ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES – The Subjects Pose with Their Portraits

Photos from the Exhibition Opening and Interviews about Jewish Life in Berlin

The exhibition Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES opened on 2 September 2021. In his new photographic essay, the photographer explored Berlin as the stage for a vast spectrum of expressions and performances of Jewishness, portraying landscapes and individuals. At the opening event, we had a chance to meet some of the portrait subjects and to photograph them standing in front of their portraits. We also asked them about their lives in Berlin and their hopes for Jews’ future in the city. The notion of “Jewish life in Berlin” is itself a construct and often describes a fantasy on the part of people outside the community. With that in mind, the multiplicity of portraits and responses to our questions may help to shift some of those ingrained ideas.

  • A man in a suit stands sideways next to a painting in the exhibition and looks with folded arms at the portrait of himself in the rows of seats of the Comic Opera House Berlin

    Ofer Waldman, freelance journalist and writer; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Laughing family of three in front of portrait of couple with pregnant woman

    Nina, Dekel & Ronja Peretz, Fraenkelufer Synagogue; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

  • Judith Kessler in front of her portrait in the exhibition ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES, next to her part of a window of the Libeskind building

    Judith Kessler, social scientist, editor, and writer; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Twin sisters in blue and red blouse in the exhibition ZERHEILT in front of a portrait of them in their studio

    Maria and Natalia Petschatnikov, visual artists; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A man in a suit with a kippah stands next to a portrait of himself on display; on the portrait on the wall he is cut in half: one half wears a beard and shtreimel, one half is shaved and bald.

    Akiva Weingarten, founder and President of the Besht Yeshiva in Dresden, the Rabbi of the Jewish community of Dresden and Rabbi of Migwan, the Liberal Jewish Congregation in Basel, Switzerland; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Barbara Steiner stands next to her large-format portrait in the exhibition, in the portrait she is sitting on a picnic blanket in a meadow

    Barbara Steiner, therapist; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A smiling couple, both gray-haired, she all in black, he in a white suit and straw hat stands next to a portrait of them in the exhibition, in the portrait they are standing behind a table looking in different directions

    Sonia Simmenauer-Pazzini, woman, mother and grandmother, concert agent and salonière & Karl-Josef Pazzini, psychoanalyst; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A woman in blouse and brown jacket stands in the exhibition in front of her portrait taken in a kitchen

    Dr. Irene Runge, b. 1942 in New York, NY. Moved to East Berlin (GDR) in 1949; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A woman and a man stand in front of a large-format photograph in the exhibition room, in which they can be seen in front of a brightly painted shed

    Tal Alon, founder and editor of SPITZ, Hebrew Magazine in Berlin, and head of division at the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation & Olaf Kühnemann, artist; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • An elderly woman with large earrings and her hands in her pockets stands in front of a portrait painting of herself sitting in a chair in a room with many empty frames on the walls

    Lea Rosh, television journalist, author, and chair of the Society to Support the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A blonde woman in a denim dress stands in the exhibition next to a photograph of herself and her partner sitting at the breakfast table, in the background two paintings on the wall

    Sarah Nemtsov, freelance composer; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • An elder man with a pocket square in a jacket stands in front of a large format photo of a salon where a painting of a woman hangs on the wall, where the head would be, a piece of canvas is cut out

    Olaf Lemke, one of Europe’s five biggest frame dealers; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A young man with a baseball cap, beard and hands in his pockets stands in front of a portrait of himself, where he, also with a baseball cap and hands in his pockets, stands in front of a large mountain of paper scraps between green trees

    Max Czollek, writer from Berlin; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A man in a suit holds an open book into the camera, in the book is a portrait of him

    Rabbi Walter Homolka, Professor of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam and Rector of the Abraham Geiger Kolleg; photo: Tobias Barniske

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  • A man in a suit and bow tie stands smiling in an exhibition in front of a portrait of himself on the wall with his eyes closed and his hands resting at his sides

    Daniel Schönpflug, historian at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • Ein Mann mit Bart und Brille steht in einer Fotoausstellung und hält einen aufgeschlagenen Katalog mit einem Bild von sich in der Hand

    Pavel Feinstein, painter; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

  • Selfie of woman with glasses in front of large print of her portrait, lamp is seen in background

    Christina von Braun, film­maker and writer, co-founder and the founding director of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg; photo: Christina von Braun

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  • A man in a black hat and floral shirt laughs into the camera, in the background a portrait of him blurred on an exhibition wall

    Adam Joachim “A.J.” Goldmann, cultural journalist and critic; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A man with a long white beard and glasses smilingly holds an open catalog with a photo of himself into the camera. He is sitting at a small café table, in the background a street with cars

    Carey Harrison, novelist, dramatist, and professor; photo: Frédéric Brenner

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  • A laughing couple, she all in black, he in a black shirt and white baseball cap, stand in the exhibition in front of their portrait and the detail photo of a lamp from Clärchens Ballhaus

    Anastassia Pletoukhina and Valentin Lutset, a Jewish activist from Charlottenburg; Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jule Roehr

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  • A man with long hair, glasses and colorful patterned shirt stands in an exhibition and holds an open book into the camera, in which is a portrait photo of him

    Stéphane Etrillard, author, business philosopher, coach and mentor; Jewish Museum Berlin; photo: Theresia Ziehe

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Citation recommendation:

Jewish Museum Berlin (2021/22), ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES – The Subjects Pose with Their Portraits. Photos from the Exhibition Opening and Interviews about Jewish Life in Berlin.
URL: www.jmberlin.de/en/node/8369

Person alone on one of the red seats in the auditorium of an empty theater, head resting in hands

Exhibition Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: Features & Programs

Exhibition Webpage
Frédéric Brenner – ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: 3 Sep 2021 to 24 Apr 2022
Publications
Frédéric Brenner: ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES: 2021, publication accompanying the exhibition
Accompanying Events
Hevrutah: Zerheilen – Healing to Pieces: Invitation to learn together
See also
Frédéric Brenner, photographer
Digital Content
Without the Leaves, I Would Not Have Started: Essay by Frédéric Brenner on ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES, 2021
Staging Jewishness: Video recording of the artist talk with Frédéric Brenner, 2022
Current page: ZERHEILT: HEALED TO PIECES – The Subjects Pose with Their Portraits: Photos and interviews about Jewish life in Berlin, 2021/22
Hevrutah on Memory/Place: Video recording, with Yemima Hadad, Netanel Olhoeft, Dekel Peretz, and Barbara Steiner, 2021, in German with English subtitles
Hevrutah on Otherness/Responsibility: Video recording, with Liad Hussein Kantorowicz, Benyamin Reich, Irene Runge, and Adam Joachim Goldmann, 2021, in German with English subtitles
Hevrutah on Homeland/Diaspora: Video recording, with Akiva Weingarten, Sonia Simmenauer, Elad Lapidot, and Aviva Ronnefeld, 2022, in German with English subtitles

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