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Undesired Emotion: Visible Storage and the Presentation of Antisemitism in the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna

Author(s): Feller, Yaniv

Editor(s): Micieli-Voutsinas, Jacque; Person, Angela M.

Date: 2026

Topics: Antisemitism: Education against, Ethnography, Artefacts and Material Culture, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Museums, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial

Abstract: Jewish museums grapple with the presentation of antisemitism. Because antisemitism is a factor in Jewish history, museums often feel compelled to address it; yet to display anti-Jewish imagery and objects is to risk reproducing stereotypes. This chapter intervenes in these discussions by drawing on the recent turn to emotions in the study of antisemitism and Jewish history and combining it with the ways affect theory has been used in the study of heritage sites. It proposes a path between omission and reiteration by critically examining the presentation of the Schlaff Collection of antisemitica in the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna (JMV), which is exhibited as part of the JMV’s visible storage. The JMV’s antisemitica objects are distinct from the other objects in the way they are presented. They are turned away from the visitor, while a mirror reveals their fronts and reflects the viewer looking. Using auto-ethnography, exhibition analysis, and an interview with the chief curator, this chapter concludes that such a presentation has the potential to interrupt habitual looking and make the visitor’s gaze part of the exhibit’s critique.