Museo on the Seam

I have never had a more disturbing experience. I lead my life based on tolerance and reaching out to those different than me. I was excited to see a museum dedicated to my same values - and in Jerusalem, a city suffering from so much intolerance. My disappointment was painful when I found exhibit after exhibit that demonized one group of people. In a misplaced effort to express tolerance the museum had display after display that demonstrated intolerance. I found myself more and more disturbed by the hate expressed here. In a city rich with museums, this is a museum not worth your time.

The Museum on the Seam is rather small in size and number of exhibits, but it packs a punch as it questions normative Jewish practices and beliefs. I am still trying to figure out if I liked this museum and if I would recommend it to others or not. I am a questioner so I can appreciate the iconoclastic nature of the displays. However, I am also deeply entrenched in and appreciative of my Judaism on an emotional and even more so on an intellectual level, so I found some of the museum’s irreverence which sometimes appeared facile and not founded in personal experience or knowledge to be unpleasantly jarring. On one hand: The video exhibits in the lowest section of the museum dealt with the issue of the halachic (legal) requirement for a woman who converts to Judaism to immerse in the mikvah (ritual bath) in the presence of male rabbis. Three well known contemporary Orthodox Rabbis are interviewed and each has quite a different take on the issue. The display is rounded off by a forth video portraying a modern day “midrash” praising a female convert who readily embraces Judaism and stanchly insists that she can not immerse in the presence of men. I loved this exhibit as it was at the same time strongly questioning and also respectful of tradition. Whereas: The displays on the upper floor that deal with a women’s monthly immersion in the mikvah went beyond questioning and were in fact mocking. I can imagine that the video display that used a never-ending calendar to count off clean and non- permissible days in a woman’s cycle her whole married life was done by someone who did not observe this practice. It likened the mitzvah (requirement in Jewish law) of mikvah to a prison sentence without seeing anything redeeming in the practice. It also seemed oblivious to the simple fact that a woman’s life is so rich that this one observance can not be the only thing that defines her. Furthermore: The video of the building of a third Temple followed simultaneously by its very bloody and horrific destruction was so gratuitously negative especially as the museum sits in the city of Jerusalem and very close to the old city. We live in an epoch of real miracles and Jewish joy with respect to the State of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem- a time of such vibrancy and flowering of Judaism. This utterly negative “prophecy”, the last thing I saw in the museum, served no edifying purpose and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. A visitor should know that the exhibits tend quite strongly (but not exclusively) to “women’s issues” in Judaism. I think it can be seen very fully in 1-1.5 hours.