is a synagogue where you can hear different chapters of the Torah being read depending on which of the 53 weeks of the Jewish year you've chosen to visit.

Project architect Ralph Applebaum:

"Young people today are involved in social media, involved in social events, and so this museum is very social. It's connected digitally - you can hear a steam engine going by right now, telling the story of how Jews left the shtetl and went to cafes of Odessa. All you want the people to do is to join with people of the past into the new way of engaging with the story of the Jewish experience in Russia."

But it is perhaps the fact that the museum has been built in Moscow which is its biggest gift to Jewish culture. The largest population of Jews outside Israel is in America, but this new monument to Judaism in the Russian capital suggests that an attempt is being made to rehabilitate the image of Jews after centuries of repression during the time of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union.

Jews in Russia and other Soviet socialist republics made huge contributions to science and the Arts and yet were subject throughout their history to pogroms or purges and widespread and repeated social and institutional exclusion.

Anti-Jewish policies contributed to pervasive strains of anti-Semitism which still run strong through some political quarters in countries such as Russia and Ukraine to this day, as well as in the general population, where they exist in subtler forms such as undercurrents of everyday xenophobia.

They also contributed to a continuous flow of Jews out from Russia which began in the late 19th century towards countries like America, and later to Israel.

At the musem's opening Israeli President Shimon Peres praised links between the two countries.

Israeli President Shimon Peres:

"More than a million Russian-speakers live in Israel nowadays. And throughout the territory of the former USSR, about a million people pray in Hebrew. Two languages with closeness between them, two peoples with a joint pledge."

Russia's chief Rabbi Berel Lazar said that Jews had tons of friends in Russia, and that most Russians have made life for Jewish people very comfortable and special.

Whatever the shape of contemporary Russian politics with regard to Jews and other minority peoples, the museum of tolerance's founders and its visitors will be hoping that its vision of the Jewish past will set a tone for better understanding, and celebration of Russian Jewish life.

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