Merano Jewish Museum

An important Jewish community in Central Europe has been at home in Merano since the end of the 19th century. Today the history of this religious community is told and recorded for posterity in a special museum, together with a synagogue and a cemetery: the Merano Jewish Museum (Jüdisches Museum Meran). The key for the entrance gate of the Jewish Cemetery in the Via San Giuseppe road is available in the museum. It is the final resting place of numerous Jewish spa physicians and famous personalities such as the writers Joseph Wechsberg and Nahida Lazarus.

The museum is divided in three topics: One room tells about the history, one about the religion and the third one about the Holocaust. Documents and objects - among them a Torah scroll probably dating back to the 15th century and the traditional tefillin, small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses - illustrate the formation of the Jewish community, the years of its annihilation, the arduous reconstruction after the Shoah and the cultural life today. They also tell how it was connected, for example, with the growing Jewish tourism until the 1930s. Chaim Weizmann, later the first president of Israel, also stayed in Merano.

The exhibition rooms have been redesigned recently, in order to guarantee an appropriately presentation of the collection. Artistic director was the artist Ulrich Egger from Merano, the project was financed by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano and the Town of Merano. And how to reach it? It is located 300 m southwest of the Thermal Baths in the old town of Merano and can be reached in 4 minutes on foot from the Thermal Baths car park or in 10 minutes from the centre.