The oldest Jewish ritual bath in Austria has been preserved in Hohenems. To coincide with the restoration of this historic building the Jewish Museum Hohenems is offering an insight into a private realm of Jewish life, between religious tradition and secular stirrings.
With the special exhibition “Ganz rein!”, from March 9 to October 3, 2010, the museum is opening up an exploration of ritual and freedom, sexuality and marriage, gender roles and religion, with concepts of cleanness and uncleanness, questions that give rise to conflicts in all religions in the present too.
The exhibition goes into the historical deeper dimension of those purification rituals that extend from Judaism to the ritual of baptism, and deals with the theme of the renaissance of mikvahs as a token of a disputed new Jewish spirituality.
Architectural studies of European mikvahs by the Frankfurt photographer Peter Seidel show the diversity of the forms of building over the centuries, and the Mikvah Project by the American artists Janice Rubin and Leah Lax portrays women in the mikvah and their very personal responses to this old ritual.
In parallel, Radio Mikwe Hohenems, the new internet radio of the Jewish Museum Hohenems, will widen this exploration and allow many voices to be heard. Take part in it yourself, and visit the Jewish Museum Hohenems on www.radiomikwe.at

An exhibition of the Jewish Museum Hohenems, the Jewish Museums of Frankonia, the Jewish Museum of Frankfurt am Main, and the Jewish Museum of Vienna.

Further venues:

Jüdisches Museum Wien (Entirely Pure!): 30. November 2010 – 27. February 2011 | Jüdisches Museum Franken (Entirely Pure!): 9. June – 31. October 2010 | Jüdisches Museum Franken (The MIkvah Project): 17. November 2010 – 13. March 2011 | Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt/Museum Judengasse (Entirely Pure! / The Mikvah Project): 5. May – 30. October | Alte Synagoge Erfurt (Entirely Pure!): 5. September 2011 – 8. January 2012 | Römerthermen Zülpich 
(Entirely Pure!): 28. June – 7. October 2012
 | Stadtmuseum Andernach (Entirely Pure!): 14. September – 2. December 2012 | Römerthermen Zülpich (The Mikvah Project): 15. March – 30. June 2013 | Stadtmuseum Crailsheim (Entirely Pure!): 19. June – 25. August 2013 | Städtische Galerie Rosenheim (The Mikvah Project): 25. October 2013 – 12. January 2014 | Museu d’Historia dels Jueus (Entirely Pure): 12. April – 30. September 2014

Project coordination:
Hanno Loewy (Hohenems)
Photography and texts:
Peter Seidel (Frankfurt am Main)
Janice Rubin und Leah Lax (Houston, Texas)
Editor of Radio Mikwe:
Hannes Sulzenbacher (Vienna)
Editors of the catalog:
Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek (Vienna),
Gerhard Milchram (Wien)
Research and interviews:
Bettina Spoerri (Zurich)
Jalda Rebling & Anna Adam (Berlin)
Uri Kaufmann (Heidelberg)
Michael Guggenheimer (Zurich)
Design:
Stecher. Zeichen und Räume (Götzis)
Roland Stecher und Thomas Matt
Museum education:
Tanja Fuchs (Hohenems)
Public relations / organization:
Birgit Sohler (Hohenems)
Secretary:
Gerlinde Fritz (Hohenems)