It was, she says, like the cold. You often only notice it when you come in, into the warmth. It was the same with this oppressive, oppressive feeling, in Munich, in the past, she didn’t know it any other way. Ilana Levitan only noticed how narrow it was when she came out into the distance. The first time it happened in 1988, when she went to the USA. The second time was in 2006, on November 9th. Munich became warm and wide, and the new synagogue was opened. That was 15 years ago. The architecture on Jakobsplatz sparkles like on the first day, but it has got colder again since then.
Ilana Lewitan is currently in Berlin, where she will show her art installation “Adam, where are you?” Until November 14th. She asks the audience questions such as: “Where do you belong?” It’s about identity and your place in society, that’s also one of your own life questions. She is the daughter of parents who survived the Shoah and got stuck in Germany as refugees from Poland. Lewitan, born in Munich in 1961, is a trained architect, has worked as an artist for many years, and she is Jewish. Now she is sitting in a café in Berlin, noises come from the counter over the phone, a clatter rumbles into Lewitan’s sentences as if out of nowhere as she talks about what it is like to live as a Jew in Munich, then and now.
She remembers going to the synagogue as a child on Reichenbachstrasse, hidden behind the simple facade of an ordinary house. The front building was crossed like in an underpass; she remembers the ambience darkly. “That was that backyard feeling,” says Ilana Lewitan, switching to the present tense: “You are invisible.” The question of being visible runs through conversation, yes, through her whole life. We knew each other in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, she says, everything was familiar, the people, the buildings, the courtyard. But also hidden.
The architect Ilana Lewitan has been working as an artist for many years.
(Photo: Anja Lehmann)
At the age of 27, Ilana Lewitan stepped out of this backyard, in New York she worked for a renowned architect. There, she says, she experienced “Judaism without fear”, without restrictive security measures. There she experienced that it can be “completely natural” to be Jewish. Suddenly this feeling of freedom. In New York she met her husband, also from Munich, Jew and child of survivors, what a coincidence. What to do? Stay in the US? They decided to go back in 1992 because of their parents living in Germany, the rest of the family, the contacts from their studies. As soon as they were there, the houses of people who had been rejected were on fire in Rostock. “There was that old feeling again.” The tightness.
“You don’t really see us.”
A few years later, when the first daughter was born, Ilana Lewitan experienced the community center of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde in Reichenbachstrasse from the perspective of a young mother. She remembers a small, dark room that was there for the playgroup with the children. Everything was familiar, but: “You don’t really see us.”
Then in 2006. “That was an experience,” says Ilana Levitan. On November 9th, 68 years after the Reichspogromnacht, the synagogue on Jakobsplatz was inaugurated. The religious community moved to a place that was transformed from a wasteland into a unique place. It became the symbolic home of Munich’s Jews. “I have now unpacked my suitcase,” said Charlotte Knobloch, the community president. Those suitcases that have been packed all these years since the Holocaust.
In addition to the synagogue and the parish hall, the Jewish Museum also belongs to the Jewish center. It is run by the city and has been headed by Bernhard Purin since it opened in early 2007. The native Austrian is not a Jew himself, but he deals with Judaism on a daily basis. He sits in the cafeteria of his museum and says that many people from the Jewish community come here. Sometimes for a kind of regulars’ table, sometimes to rummage through Rachel Salamander’s literary shop or to stock up on Jewish postcards. Time and again, says Purin, people bring memorabilia that they found in the estate of relatives. Photographs, books with ownership records, or simply giveaways from former Jewish companies. You take everything and archive it, says Purin.
Bernhard Purin has headed the Jewish Museum since it opened at the beginning of 2007, and many visitors come from far away.
(Photo: Daniel Schvarcz)
If Corona does not close the borders, then many visitors come from far away. There are Israelis, who you can often recognize by the bags with the FC Bayern logo. There are many Bayern fans in Israel, and for some of them the fan shop is part of the Munich program. There are also US tourists who are on tour through Europe, on the trail of their Jewish ancestors. Ilana Levitan also says that friends from abroad often wanted to see the synagogue and that she would then be proud to show them Jakobsplatz. “I’m pleased,” says Levitan. “Because we are present as part of Munich.” A little of what was destroyed during National Socialism was made up for by the people of Munich.
The synagogue door can be seen from the museum foyer. Time and again, says Purin, he watches tourists trying to open the door to marvel at the inside of the Jewish place of worship, as is customary with churches. But the door is locked. That is also a reality, Jews have to be careful. Ilana Levitan says that on the last Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish festival, they did not go through the large gate into the synagogue, but had to take the detour through the security gates. Not because of Corona, but because of Halle, where a right-wing extremist attacked the synagogue in 2019.
Openly expressed anti-Semitism is on the rise
Ilana Levitan can tell many stories about anti-Semitism, what remarks it is that hit her like arrows, remarks from so-called educated citizens. She tells of compliments that have ended like this: Great, your exhibition. You’re just fine with your Jewish connections. She got used to answering with a question: “Have you ever considered that I’m just a good artist?” It hasn’t improved much lately, on the contrary, people have more confidence to express their hatred. “It’s getting worse, it feels so hopeless.”
She does not believe that anti-Semitism is related to the new presence of Judaism in Munich, on the contrary. She hears even worse stories from Berlin. So everything is hopeless? Ilana Lewitan is a little shocked because she has just been so pessimistic. No, she is not without hope. Politics and society should not only concern themselves with the dead Jews, however important that may be, but also with those “who are now alive”. And for that, says Levitan, it needs “education, education, education”. And more encounters. To meet means to see each other. Being visible.