Naked short selling in “Old Synagogue” of Erfurt

It is known that Erfurt tries to use the Jewish past of the city and to apply arranged medieval findings as World Cultural heritage sites in order to stimulate tourism, although that may deal with historical facts sometimes in a rather lax way.

The picture was published in a municipal catalog which promotes the 6th “Lange Nacht der Museen und Galerien” in Erfurt , which takes place Friday night – respectively Shabbes evening – from 6 pm until midnight, when 29 museums and galleries will be opened for the “public”, some of them are places of the city’s announced Jewish history.

The naked couple – photographed in front of a reconstructed niche of the “Old Synagogue” – and discussed as “Adam and Eve” is seen as provocation by critics who are afraid that it might hurt “religious feelings” (“religiöse Gefühle … verletzen”) of members of the Jewish community in Erfurt. The even bigger fear however obviously is that the photo might target or negatively affect the World Heritage application, since it may be regarded as prove for an inappropriate handling of the sites.

Does it? Well, the “Alte Synagoge” (medieval synagogue) of course is no synagogue today (and probably never was one), but since it is exploited under this very name and thus under the semblance of Judaism, it of course does bother us. At least because most visitors of such museums maybe this way get their only “contact” to and “information” on something they will regard as “Jewish”.

It is not really important to learn whether one or both nudes have a porno-graphical background as actors or if someone of the municipality of Erfurt has. Actually it also is not the question whether someone might be too puritan or prudish and will have problems looking at a photo of a naked couple in an at best soft-core-film pose.

But the “Long Night“ program has 28 other sites, among them there for instance is the “Barfüßer Kirche” (Discalced, = “shoe-less” Church). Why for instance the couple does appear there stark naked in front of the altar. Anyideas ..?

Or how about another context at the Naturkunde-Museum, or maybe in the Museum for Thüringische Volkskunde (Museum for Thuringian ethnology studies …) if not in an art gallery? Or would they dare a Muslim context?

However, since nudity obviously may appear to embarrassing against a Christian or humanist background, at least they could have selected the “Mittelalter Mikwe” at Kreuzgasse, where nakedness of course will be regarded as rather harmless. But since the organizer are promising many “Mit-Mach-Angebote” (join-in-activities) it could possibly backfire in some way … or it turns out to get a very very long night, … quite different from others.

Anyway: The rather awkward or clumsy naked option strategies the City of Erfurt pursues in order to earn “Golden Spiegels” actually are highly doubtful and hopefully will come to a soon end – what will preserve Judaism as well as the beautiful city from further awkwardness and embarrassment.