Jewish Museum

[sd_woods]

<p>I was at the museum a few days ago, and just wanted to let anyone who had any interest in architecture(never mind Jewish history) know that it is definitely worth a look. And in other news, my guide spoke the best english of any foreigner I have heard in my whole life.</p>

[stemked]

<p>Is this the one in Prague?</p>

[sd_woods]

<p>No it's in Germany. Says up there. Berlin to be precise.</p>

[stemked]

<p>>Says up there. Berlin to be precise.><br>

SD,<br>

I don't know what you are referring to. Your original post makes no note of the place that you were at. Regardless, I'm sure if you found the Berlin museum a mesmerizing structure as you indicated, then others might also. You might post an image or two so others can get an idea of the architecture that you found 'worth a look'.<br>

It's been a long time since I was there but the Prague Jewish museum is outstanding as well. It is, of course, a rather somber place to visit. My understanding is the museum in Prague was designed by the Third Reich to be a museum for an extinct race. It is also my understanding that there were less than 1,000 Jewish people left after the war in Czechoslovakia so this prophesy almost came (locally) true.<br>

As to English being spoken well by foreigners, well, being an American and having lived in Canada I've known a few non-Amercan foreigners who can do a decent rendering of the language. Actually when I travel I'm always humbled by how well others speak English and how poorly I speak their language. When I've been in Germany it is often impossible for me to sputter out one word of my college German before I'm over-whelmed by COMPLETE flurency of the language by the speaker. Wherever I go I try to learn a little of the language and use as much as I can and there are those counties where it is apprciated. But there are also those countries where I have been begged never to utter another word in their language.</p>

[sd_woods]

<p><a href="../community/index">"Community</a> > <a href="../community/forums">Forums</a> > <a href="http://www.photo.net/travel-photography-forum/">Travel</a> > <a href="?category=Europe+%2d+Germany">Europe - Germany</a> > Jewish Museum"</p>

<p>I'd love to post pictures but they took my camera off me and made leave it in the cloakroom, so I'm afraid I've no shots of the Jewish Museum.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>SD, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum,_Berlin. This was one of the first architectural successes of Daniel Liebeskind, who also designed the recent addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The Nazis closed the original Jewish Museum in Berlin in 1933, and the new one, subject of an international architectural competition, was almost cancelled by the German Senate in the late 1980s, due to financial constraints. The musem is quite a work of art in itself (like the new ROM addition).</p>

<p>The facility with which other language groups speak English is in contrast to how we English speakers often treat other major languages. The fact that the Jewish Museum director was once an aid to Jimmy Carter may in part explain the ability of the staff in the tongue of Shakespeare. There is also the the great number of visits of many English speaking Jewish peoples to the museum.</p>

[stemked]

<p>Shakespeare, eh? Me thinks it mustint beist a speaker of the American version.<br>

Arthur, thanks for the details.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Hi Douglas,</p>

<p>I agree fully with your perception of other laguage groups to the efforts of we English (or American) speakers. In Quebec, my francophone friends refer to us as practitioners of the "tongue of Shakspeare" and I to their Québécois (a form of French) as the language of Molière or Voltaire, perhaps as equally outmoded forms as that of Shakespearean English. </p>