Tell Jewish people that the Jewish Museum’s next major exhibition is on the subject of Jews and money, and you get winces, grimaces and sharp intakes of breath. Is this really what we need, right now, as antisemitism poisons our politics, not just in Britain but across Europe too? “What were you thinking?” is my first question for Abigail Morris, the museum’s CEO, and I’m only half joking.
It’s not the first time she’s been asked this, it’s clear. Patiently she stresses the amount of thought and care that has gone into every aspect of this project, developed in collaboration with the Pears Institute for the study of antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London; pointing out the parallels with a previous exhibition on Jews and Blood. What’s more, the title is Jews Money Myth, with the emphasis very much on examining and dismantling the myth element.
“Antisemitism is not going away. Not talking about it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” she says, reasonably. “As a museum, we can offer the long view. We give people the chance to learn and find out. We’re shedding light into dark and tricky areas.”
When she says dark, she means it. Some of the images and artefacts are “very grown up”, she says. They include a grotesque statue from 1833 of a Rothschild, and a detailed caricature from the same period, purporting to show the Rothschild family’s global influence, with money flowing to and from business and government endevours around the world. The ugly image is all too reminiscent of internet memes today.
Morris, curator Joanne Rosenthal, and other museum staff have debated how to show these exhibits. One idea was to set the statue against a mirror, so that visitors see themselves looking at the ugliness of antisemitism. But would that fetishise the item? When I visit, a few weeks before the exhibition’s opening, this is still not resolved, and Morris is even thinking of including some of that debate in the exhibition itself.
There’s a child’s dice game from England in 1807 called the new Game of the Jew — with a shifty, be-turbanned Oriental man in the centre of a numbered path. As the players progress, anyone throwing a seven has to give their counters to the Jew. There are caricatures and posters, images from medieval paintings and a commissioned film by Jeremy Deller, showing contemporary media images which link Jews and money. Brace yourself for hundreds of years of hatred when you go — and you should — to see this exhibition.
Alongside are artefacts which tell different stories. Some show Jewish generosity: a charity wheel from the Great Synagogue in Hackney, for example. Poor families would hope that their names would be drawn out, to get five shillings to help feed their families. And others prove that many Jewish people were pitifully poor. Your ancestors were more likely to have been peddlars than bankers. In the 18th century Jews sold dried rhubarb on the streets of London. There’s a poster for the Bread, Meat and Coal Society which operated in the East End well into the twentieth century. You can’t possibly visit this exhibition and come away with the idea that all Jews are rich.
Another myth busted is the canard that the Jews funded the slave trade. Not so, in fact, Jews provided the finance to compensate slave owners, after the Emancipation Act .
The oldest items are coins from Judea 103-76 BCE, and also some from 132-135 CE, the last time that Jews had a currency of their own until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
“We set out to dispel myths inherent in this topic,” says Morris. The myths in question are that Jews are good with money, and that money equals power. In fact, Jewish history tragically shows that neither of these things are true. Most Jews aren’t rich and even those that were could not save themselves with their wealth.” She points out that the medieval English Jews who dealt with money for the king were his property. “If you’re operating on behalf of the king, asking for money, you become really unpopular. But you have no freedom yourself.” And their role didn’t protect them from expulsion in 1290.
“In society we assume that wealth equals power. But it’s not so. Look at Freud’s sisters, left in Vienna. He thought they’d be OK because they had money, but they couldn’t get out.”
The centre piece of the exhibition is a rarely-seen Rembrandt, lent by a private collector, showing Judas, trying to hand back the 30 pieces of silver. Rembrandt —who, of course knew many Jews as he lived among them in Amsterdam — gives Judas a more sympathetic, more human face than the art of previous centuries which, from medieval times demonised Jews, and used Judas as their surrogate.
How far do non-Jews understand the stereotypes around Jews and money? “There’s a lot of ignorance about,” says Morris. Seventy percent of the museum’s visitors are not Jewish. Many schools come and visit, and 90 percent of the young people they bring are not Jewish. An exhibition like this is a powerful opportunity to educate.
Museums have a privileged position in our culture, says Morris. Unlike a film or a television programme you can take things at your own pace. By honing in on things that particularly interest you, you can learn in a deep and lasting way. “In a world of fake news, museums are trusted.”
Not only am I convinced that this is the right time for this exhibition, I hope that the leaders of the Labour party will visit and learn. And that many others will too. As Morris says: “It’s not as if we have something to hide. We have nothing to be ashamed of. “
Jews, Money, Myth is at the Jewish Museum in Camden from March 19 to July 7 2019
