Author: Olivier Hottois

Atelier Ouvert. Around Arié Mandelbaum

27.09.2026 – 05.12.2026

With Atelier Ouvert, the Jewish Museum of Belgium extends the exhibition beyond its walls into the surrounding neighbourhood. While the museum building is closed for renovation, around ten paintings by Arié Mandelbaum are presented in venues within walking distance of the museum. Shown in a variety of settings, they engage with new audiences and new contexts. These displacements create unexpected correspondences, tensions and affinities, allowing the works to resonate beyond the conventional exhibition space and into everyday life.

Born in 1939, Arié Mandelbaum grew up in a Jewish family of Polish origin near Brussels South Station. He created the greater part of his oeuvre in Brussels, where he established and relocated his studios over the decades. Since the late 1950s, his paintings have woven together collective history, political commitment and personal experience. Over time, his visual language has become increasingly distilled, placing traces, erasure and memory at its centre. Fragile figures, overlooked histories and the violence of history emerge in compositions where white is not an absence, but an active force.

The exhibition unfolds across CINEMATEK, Cinéma Galeries, Grands Carmes – LGBTQIA+ Center, the Bruegel Cultural Centre, the Brussels Public Social Welfare Centre (CPAS), Maison CFC, Théâtre des Tanneurs and the Jewish Museum of Belgium. Guided tours, public conversations, film screenings and encounters with the artist will accompany the project, extending the resonances the works generate as they move from one place to another.

This project is based on an exceptional donation of some forty works by the artist, received by the museum in 2021. Mostly never exhibited before, the works on display had not been shown as part of the monographic exhibition devoted to Arié Mandelbaum in 2023.

OPENING EVENT:
27 September 2026 at 5:30 pm, Cinematek – Rue Baron Horta 9, 1000 Brussels
Screening of the film “Portrait of the Painter in His Studio” by Boris Lehman (FR – NL subtitles), followed by a discussion with Boris Lehman and Arié Mandelbaum, moderated by Bruno Benvindo, and a drink.

Booking: https://cinematek.be/2026-09-27-17-30/portrait-du-peintre-dans-son-atelier

Events Related to the Exhibition

October 6 at 7 PM – Cinéma Galeries
Screening of the film “A Painter Under Surveillance” (French version) + discussion with Boris Lehman (director) and Justin MacKenzie Peers.
October 8 at 6 PM – Maison CFC
Exhibition “Void and Full” with Arié Mandelbaum and Rémy Hans + drinks.
October 27 at 7 PM – Cinéma Galeries
Screening of the film “Lumumba, the Return of a Hero” (French version – subtitles in EN) + Q&A with Benoît Feyt (director) and Nancy Kawaya (Congolese Cultural Center).
November 12 – Grands Carmes
Photographic exhibition by Anass Elazhar Idrissi.
November 17 at 7 PM – Cinéma Galeries
Screening of the film “Soundtrack to a Coup d’État” (original version in EN) + Q&A with Johan Grimonprez (director).
December 5 – Grands Carmes
Closing of the exhibition “Atelier Ouvert. Around Arié Mandelbaum” in the presence of Anass Elazhar Idrissi.

Guided Tours

Saturday, October 17 – 2 PM to 4 PM
Guided tour with Bruno Benvindo and Ariane Defrain (curators).
- 2 PM: Departure from the Jewish Museum of Belgium
- 4 PM: End of the tour at Maison CFC with a meeting with Rémy Hans.

Saturday, December 5 – 1 PM to 3 PM
Guided tour with Bruno Benvindo and Ariane Defrain (curators).
- 1 PM: Departure from the Jewish Museum of Belgium
- 3 PM: End of the tour at Grands Carmes

The tours will be conducted in French, by reservation, with a maximum of 25 participants.

Admission: Free (except for film screenings).

Partner Locations:

Cinematek
Rue Baron Horta 9
1000 Brussels

Cinéma Galeries
Galerie de la Reine 26
1000 Brussels

Grands Carmes – LGBTQIA+ Center
Rue des Grands Carmes 22
1000 Brussels

Centre culturel Bruegel
Rue des Renards 1F
1000 Brussels

CPAS de Bruxelles
Rue Haute 298A
1000 Brussels

Maison CFC (available from October 8 to 31 only)
Place des Martyrs 14
1000 Brussels

Théâtre Les Tanneurs
Rue des Tanneurs 75
1000 Brussels

Jewish Museum of Belgium (accessible by appointment only, book via expos@mjb-jmb.org)
Rue des Minimes 21
1000 Brussels

Communication image © Anass Elazhar Idrissi / Instagram: @elazhar.idrissi

Description

The play stages a face-to-face encounter between an atheist Jew and a God whose absence weighs heavily. Jacques Sojcher reflects on the loss of his father, who was murdered at Auschwitz, and addresses a voice that exists only in his mind: the voice of God. Through this intimate and profound dialogue, he questions the God of the Covenant and the absence of miracles, while also exploring more broadly the religions of the Book and their messianic promises.

The performance will be followed by a musical interlude by Clothilde Van Dieren, who will perform Ravel’s Kaddish.

Following the great success of his reading at the Festival d’Avignon (Théâtre Episcène) last July, Jacques Sojcher will present a reading of his play in Brussels.

Biography

Jacques Sojcher is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Brussels and a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. He is the author of numerous poetry collections published by Fata Morgana, as well as several essays, including La démarche poétique, Nietzsche, La Question et le sens, and Paul Delvaux ou la passion puérile. He has also published a novel, Jacki est sage, as well as several plays.

Programme

6:30 PM — Doors open
7:00 PM — Reading of the play « Papa, Dieu et Moi »
8:00 PM — Musical interlude: Ravel’s « Kaddish », performed by Clothilde Van Dieren
8:10 PM — Discussion about the play, moderated by a moderator
8:30 PM — Book presentation and reception

Tickets

Students: €5
Regular: €10

On 12 September, the Jewish Museum of Belgium is joining RendezVous and invites you to discover two new creations at the Salon de RendezVous, the event’s central meeting space, specially designed by Espace Aygo.

RendezVous is an annual celebration of the Brussels art scene, bringing together galleries, public institutions, private foundations, auction houses and artist-led initiatives from across the city. From 10 to 13 September 2026, exhibitions, events and discursive programmes will take place throughout the capital. Every September, more than 60 venues open their doors to showcase new artistic voices.

PROGRAMME :

3:30–4:30 pm | Ritual and sound performance
Mélodie Blaison & Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer

5–6 pm | Culinary experience “ Table Dance ”
Michelle Woods & Roman Hiele

Location: Salon de RendezVous – Av. Van Volxem 311, 1190 Forest
Admission: free, no reservation required.

With Table Dance, Michelle Woods and Roman Hiele create a unique work, a dialogue between performance and gastronomy inspired by their former pop-up restaurant.

Initiated by cook Michelle Woods and musician Roman Hiele, Table Dance was a restaurant and event space rooted in Antwerp. More aptly described as a practice than a venue, Table Dance now continues to operate nomadically as an ever-evolving body, although the duo officially celebrated its funeral at KVS in 2023. Table Dance made a name as providers of fine food, drinks, and entertainment. Existing far away from any standards, their practice consists of a hybrid mix of cuisine, music, performance, and scenography cherishing freedom, creativity, and collective quality time above all.

***

Mélodie Blaison and Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer present an original creation in which sound, breath, and ritual gesture enter into dialogue.

This performance, created with the participation of ceramic artist Clémence Thomas, emerges from the meeting of the two artists’ practices. Mélodie Blaison explores sound and breath, while Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer draws from ritual gesture. Their respective universes—voice, flute, ceramics, and performative actions—come together in a shared space, where sound and gesture intertwine to move bodies in a continuous flow.

Barbara Salomé Felgenhauer (born in 1992, lives and works in Brussels) develops a practice in which photography serves as an anchor point, in dialogue with video, installation, and performance. As an artist-researcher, she initiated her laboratory J’ai rêvé l’obscur in 2020, based on an in-depth exploration of Starhawk’s text Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982). This reference nourishes her multidisciplinary practice, which pays particular attention to the neopagan dimensions of ecofeminism.

Felgenhauer creates immersive, collective, and sensitive forms that challenge dominant narratives and open spaces for transformation. Her artistic research, informed by history, sociology, and philosophy through a gender-conscious lens, explores the relationships between body and land, image and ritual, politics and the sacred. Narrative occupies a central place in her work—as a critical tool, an emancipatory experience, and a force capable of reshaping imaginaries.

Based in Brussels, Mélodie Blaison is a sound artist, composer, and flautist. She explores the boundaries between performance, electroacoustic composition, field recording, and ceramic instrument-making. Her work centres on breath as a primary material, shaping voices, instruments, and spaces to create listening situations in which sound emerges, transforms, and disappears according to the conditions that receive it.

Her works combine acoustic and electronic textures, field recordings, and instrumental gestures, creating unstable sonic environments in which perception is constantly reconfigured. She also designs ceramic instruments activated by air and water, which are used in performances and installations.

Clémence Thomas, a French ceramic artist based in Brussels, designed the shells used in this performance. Her practice, blending modeling and molding, is rooted in a sculptural approach where space becomes a living field of exploration. Inspired by mythology, architecture, and painting, her work brings to life forms born from stories and narratives, embodied in objects that are at once sculptural, tools, and artifacts.

Matrimony Days 2026

Jewish Women in the Marolles: A Walking Tour and a Look at Objects from the Collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium

As part of the Matrimony Days, the Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to discover Jewish women who have played an important role in the cultural, social and artistic history of Brussels.

The visit takes place in two parts: a walking tour through the Marolles, exploring their lives and stories, followed by a presentation at the museum of a selection of objects from the collections, specially curated for the Journées du Matrimoine.

Sculptures, writings and photographs will bring women artists, writers and photographers to the fore, while extending and enriching the stories discovered throughout the neighbourhood.

Bringing together the city, memory and women’s heritage, this tour offers a sensitive perspective on often little-known life stories and on the legacy these women have left in Brussels.

Through its collections, exhibitions and public programmes, the Jewish Museum of Belgium contributes to bringing to light stories and trajectories that have long remained in the shadows, particularly those of women. This tour is part of that approach, highlighting their contributions to the social, cultural, artistic and intellectual life of Brussels.

Practical information

1–3 pm | Tour in French
3–5 pm | Tour in Dutch

Location: Jewish Museum of Belgium, 21 rue des Minimes, 1000 Brussels
Maximum 20 participants per tour

MUTAMORPHOSIS is a transdisciplinary project bringing together performances, concerts, DJ sets, and more, dedicated to contemporary forms of hybridity. This second edition is conceived as an evolving research project exploring the transformations of bodies, identities, and gender in our societies.

Presented as part of Various Voices, this new edition showcases queer artists through works that blend performance, music and experimental sound. MUTAMORPHOSIS explores the physical, social, cultural and political shifts that are redefining the ways in which we relate to one another, whilst imagining new forms of dialogue and solidarity.

Through a performance that blends personal memory and documentary fiction, Victor Abraham Lacô revisits the imagery associated with bullfighting and Catalan cultural heritage from a queer perspective, where personal narratives become spaces for reappropriation and transformation.

Hot Bodies presents a musical and performative project at the crossroads of pop, club music and collective experience. Combining electronic textures, vulnerability and dancefloor energy, his practice views music as a space for the circulation of emotions and desires.

With her hybrid sets blending hard house, breakbeat, guaracha and Latin influences, Vera Moro transforms the dancefloor into a space for connection, emancipation and collective celebration. Rooted in stories of circulation, transmission and resilience, MUTAMORPHOSIS views sound and space as active zones of metamorphosis. By making visible the fluid nature of a changing society, the project seeks to create spaces for imagination, reflection and encounter, where hybridity becomes a way of being together.

Programme:

20:30 – 21:00 | Victor Abraham Lacô, Queer Tauromachie (performance)

21:15 – 22:00 | Hot Bodies (musical performance)

22:00 – 23:00 | Vera Moro (DJ set)

Venue: VAUX HALL, Rue de la Loi 5, 1000 Brussels

Free and no reservation required.

Télécharger

This event is part of Vaux Hall Summer, a project supported by the City of Brusse

The Song of Songs (1923): A Gem from Our Collection

This 1923 edition of the Song of Songs, published in Berlin by SD Saltzman Hasefer Verlag, is a work where text and image intertwine with rare artistry. Its illustrations, created by Ze’ev Raban (1890–1970), reflect a unique style: a dialogue between Art Nouveau, biblical motifs, and the artistic traditions of the Middle East. Trained in Munich, Paris, Brussels, and later at the Bezalel School in Jerusalem, Raban developed an aesthetic at the crossroads of these diverse influences.

Founded in 1906, the Bezalel School quickly became a major artistic hub, producing works, decorative objects, and prints. The Song of Songs is a shining example: 26 chromolithographs, enhanced with gold and silver, where every detail tells the story of the fusion between Eastern and Western traditions.

A Donation Steeped in History

This book was acquired by our donor at a market in Liège. The seller, a concierge in Brussels during the war, had received it from a rabbi who asked her to keep it safe. No one ever came to claim it. Its origins remain uncertain, but it may have been looted during the antisemitic persecutions of 20th-century Europe.

Who Owns Culture?

Who owns culture? How can museums address past looting? This donation highlights the urgency of provenance research and restitution.

The Royal Conservatory of Brussels Returns to the Museum!

The Jewish Museum of Belgium is once again partnering with the Royal Conservatory of Brussels to offer you an exceptional evening dedicated to chamber music. Following the success of the previous edition, we invite you to discover a variety of works performed by the Conservatory’s talented young musicians.

This year, enjoy a diverse program featuring Darius Milhaud, Laurent Grynszpan, Igor Stravinsky, Jean-Michel Damase, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Musicians from the Chamber Music class, performing in ensembles ranging from duos to quintets, will showcase the richness and talent of chamber music.

Program:
6:30 PM: Doors open
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM: Chamber music concert
8:30 PM – 9:30 PM: Drink

Practical Information:
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Jewish Museum of Belgium
21 Rue des Minimes – 1000 Brussels

Price: Free, reservation required
Reservations: https://concert-de-musique-de-chambre.eventsquare.store/fr/eu1gfu9tdu20/gu5ipxfmu32w/info

Discover the concert program in the document below:

Programme Télécharger

Passover

On the occasion of Passover, a festival associated with freedom in Jewish tradition, the Jewish Museum of Belgium and the Jewish Social Service (SSJ) invite you to a multidisciplinary evening.

This event offers an exploration of the historical, symbolic, and contemporary meanings of Passover, through:

A lecture on the challenges of transmission and freedom, linked to the stories and practices associated with this festival.
A presentation of objects from the museum’s collections, illustrating the history and diversity of Passover traditions.
A buffet inspired by the culinary symbols of Passover, for a sensory and cultural experience.

Detailed Program

7:00 PM: Welcome and opening of doors
7:15 PM – 8:00 PM: Lecture by Yonathan Kreisman (social sciences researcher) on the theme: « Passover, Freedom, and Post-Truth »
A reflection on the question of freedom through the lens of Jewish tradition and the Passover narrative.

8:00 PM – 10:00 PM:
Opening of a symbolic buffet inspired by the Seder plate
Presentation of objects from the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium related to Passover, guided by two cultural mediators

Practical Information
Date: April 9, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Location: Jewish Social Service (SSJ) – 68 Avenue Ducpétiaux, 1060 Saint-Gilles
Speaker: Yonathan Kreisman (social sciences researcher)
Prices: 10€ (full price) / 5€ (students)

An invitation to discover Passover differently, between heritage and reflection.

Note: This is not a traditional Seder, but an immersive evening around the themes of Passover, accessible to a wide and diverse audience.

Book your place now!

The Nocturnes are back at the Museum!

Thursday 12 March | 6 pm – 10 pm

The Nocturnes are back in Brussels, and the Jewish Museum of Belgium is taking part in this exceptional new edition.

On the evening of 12 March, we invite you to enjoy an immersive experience specially designed for the Nocturnes.

A sensory immersion into the heart of Jewish culture

During a workshop created especially for the occasion, we will explore Jewish culture through our five senses. Objects, flavours, sounds and scents will transport you into the heart of the rites and traditions that shape this fascinating culture.

The experience will include:

a guided presentation of a capsule exhibition featuring a selection of objects from the museum’s collections;
sensory experience stands.

Accompanied by our mediators, you will enjoy a moment at the crossroads of learning, transmission and discovery.

The Nocturnes in Brussels

The Nocturnes begin on Thursday 12 March and continue for seven weeks, until 23 April. Every Thursday evening, several Brussels museums exceptionally open their doors from 6 pm to 10 pm and offer unique activities.

Discover the full Nocturnes programme.

Practical information:

Location: Jewish Museum of Belgium, 21 Rue des Minimes, 1000 Brussels
Date: Thursday 12 March 2026
Time: 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Free upon reservation: Booking link

Call for Contributions – Muséon 2026

Muséon, the journal of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, is calling for contributions for its next issue, to be published in September 2026.

Since 2009, the journal has welcomed research devoted to the history, cultures, and expressions of Judaism, provided that contributions maintain an explicit connection with the museum’s collections, archives, heritage, or missions.

The September 2026 issue takes as its starting point the transformation of the museum, currently closed for renovation.

This period of transition is understood as a time of research, reflection, and projection. How does a museum, in a moment of transition and renewal, rethink its concrete practices in response to contemporary challenges? How does it question its narratives, its heritage choices, its place within Belgian society and within Jewish worlds?

Transformation is understood here as an ongoing process, through which the museum’s future orientations gradually take shape.

Contributions engaging with these questions, directly or indirectly, are particularly encouraged.

This thematic focus is not exclusive. Muséon also welcomes proposals based on the study of the Jewish Museum of Belgium’s collections and archives, as well as on the contextualization of Jewish heritage.

Documents for Download

Full submission details are available in the following documents:

→ Call for Contributions (PDF)
→ Author Guidelines (PDF)

Key Requirements

• Articles in French or English
• Maximum 40,000 characters (including spaces and notes)
• Minimum two illustrations per article
• Abstract (max. 500 characters)
• Short biographical note (max. 400 characters)

Submission deadline: April 30, 2026

Please send proposals to:
[b.benvindo@mjb-jmb.org]
[s.collette@mjb-jmb.org]
[l.lohman@mjb-jmb.org]

Muséon – Appel à contribution 2026 Télécharger

CROWNED! – Purim Ball: Reclaiming the Queen Within

(Kings admitted)

What if, for one evening, you put on a crown?

On the occasion of Purim and International Women’s Rights Day, the Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to CROWNED!, a festive, creative and immersive Purim Ball.

Inspired by the figures of Purim — Esther, Vashti and all the unsung heroines — this evening celebrates the many ways of existing, asserting oneself, refusing or revealing who we are.
Through costume, masks, dance and storytelling, the figure of the queen appears in plural forms: visible or invisible, flamboyant or silent, crowned or uncrowned.

Purim is a celebration of joy, transformation and playful appearances. Here, carnival becomes a space of freedom, creativity and sharing — where symbols are amplified, roles are reversed and we celebrate together.

Dress code: Queens · anti-queens · hidden heroines

Programme

4:00 – 4:30 pm | Welcome

4:30 – 5:30 pm | Voices of Queens
Discussion about the women of Purim: Esther, Vashti and others — between courage, power and disobedience.
With Nehama Uzan and Estelle Cincinatis Abramowicz.

5:30 pm | Creative workshops & tastings open
Crowns, masks, face painting, creative workshops and traditional treats to celebrate Purim differently.
Special Purim exhibition from the museum’s collections.
Kids friendly.

6:00 – 8:30 pm | Purim Ball
Festive DJ set with La Dame.

Practical information

Date: March 8, 2026, 4:00 – 8:30 pm
Location: Jewish Museum of Belgium

Prices:
Free for children
Students: €5
Standard ticket: €10

[DIGITAL MUSEUM – ARCHIVES] Ryfka Pschetizki & Moses Götz : Writing to Hold on

Discover the moving story of Ryfka (Rosa) Pschetizki through a recently acquired archive collection at the Jewish Museum of Belgium.

Between 1941 and 1942, Moses Götz, detained in Saint-Gilles, wrote to his wife Ryfka two letters a month—the maximum allowed. Censorship required that only everyday topics be mentioned: laundry, food, health… But between the lines, fear, hope, and love shimmer through.

Ryfka never went anywhere without these letters, precious treasures that bear witness to quiet resistance in the face of horror. After Moses was deported to Auschwitz, these writings remained the last tangible links to their shattered family.

These letters and documents (membership cards, registers, declarations) tell the story of a war experienced daily—filled with care for loved ones, survival strategies, and a memory held dear.

Discover this story in our new video.

From the archives:
1. Ryfka Pschetizki & Moses Abraham Götz in the snow, Antwerp, 1935.
2–3. Letters Moses wrote to Ryfka from Saint-Gilles prison in 1942, later restored and bound by their granddaughter (2012).
2. Envelope of the letter dated April 23, 1942.
3. 1957 statement on Moses’s 1941 arrest for “illegal activities against the Germans.”
4. Ryfka’s membership card of the Association of Jewish Political Prisoners, 1945.
5. Civil Registry extract confirming Moses’s death in 1945 (issued in 1954).
6. Ryfka & Moses in the grass, Ostend, 1938.

Closing of the exhibition ‘THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING’

On 14 December, the Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to the finissage of the exhibition There Is A Crack in Everything‘. From 2pm to 6pm, explore the exhibition through guided tours led by the curators, encounters with the artists, and unique performances. A final opportunity to experience the exhibition differently, and to bid farewell to the building before its transformation.

There Is a Crack in Everything brings together twenty-eight international artists whose practices intertwine emotion and form with questions of belonging, identity and memory. Just months before its demolition and complete renovation, the museum is at a pivotal moment. Its emptied rooms become spaces of anticipation and transformation, where the exhibition unfolds as an open conversation between artists. Their works question and shift our ways of inhabiting the world and relating to others.

The exhibition concludes as it began, with the presence of Prinz Gholam, who return to the museum to present You Never See Yourself, a proposition in which improvisation, bodily memory and ephemeral gesture interlace.

Programme
2:00pm Doors open
2:00–6:00pm Culinary performance by Michelle Woods and Hélène Bedouet (ongoing)

2:30–3:00pm Conversation with Barbara Cuglietta and Martin Germann
3:00–3:30pm Reading and discussion with Ethan Assouline
3:30–4:00pm Reading and discussion with Alma Feldhandler
4:00–4:30pm Meeting with mountaincutters
4:30–5:00pm Reading and discussion with Yann Chateigné Tytelman
5:00–5:30pm Performance by Prinz Gholam
6:00pm Doors close

Price:
Standard ticket: €10
Students: €5
Children: free

Reservation link: https://www.visit.brussels/en/visitors/agenda/event-detail.CLOSING-There-is-a-Crack-in-Everything.5700016470

More information about the exhibition : https://www.mjb-jmb.org/en/there-is-a-crack-in-everything/

With the support of the German Embassy in Brussels.

There Is a Crack in Everything — 5.09 – 14.12.25

There Is a Crack in Everything brings together more than twenty-five international artists whose practices intertwine emotion and form with questions of belonging, identity, and memory. From visible violence to imposed silences, from damages to life to the vulnerability of surrounding environments, these artists explore the human condition in its tensions as well as its possibilities, transforming these realities into imaginings of resistance, displacement, and reinvention.

A few months before its demolition and complete renovation, the Jewish Museum of Belgium finds itself at a turning point. Its empty rooms become spaces of waiting and transformation, where the exhibition unfolds as a conversation between artists whose works challenge, displace, or reshape ideas about living together. Acting as a palimpsest, the building—at times a private house, a German school, a military prison, a warehouse for musical instruments, and finally a museum—becomes a metaphor for a world in reconfiguration, where the present can never fully escape the past.

Through the sobriety of their materials and installations, the presented artworks highlight the strength of fragile traces and the precision of meticulous gestures that bring meaning and presence. Each room becomes a sensitive laboratory: absence turns into language, and indeterminacy becomes material for creation. The artists offer no ready-made paths, nor immediate consolation, but rather invite us to inhabit difference with lucidity and care. The exhibition asserts that fragility is not a deficiency but a resource, reflecting the shared condition of all cultural institutions today.

The title of the exhibition, borrowed from Leonard Cohen—There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in—reminds us that every fracture carries within it both destruction and light: it suggests new ways of being in the world and relating to what surrounds us.

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A project of the Jewish Museum In/Out, led by its director Barbara Cuglietta, in collaboration with guest curator Martin Germann.

With Aaron Amar Bhamra, Adrien Vescovi, Akane Saijo, Alma Feldhandler, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Christiane Blattmann, Edith Dekyndt, Ethan Assouline, Gustav Metzger, Jean Katambayi Mukendi, Jochen Lempert, John Giorno, Kanitha Tith, Marianne Berenhaut, Mariko Matsushita, Michael Van den Abeele, Mira Mann, Mire Lee, mountaincutters, Oototol, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Prinz Gholam, Raha Raissnia, Richard Moszkowicz, Stéphane Mandelbaum, Wei Libo, Yalda Afsah, Yuyan Wang.

With the support of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the City of Brussels, the Brussels-Capital Region, the COCOF, the National Lottery and the Casa de Velázquez.

HanuQueer – Inclusive Hanukkah Celebration – December 17 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

HanuQueer is a cultural and inclusive event organized by the Jewish Museum of Belgium in partnership with the Mazal Pride association. This event is open to everyone: members of the Jewish community, allies, families, friends, and anyone who is curious. It offers a warm and welcoming space where Jewish culture, dialogue, and LGBTQIA+ pride come together.

Evening program:

Talk and discussion with Élise Goldfarb
Lighting of the Hanukkah candles
Latkes and sufganiyot
Visit of a mini-exhibition featuring Hanukkah-related objects from the museum’s collections
Traditional Hanukkah songs, followed by a collective musical moment

Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Time: From 7 PM to 10 PM
Location: Jewish Museum of Belgium
Tickets: Adult €8.00 — Students and children: free

Book now here

AUSSI LOIN QU’ICI 13.11.2025—29.03.2026

The Jewish Museum of Belgium is setting up at the Art et Marges Museum with the exhibition “Aussi loin qu’ici” (As Far as Here).

For the second part of the exhibition “ Aussi loin qu’ici” (As Far As Here), the Jewish Museum of Belgium presents a unique dialogue on memory and territory.

With Fool’s Paradise, Angyvir Padilla (1987, Venezuela) composes a fragmented landscape where exile, loss, and matter intermingle. On the ground, black coal, burnt residue, welcomes ceramic forms, like bodies on the verge of collapse but still holding on. This unstable territory is traversed by a voice, that of the artist, singing a Venezuelan melody. The landscape becomes an emotional and political space, traversed by ruins, memories, and reconstructions. Between here and elsewhere, between presence and absence, Padilla invents a shifting “home,” shaped by the traces and gestures of everyday life.

For Jim Kaliski (1929–2015, Belgium), too, territory serves as a field of memory and resistance. His first series refers to his formative childhood experience, marked by the Holocaust: as a hidden Jewish child, he escaped deportation, while his father was murdered in Auschwitz. Later, at the age of over sixty, he turned to drawing as a self-taught artist, as if to reestablish a dialogue with the world. Imbued with an obsession with detail, his works seek to give form to the unspeakable and to inscribe memory in gesture. The second series, dedicated to the violence in Algeria in the 1990s, extends this memory to other geographies, making the intimate a prism through which to read the tragedies of the 20th century. In these drawings, which focus closely on people and places, Kaliski inscribes a silent solidarity between victims and reminds us that “all the bleached bodies of all genocides resemble each other and come together.

The practices of Angyvir Padilla and Jim Kaliski, formally distant, converge in their shared focus on territory as a place of memory. Elsewhere intertwines with here, traces of the past cross the present, the intimate becomes History. Memory is no longer just a testimony, but an act of resistance—a way of inhabiting the present differently. Yet one nagging question remains: how can we feel at home in a world marked by displacement and loss?

***

Angyvir Padilla (1987, Venezuela) is an artist who frequently combines installation art with sculpture, performance, photography, video, and sound. She takes as her starting point domestic elements from her youth in Venezuela, which she transposes into a different environment: she seeks to recreate the impression of family intimacy in order to preserve a trace of what once existed, while opening up new narratives of personal reconciliation. The issue of migration is addressed through her own experience, but also sometimes through female figures in her family, as well as through the use of voice and material as vectors of memory. Revived in another cultural context, these personal traces question how past experiences allow us to anchor ourselves in the world.

Jim Kaliski (1929–2015, Belgium) was a self-taught artist whose life was profoundly marked by the Holocaust. Born into a Jewish family, he was forced to go into hiding to escape deportation, while his father was arrested and murdered in Auschwitz. This experience as a teenager would mark him for life, but it was not until the age of sixty that he began drawing to tell his story. With his hyperthymesia, he bears witness to the violence of his century as a way of transcending his personal experience. His thousands of drawings remind us, in his own words, that “all the bleached bodies of all genocides look alike and come together in stench and abomination.”

***

VERNISSAGE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2025, 6:00 pm —8:30 pm

With works by Yassir Amazine, Aimé Bahati, Nour Ben Slimane, Sergio Carrasco Olave, Georges Cauchy, Sylvain Corentin, Adam Cicherski, Sylvain Cosijns, Heide De Bruyne, Germana Dragna, Sebastián Ferreira, Michael Golz, Juanma Gonzalez, Richard Greaves, Julie Hascoët, Josef Hofer, Jeroen Hollander, Jim Kaliski, Côme Lequin, Maxime Mormont, Raphaël Michel, Ludovic Mennesson, Mark Anthony Mulligan, Michaël Mvukani Mpiolani, Fernando Oreste Nannetti, Helmut Nimczewski, Angyvir Padilla, Adèle Pion, André Prues, Melina Riccio, André Robillard, Jean-Pierre Rostenne, Marie Steins, Mohammed Targa, Donatien Toma Ndani Djemelas, Koki Ueshima, Warren Van Ess, Willem Van Genk, Gérard Van Lankveld, Marc Vervloet.

Angyvir Padilla, Fool’s Paradise, 2018 © Chantal van Rij

Jim Kaliski, Haïm d’Etterbeek, 1990-1990, Jewish Museum of Belgium

In partnership with the Art et Marges Museum.

Welcome to Maya, our new European volunteer!

Every year, our museum has the privilege of welcoming a volunteer through the Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF) program – Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. This year, we are delighted to welcome Maya, who is joining our team thanks to the European Solidarity Corps. This European Union program enables young people to engage in solidarity projects across Europe and beyond, while developing valuable skills and contributing to meaningful causes.

A long-standing partnership

For over 60 years, ASF has been committed to memory, understanding, and human rights. Each year, by welcoming an ASF volunteer, we strengthen our shared commitment to peace and reconciliation. These intercultural exchanges and collaborations enrich our daily work and remind us of the importance of international solidarity.

The European Solidarity Corps: a human and solidarity adventure

The European Solidarity Corps is aimed at young people aged 18 to 30 (and up to 35 for humanitarian missions). It offers them the opportunity to get involved in a variety of projects: supporting vulnerable people, environmental actions, local initiatives, and much more. For Maya, this experience will be an opportunity to make her contribution while gaining a unique and enriching experience.

Learn more If you would like to learn more about ASF or the European Solidarity Corps, please visit the following links:

Co-funded by the European Solidarity Corps of the European Union.

Since October 2024, the museum has been closed and its permanent collection dismantled.

And yet, we remain open—in a different way.

Our temporary exhibition “There Is a Crack in Everything” continues to be on view in our building until 14 December 2025. At the same time, Jewish Museum In/Out takes the museum beyond its walls, bringing culture and stories into the city and closer to you.

The renovation, originally scheduled earlier, is now planned for 2026. Until then, we’ll be sharing with you this unique journey of transition and renewal.

Because a museum is never only about walls – it thrives through its connections, its stories, and above all, with you.

Rosh Hashana: Let’s celebrate the Jewish New Year together!

The Jewish Museum of Belgium, the Jewish Cultural Center and the Jewish Social Service are delighted to invite you to a festive and convivial gathering on the occasion of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

Monday 22 September 2025, from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM
Jewish Social Service – Avenue Ducpétiaux 68, 1060 Brussels

This event is open to everyone looking for a welcoming place to share the first evening of Rosh Hashana, in a spirit of solidarity, sharing and traditions.

Program:

Ceremony of wishes
Mini-exhibition of objects related to Rosh Hashana from the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, with the presence of our archivist
Rosh Hashana Seder followed by a full dinner (starter, main course, dessert)
Short dracha with Luc Kreisman
Traditional songs in Yiddish and Hebrew
Participatory and intergenerational wish tree

Participation: €30
You may also offer a solidarity ticket to allow more people to join this evening.

Information and registration via the Jewish Cultural Center: https://maisondelaculturejuive.be/evenements/seder-de-roch-hachana-5786/

Even while the building is closed, our activities continue. Discover our new brochure with all our updated offers now!

The Jewish Museum of Belgium offers a wide range of educational and engaging activities. Designed to suit all audiences—students of all ages and levels, as well as extracurricular groups, associations, and adults—our activities are tailored to your needs. Workshops are available in French and Dutch.

Discovering other cultures, developing critical thinking, and deconstructing stereotypes are at the heart of our program!

Download our new brochures:

Primary Education
- French version (PDF)
- Dutch version (PDF)

Secondary Education
- French version (PDF)
- Dutch version (PDF)

Book your workshop by clicking here!

Sunday, September 7, from 3 pm to 6 pm, join us for the fifth edition of Boire ou Manger at the Jewish Museum of Belgium.

As part of the exhibition There is a Crack in Everything, we are inaugurating the Laboratory of Hospitalities. How can a closed museum temporarily open up and reinvent itself as a welcoming space for encounters? By blurring the boundaries between host and guest, through an event-based program, the museum goes beyond its traditional role as host to give its guests the opportunity to welcome in return. How do we welcome the other? How can hospitality be thought of not simply as a gesture of openness, but as a space of negotiation, where host and guest co-construct a shifting common ground?

Boire ou Manger is a series of small Brussels events dedicated to utilitarian objects and their containers. For this fifth edition, the artists are invited to create a jug, which will then be filled with the delicious recipe of Osma_bxl.

The approach of Boire ou Manger is as local as possible, both in terms of the artists and the food.

While waiting to discover these jugs, here is the list of participating artists:
Adèle Pasquier, Agathe Bertin, Anna Zanichelli, Arianna Musetta, Axel Fourmont, Brigitte Arbelot, Charlotte Burgaud, Charlotte Chauvin, Chloé Girten, Coline Rosoux, Eliot Duran, Fanny Canel, Hélène Bedouet, Hélène Drénou, Ivonne Gargano, Jaco Mnes, Leonard, Lieza Dessein, Louise Devin, Quentin Caillaud, Sarah Kerloveou and Sukrii Kural.

Free Event. No registration required.

Practical information:
21 Rue des Minimes, 1000 Brussels
From 3 PM to 6 PM
Kefir €2
Jug €90

The Jewish Museum of Belgium embarks on its makeover: time for the ‘Jewish Museum In/ Out’.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium today announced the temporary closure of its doors for an ambitious renovation and extension project, with a planned reopening in 2028. This transformation is an opportunity for the institution to rethink its role in contemporary society around its key themes of openness, dialogue and education. During this period, the museum will take on a new form and become the Jewish Museum In/Out, pursuing its cultural missions through out-of-home and digital initiatives.

A dynamic program connected to the world

During the closure, the Jewish Museum of Belgium will continue to enrich the Brussels and international landscape under the banner of Jewish Museum In/Out. The institution will explore new ways of disseminating culture. Contemporary art exhibitions will be organized in partnership with other institutions, enabling the public to discover works and projects in new venues. In addition to exhibitions, the museum will continue to program traveling art events and performances, in partnership with the City of Brussels, incorporating artistic interventions in public spaces and partner venues. This nomadic approach will enable us to continue creating powerful and innovative encounters, reinforcing the museum’s presence in the cultural life of Brussels.

An off-site educational program has also been set up to interact directly with schools, promoting cultural education right in their midst. This commitment to young people testifies to the museum’s determination to remain a central player in the transmission of knowledge and humanist values, as well as in the fight against antisemitism and all forms of racism.

At the same time, the museum is turning to digital technology to meet contemporary needs. During the construction period, a digital museum will highlight all the museum’s missions – conservation, dissemination and education. An interactive platform, accessible to all, will enable visitors to explore the collections, follow exhibitions and take part in educational programs, wherever they may be.

“The renovation of the Jewish Museum of Belgium is essential to preserve and enhance this unique place of cultural and educational transmission. Its commitment to telling the story through art and memory is invaluable. Until it reopens, the hors-les-murs program promises to enrich our city and bring culture to the heart of Brussels’ neighborhoods, offering everyone a precious opportunity for exploration and reflection.” – Philippe Close, Mayor of Brussels

An architectural and cultural transformation

Housed since 2002 in a building dating from the late 19th century, the Jewish Museum of Belgium will undergo an architectural transformation. Barozzi Veiga Architects (Barcelona), in collaboration with Tab Architects (Ghent), will lead the renovation. The architectural project will include the addition of a “belvedere”, a symbol of openness and modernity, offering a panoramic view of Brussels. At the same time, particular attention will be paid to the scenography, designed by Christophe Gaeta, who will propose a new museum itinerary. The whole will be enriched by the integration of a contemporary work of art, reinforcing the dialogue between tradition and innovation.

A museum for the future

This renovation is much more than an architectural project. It testifies to the Jewish Museum of Belgium’s ability to reinvent itself, to respond to the challenges of tomorrow, and to reinforce its role as a place of exchange, reflection and transmission. In 2028, the museum will reopen its doors with a totally redesigned space, in tune with the expectations of a diversified public connected to its time.

The project to build the new Jewish Museum of Belgium is supported by Beliris – Brussels-Capital Region, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the City of Brussels.

Hidden Stories: Richard Moszkowicz

What if you started painting at over 50 years old, without rules, without training, just with the urgent desire to bring out what’s inside you? That’s exactly what Richard Moszkowicz did.

For this fourth episode of “Hidden Stories,” we introduce you to a striking canvas created in 2018, recently added to the collection of the Jewish Museum of Belgium after the exhibition “Passage. Textiles & Rituals“

Saturated colors, vertical gestures, words scribbled like fragments of an intimate diary. Moszkowicz’s canvases don’t tell stories; they reveal an inner tension. Born in Brussels in 1945, he joined the Créahmbxl workshops in 1997, where he continues today to build a body of work that is as powerful as it is unclassifiable.

Watch the video to discover more about this unique artwork and the artist who created it.

In March and April 2025, several classes of primary and secondary school students from Brussels collaborated within the framework of the Beit Project. This educational project, launched in Paris in 2011, has been deployed in 16 different cities to explore and celebrate the shared cultural heritage. It fosters encounters among young people and encourages them to look beyond their differences to live a shared experience.

At the Jewish Museum of Belgium, the young participants worked together to create a « nomadic school of citizenship, » symbolizing their learning. They explored the memory of places and the richness of urban cultures, which led to the creation of a film.

Watch our video to discover how these young minds are shaping the future.