Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918 » (New Edition)

Emily D. Bilski is guest curator of Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918, and the author of Golem! Danger, Deliverance, and Art (1988). She lives in Jerusalem.

Between 1890 and 1918 the city of Berlin evolved into a commercial and industrial hub that also became an international center for radical new ideas in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Jews were key leaders in developing this unique cosmopolitan culture. Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918 vividly documents the many ways that Jewish artists and entrepreneurs participated in this burst of artistic creativity and promoted the emergence of modernism on the international scene.
The book and exhibition at The Jewish Museum highlight leading cultural figures such as Max Liebermann, a founder of the Berlin Secession, and Herwarth Walden, who founded Der Sturm; artists such as Ludwig Meidner and Jakob Steinhardt; pioneers of cabaret, theater, and film, including Max Reinhardt and Ernst Lubitsch; art dealers, publishers, and writers; and leading intellectual and political figures such as Martin Buber and Georg Simmel. These and other fascinating individuals are represented by more than 200 diverse objects: paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, books, letters, posters, graphic arts, theater memorabilia, and film. The book includes eight essays by scholars of German and Jewish culture and art history that provide a truly interdisciplinary interpretation of the Berlin renaissance.
The period represented in Berlin Metropolis was a time when Jews were traditionally restricted from participating in major areas of German public life such as the army, government, and the university. But by turning to the "alternative public spheres" characteristic of urban society—galleries, cafés, journals, theaters, cabarets—they emerged as innovative cultural leaders whose intellectual and artistic impact is still felt today.
The exhibition, Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918, will be at The Jewish Museum, New York, from November 14, 1999, to March 5, 2000; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, from April 1 to June 11, 2000.

Library Journal

Accompanying a recent exhibition at New York's Jewish Museum, this collection of essays explores Jewish participation in the cultural life of Berlin from 1890 through 1918. Painting, writing, theater, film, cabaret, artistic salons, and the Zionist movement are all addressed. Some full-page and many small reproductions of artworks along with a generous number of photographs help illustrate the time and place. A year-by-year chronology of important political events and the art and culture of the Jews of Berlin and internationally provides an interesting framework for the text. Unfortunately, the tone and quality of the writing are uneven, and there is some repetition of information from essay to essay. This book will be of most use in specialized historical and Judaica collections.--Kathryn Wekselman, Cincinnati Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\