| Olympic Diary |
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| Museum |
| Jewish Museum of Greece |
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| The Jewish Museum in Athens. |
Just off Syntagma Square, on Nikis Street.
The Jewish Museum was founded in 1977 to “collect, maintain, research, and exhibit” the traces of the 2,300-year old Jewish civilization in Greece. A historical and ethnography museum, it focuses on presenting a vivid account of Jewish history and culture during those 23 centuries.
Its collection, which is constantly growing, is comprised of 7,500 original objects, photographs, documents, and archives. It includes various objects from the everyday, the religious and the historical life of Greek Jews.
The new building housing the Museum has 800 sq.m. of exhibition space and houses its permanent collection, modern art exhibitions, video exhibition space, a library, photo archives, a restoration lab, and a museum shop.
The permanent exhibition includes themes such as the synagogue, the annual religious cycle, traditional dress, the Holocaust, and the history of Greek Jewry. The Museum pays special attention to educational activities and focuses on inter-cultural education and various youth programs.
Currently, as part of the series of occasional exhibitions, the Museum presents “Hidden children in Occupied Greece”, a show that will last until September 2004. The exhibition deals with one of the most moving and little-known aspects of the WW II era in Greece, that of the fate of the children of the Greek Jewish community during the Nazi occupation. The organizers hope to capture the feeling of fear, humiliation, and loss of identity suffered by little Greek Jews during the 1941-44 period of untold horrors for all Greeks. According to the organizers, the research effort for the show lasted for 3 years and yielded a number of impressive and valuable findings to be exhibited.
The Museum is open daily, Monday through Friday, 9.00-14.30, and on Sundays, 10.00-14.00.
Admission is €3 and €1.5 for students. |
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