The Museum told by its creator  

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After ten years of gestation, the Judeo-Alsacien Museum of Bouxwiller opens to the public.

Inaugurated on June 28, 1998 , it immediately enjoyed success beyond all expectations...

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Located in the heart of a picturesque town, at the gates of the Regional Natural Park of the Northern Vosges, it occupies the noble and classic building of the old synagogue.

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In 1983, the abandoned place of worship found itself destined for demolition, to make way for a supermarket car park!

An association is born then, the AMJAB , to stop the pickaxe of the demolishers. It proposes a positive solution, to be carried out in partnership with the public authorities: the creation of a museum, tracing the history and staging the culture of the Jews of Alsace who lived in symbiosis with their Christian neighbors, for nearly 'A millenium.

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One of the originalities comes from the creations made especially for the museum by high-level artists. The route is lined with mannequins with twisted iron heads, ceramic models painstakingly reconstructing, in three dimensions, scenes of everyday life inspired by engravings, costumed dolls, architectural models, video films - including one curious "comic strip" in which an eleven-year-old child recounts the dark year of 1940.

In artisanal wooden showcases, where manufactured objects stand side by side with other, more moving, made by clumsy hands, certain tragic objects put you in touch with the turbulent history of a community excluded from cities and often wandering under the Ancien Régime, decapitated by the Terror, touched in 1872 by a massive emigration towards France when Alsace becomes German, driven out in 1940, then pursued ...

And now, throughout the rooms, these rural wretches, peddlers or hustlers, living in the midst of poor peasants, appear as rich in traditions, in quiet faith, in conviviality, in biblical knowledge, in hope... A lesson to ponder, as These contrasts between violence and long friendly cohabitations, between acts of tolerance and acts of intolerance are to be pondered.

This museum is a knowledge tool, (but) with a militant goal : make known a culture, a heritage, to encourage preservation. An "entertainment room", under astonishing beams discovered under the plasterwork, and a temporary exhibition room are there to bring the tool to life.

Gilbert Weill

Museum designer and President of the AMJAB association