Fodor's Expert Review Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme (mahJ)
This excellent museum traces the tempestuous backstory of French and European Jews through art and history. Housed in the refined 17th-century Hôtel St-Aignan, exhibits have good explanatory texts in English, but the free English audioguide adds another layer of insight; guided tours in English are also available on request (€4 extra). Highlights include 13th-century tombstones excavated in Paris; a wooden model of a destroyed Eastern European synagogue; a roomful of early paintings by Marc Chagall; and Christian Boltanski's stark two-part tribute to Shoah (Holocaust) victims in the form of plaques on an outer wall naming the (mainly Jewish) inhabitants of the Hôtel St-Aignan in 1939, and canvas hangings with the personal data of the 13 residents who were deported and died in concentration camps. The museum also mounts excellent temporary exhibitions, like the recent "Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine: Paris as a School, 1940." The rear-facing windows offer a view of the Jardin Anne Frank.... READ MORE
This excellent museum traces the tempestuous backstory of French and European Jews through art and history. Housed in the refined 17th-century Hôtel St-Aignan, exhibits have good explanatory texts in English, but the free English audioguide adds another layer of insight; guided tours in English are also available on request (€4 extra). Highlights include 13th-century tombstones excavated in Paris; a wooden model of a destroyed Eastern European synagogue; a roomful of early paintings by Marc Chagall; and Christian Boltanski's stark two-part tribute to Shoah (Holocaust) victims in the form of plaques on an outer wall naming the (mainly Jewish) inhabitants of the Hôtel St-Aignan in 1939, and canvas hangings with the personal data of the 13 residents who were deported and died in concentration camps. The museum also mounts excellent temporary exhibitions, like the recent "Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine: Paris as a School, 1940." The rear-facing windows offer a view of the Jardin Anne Frank. To visit the garden, use the entrance on Impasse Berthaud, off Rue Beaubourg, just north of Rue Rambuteau.
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