Simple English
Information about the Jewish Museum Berlin and its website
Welcome to the Jewish Museum Berlin and to our website
On this page, we tell you about the museum.
You can also find useful information here
about visiting the museum.
You can also find out
how to find things on our website.
Table of Contents
This page is divided into 4 sections.
Click on one of these 4 sections,
to jump to the topic:
1. The Museum
The Jewish Museum Berlin was opened in 2001.
It is the biggest Jewish museum in Europe.
Its exhibitions show the history of German Jews
and how they live today.
That is also what our core exhibition is about.
Our temporary exhibitions are about
history, current topics, and art
by Jewish artists.
A piece of art can be a painting,
a photo, or a sculpture.
There are even works of art,
that are made of light.
A work of art can use many materials
and have more than one meaning.
The exhibition and events are meant to
be accessible for everyone.
That is why this website gives
information on accessibility.
Exterior view of the Jewish Museum Berlin; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Yves Sucksdorff
The core exhibition
The title of the core exhibition is:
Jewish Life in Germany: Past and Present.
The core exhibition begins with the lives
of the first Jewish people,
who came to live in Germany.
And it goes up to today.
The core exhibition is also about
Jewish culture and religion.
Here are some examples of topics in it:
- What does a Jewish religious service sound like?
- What objects are used on some holidays, and what are they for?
- What does a Jewish place of prayer look like?
The core exhibition is very big.
To be able to see the whole core exhibition,
come to the museum more than once.
Do you need a break?
In the café and in the museum garden
you can relax during your stay at the museum.
View of the welcome point; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Roman März
In the core exhibition there are paintings,
films, things, and hands-on stations
where you can touch and listen.
There are also games,
a photo station, and a room with music.
What else is part of the museum?
The Academy
This part of the Jewish Museum
plans events.
The topics of these events are
Jewish history and culture
and their interaction with other cultures.
We all live and think in very different ways.
That is important to the Academy.
The events also focus on
how we all want to live together in the future.
The reading room
The reading room is part of our library
and archive.
The archive is a place that collects writing and other media.
In the reading room, you can look at
books, newspapers, documents, and other media.
The collection
This part of the Jewish Museum
collects objects.
For example:
- things
- pictures
- works of art
- documents
- films and audios
All of the objects connect to the topic
“the lives of Jews in Germany.”
Some objects from the collection
are shown regularly in the museum.
Tours and workshops
It is important to us
that you can understand our exhibitions.
At the museum you can go on guided tours
and take part in workshops.
This offer is for children, young people, and adults.
You can find all scheduled events in our calendar.
You’ll also find our museum’s programs
for people with various disabilities:
You can find these programs
by clicking here.
The Children’s Museum ANOHA
The Children’s museum is for children,
who are in preschool or primary school.
The Children’s Museum tells the story
of Noah’s Ark from the Bible.
There are 150 play-animals on the ark.
The ark is a ship.
Visitors can go inside the ship.
The children can play with the toy animals there.
At the Media Station Family Album you can view objects from our collection on large screens; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Yves Sucksdorff
2. Your visit
Opening times
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm
The latest time you can enter is 5 pm.
The museum is closed on certain holidays.
You can find out which ones here.
Ticket prices
You can visit the core exhibition and
most other areas of the museum for free.
You only have to pay for tickets
to temporary exhibitions in the Old Building:
Regular price: 10 €
Reduced price: 4 €
The reduced price is for:
- school children
- university students
- People in the Federal Volunteers Service (BFD)
- Unemployed people (ALG I)
- People with a disability level of at least 50 percent
They must show an I.D. with the correct information
at the ticket counter.
If your disability I.D.
is marked with the letter B,
a helper can come in with you for free.
You can find all other ticket prices
on the Planning Your Visit web page.
You can use our audio guide to visit the museum.
You have to download the audio guide as an app.
You can get this app for free
in the App Store for Apple phones and tablets
or in the Google Play Store for Android phones and tablets.
Address
Jüdisches Museum Berlin
Lindenstraße 9–14
10969 Berlin
Train and bus stations
You can come to the museum by train or bus.
Train
- U1, U3, U6: U-Bahn station Hallesches Tor about 500 meters away
- U6: U-Bahn station Kochstraße/Checkpoint Charlie, about 600 meters away
Bus
- 248: Bus stop Jüdisches Museum Berlin, in front of the museum
- M29: Bus stop Lindenstraße/Ecke Oranienstraße, about 600 meters away
- M41: Bus stop Zossener Brücke, about 450 meters away
Contact
If you have questions before visiting the museum,
you can contact our visitor services.
Contact:
- Telephone number: 0049 (0)30 25 99 35 49
- Use the contact form
If you have a question or need help while you are at the museum,
come to our information table
or talk to one of our museum workers.
You can tell who they are because they wear black
with a colorful scarf.
Information for people with Limited Mobility
In front of the museum and in the museum garden
the ground is paved with large flat stones.
The group entrance and the museum garden
are not accessible for people in wheelchairs.
The main entrance and the exhibits are wheelchair accessible.
You can move through the museum in a wheelchair.
Inside the building, there are plenty of ramps and elevators.
The halls in the basement of the new building rise slightly
and slope down slightly at the sides.
The “Garden of Exile” is too narrow for wheelchairs.
It is an outside area that is part of the core exhibition.
You reach it from the basement of the new building.
The Academy building and the Children’s Museum
are on the other side of the street from the museum.
The area in front of them is paved with stones.
Do you push your own wheelchair?
It will be difficult for you
to reach the entrance of the Academy building.
Information for people who are hearing-impaired
and for deaf people
Almost all of the videos in our exhibition
have German and English subtitles.
All of the audio explanations in our audio guide
can also be read as texts.
You have to download the audio guide as an app.
You can get this app for free
in the App Store for Apple phones and tablets
or in the Google Play Store for Android phones and tablets.
We also have a webpage
with videos in German Sign Language.
Information visitors
with blindness or limited vision
In the entrance area at the Jewish Museum Berlin
there is no tactile floor map that you can read by touch.
Service dogs are allowed.
You can download the audio guide as an app.
You can get this app for free
in the App Store for Apple phones and tablets
or in the Google Play Store for Android phones and tablets.
The three elevators by the stairs
have raised numbers
and letters that you can feel.
Accessible bathrooms
In the museum there are 2 bathrooms
that are accessible for people with disabilities.
One bathroom is on the ground floor of the old building
by the stairs to the upper floor.
The other bathroom is in the basement of the new building.
There are wheelchair symbols on the bathroom doors.
Next to the bathroom door is a button
that will open the door for you.
There are emergency help buttons in the bathrooms.
3. Tips for using our website
Back to the home page
You can go back to the home page
by clicking on our logo:
Arrow pointing up
If you are at the bottom of the webpage,
you can always jump to the beginning.
Just click on the “jump” button.
The “jump” button is in the bottom right and looks like this:
Service menu
The service menu is in the top right of the screen.
It has these four buttons.
When you click on the ticket,
a blue box will open.
You can buy tickets there to visit the museum
and to go to events.
When you click on the symbol with the book and head,
you will come to the Simple Language area.
You are in this area right now.
Next to the symbol with the book and head
there are two letters
that stand for different languages.
They tell you
which language the website currently is in.
You can use the website in these languages:
- DE for German
- EN for English
- FR for French
- IT for Italian
- ES for Spanish.
Click on the magnifying glass
to search the website.
When you click on the magnifying glass,
a blue window will open.
Type the words you want to search in the white text box.
Then press the Enter button on your keyboard
or click on the magnifying glass.
A list will open that shows the results of your search.
When you click the button with the heart
and the German words “Jetzt spenden,” meaning “Donate Now,”
a new window will open.
There, you can choose
how much you would like to donate to the museum.
Main menu
The main menu is under the service menu.
Visit
When you click on “Visit,”
a blue box will open.
In this window, you will see more choices.
When you click on one of the choices,
you will go to another part of the website.
In this area you will find information
about visiting the Jewish Museum Berlin.
The JMB
When you click on “The JMB,”
a blue box will open.
In this box, you will see additional choices.
When you click on one of the choices,
you will go to another part of the website.
Here you will find, for example, the following information:
- Museum architecture
- Publications such as catalogs for current
or past exhibitions - Museum collection
- Ways to support the museum
Digital Museum
When you click on “Digital Museum ,”
a blue box will open.
In this box, you will see additional choices.
When you click on one of these choices,
you will go to another part of the website
or to another page from the Jewish Museum Berlin.
These open in a new window.
In the “Digital Museum” section, you’ll find everything
that can be viewed or read directly online, for example:
- Educational videos for students
- Video and audio recordings of events
- A map of Jewish sites in Germany and Europe
- Many texts on Jewish topics and objects in the museum
Programs for ...
If you click on “Programs for ...” on the right,
a blue box will open.
In this box, you’ll see a selection
of groups of people.
If you click on a group of people,
you will go to another part of the website.
There you’ll find offers
that may be of particular interest to that group of people.
Side menu
The side menu is a blue rounded bar
on the left side of the web page.
There are white symbols on the bar.
When you click on the calendar,
a blue box will open.
It shows the next events
at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
When you click on the ticket,
a blue box will open
with a link to the ticket shop.
You can buy tickets there to visit the museum
and to go to events.
When you click on the pin,
a blue box will open.
The museum address is in the box
and so are the closest train and bus stations.
When you click on the clock,
a blue box will open.
The box shows the museum opening times and closures.
Home page
When you go to www.jmberlin.de/en,
you come to our home page.
From the home page you can reach
all of the parts of the website.
In the upper part of the home page, you will see
large pictures of a current topic.
The topic can be a new exhibition,
or something else at the Jewish Museum.
If you click on the picture,
you will go to a page with more information about it.
Under the large picture, you will find more pictures with text.
For example, a picture might announce an event.
The pictures with text are next to each other.
On them you will see two arrows.
If you click on either of the arrows,
you will see more pictures with text.
If you click on a picture,
you will go to a page with more information about it.
Under the pictures with text you will see
squares with colorful borders and text inside.
They are about topics, videos, and texts on the website.
If you click on one of the boxes,
you will go to a page with more information about it.
Info Boxes
On different parts of the jmberlin.de website,
there is an info box at the bottom.
This box shows information
to help you use services
that the Jewish Museum Berlin offers.
For example, in the part about “accessibility,”
the info box looks like this :
Accessibility at the Jewish Museum Berlin: An overview
General Information
- Accessibility at the Jewish Museum Berlin: Directions, visiting the museum, audience-specific
- Simple English: Information about the Jewish Museum Berlin and its website in Simple English
- Sign Language Information and offers in German Sign Language
- Accessibility Statement: Information on areas in which accessibility is still lacking, options for giving feedback, and the arbitration service
- Inclusion at the JMB: Strategic organizational development
Tours & Workshops
- JMB App: Including audio tours, German plain language, German Sign Language, optimized for screen readers, features touching instructions for tactile paintings, and audio texts for reading along
- Access Program Tours by appointment and with fixed dates
See also
Jewish Places: Information about Jewish sites in Easy Read (German)
General Information
This gives you general information about the section on accessibility
that you are now looking at.
It also has links to the Simple English part of the website.
Tours & Workshops
This gives you links to the many different services
that the Jewish Museum Berlin offers
for people with different disabilities.
That includes the JMB App, for example.
Info Boxes in Other Parts of the Website
In other parts of the jmberlin.de website,
the info boxes show different information
from the example about “accessibility at the Jewish Museum.”
For instance, you might see these headings there:
- Exhibition Webpage
This shows you which exhibition
the information is connected to.
and when you can visit this exhibition. - Accompanying Events & Tours
This shows you events by the Jewish Museum Berlin
about topics from the current special exhibition. - Digital Content
This shows you links to special features
related to the exhibition topics
which you can use on a computer, smartphone, or tablet.
For example, videos, audio samples, or podcasts. - Publications
This shows you books and booklets
published by the Jewish Museum,
such as exhibition catalogs. - See also
This shows you links to other parts
of the jmberlin.de website
that are related to the topic you are looking at now.
Glossary Boxes
In some sections of the website,
you will find blue boxes with a question in them.
They look like this, for example:
What is a Kippah?
Kippah (Hebrew for cap), plural: kippot; ritual skullcap worn by Jewish men
When you hover your mouse over the box
or tap it on your smartphone,
the answer to the question will appear.
Most of the time, the answer is a definition
or information about a person.
Plus signs on images
On some images on the website,
you’ll find blue circles with a plus sign in the middle.
Here’s an example:
Kafka is 1.82 m tall. He has black hair under his hat.
Kafka ate preferably vegetarian and lived rather ascetically.
Kafka enjoyed eating nuts and goat’s cheese and practiced “Fletcherization,” a mastication technique named after Horace Fletcher that prescribes chewing at least thirtytwo times.
Kafka was sensitive to noise.
Neurasthenia, a nervous weakness and hypersensitivity, was all the rage in Kafka’s time.
Autumn 1917: diagnosis of his tuberculosis. Kafka to Max Brod, September 1917:
“Sometimes it seems to me that the brain and lungs have come to an agreement without my knowledge. The brain said, ‘It can't go on like this,’ and after five years the lungs offered to help.”
Regular stays in sanatoriums. Kafka died on June 3, 1924, aged almost 41.
Kafka’s mindset: truth-loving
Max Brod characterised Kafka as a strict moralist, however also as “of an enchanting wit and effervescence.”
Max Brod described Kafka’s “flashing gray eyes.”
Because Kafka suffered from insomnia, he often wrote at night.
Kafka was circumcised.
Max Brod reports that Kafka said about the story The Judgement:
“I was thinking about a strong ejaculation.”
Kafka never married, but was enganged multiple times, had girlfriends and visited brothels.
In Kafka’s time, antisemitic prejudices about Jewish masculinity as weakly, ailing, and effeminate stood against Zionist ideas of “muscular Jewry.”
Kafka was sporty: he practised swimming, rowing, walking and hiking.
Kafka “müllered” daily from around 1910: gymnastics according to the system of the Danish Jørgen Peter Müller.
J. P. Müller, Mein System. Fünfzehn Minuten täglicher Arbeit für die Gesundheit, Leipzig o.J. [ca. 1925], S. 107.
Kafka compared writing to giving birth. For him it is more important than food.
Kafka wrote at night, a lot about corporeality, e.g.
- The Metamorphosis
- A Country Doctor
- In the Penal Colony
- A Hunger Artist
When you click on a plus sign,
a window opens
with information about the person or object in the picture.
Footer
At the bottom of the page is a menu called the footer.
You will find a list of all of the important information on the website there.
If you click on a word in the list,
you will go to a page with more information about it.
4. Statement about Access for All
This statement about access for all is from July 5, 2025.
It is for the website www.jmberlin.de.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use the site.
So, we followed rules about access for all
when coding and designing the site.
These rules about access for all come from these laws:
- Act on Equal Opportunities of Persons with Disabilities (in German: the Behinderten-Gleichstellungs-Gesetz, or BGG for short)
- Accessibility in Information Technology Ordinance (in German: Barrierefreie-Informationstechnik-Verordnung, or BITV for short)
Experts in access for all checked the website.
The result: the website is partly accessible.
These parts are not easy for everyone to use:
- Blind people cannot use some PDF documents in the download section
with screen readers on their computers.
This mainly applies to older documents.
These PDF documents are marked in the download section. - Some audio and video files on the website do not have subtitles or a written version.
Therefore, deaf people might not be able to use these files. - The headings are not in the correct order on some pages.
This is a problem for screen readers on computers. - In some places, screen readers cannot recognize
that the text needs to be read aloud in a different language. - Some sections of the website cannot be accessed via the computer keyboard.
This is a problem for people who cannot use a computer mouse due to their disability. - The text fields in the forms on the website
cannot be accessed via the computer keyboard
and are not accessible to screen readers.
Report Problems
Are you having problems using this website?
Please report those problems
by using the online form for reporting accessibility issues.
You can also reach us by mail or by telephone:
Jewish Museum Berlin Foundation
Lindenstraße 9-12
10969 Berlin
Telephone: 030 25 99 33 00
Settling Problems
If you reported problems with the website
and are not happy with how the people in charge responded,
you can ask the Arbitration Service (settling office) for help.
This office helps settle problems between
people with disabilities and public federal offices in Germany.
This help is called an arbitration procedure.
The arbitration process is free for you.
The website of the Arbitration Service
gives information about the arbitration procedure.
It also explains how to apply.
The application form is in simple German.
For deaf people, there is a service
that translates written language into German Sign Language.
Here is how to contact the Arbitration Service:
Office of the Arbitration Service under the Equal Opportunities Act
attached to the German Federal Government Commissioner
for Matters relating to Persons with Disabilities
Mauerstrasse 53
10117 Berlin
Germany
Telephone: +49 30 185 27 28 05
Fax: +49 30 185 27 29 01
Email: info@schlichtungsstelle-bgg.de
Internet: www.schlichtungsstelle-bgg.de