Workshop I MiQua. LVR-Jewish Museum in the Archaeological Quarter Cologne

As part of preparations for the opening of MiQua, the archaeological museum in Cologne, this workshop, held December 2-4, 2019, brought the MiQua team and various scholars to Mount Scopus in Jerusalem during which we discussed the intersection of material and textual sources and considered a variety of approaches to presenting Jewish-Christian relations in the medieval city to modern museumgoers. Thomas Otten (MiQua) provided a survey of the archaeological sources of Jewish life in Cologne, which was followed by a discussion of local Jewish ritual baths (mikvaot) lead by Neta Bodner (BtE). Tanja Potthoff (MiQua) presented the topography of the medieval Jewish quarter in Cologne and the shared Jewish-Christian spaces, after which Christiane Twiehaus (MiQua) introduced sources on the people in and of the medieval Jewish quarter. Malin Drees (MiQua) and Maximilian Holfelder (Goethe University of Frankfurt)’s presentation of their findings of slate fragments from Cologne was followed first by a discussion on the Cologne Jewish liturgy by Elisabeth Hollender (Goethe University of Frankfurt), and then by a consideration of lay leadership in the local medieval Jewish community by Ephraim Shoham-Steiner (Ben-Gurion University). The workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion led by Elisheva Baumgarten (BtE), Ido Noy (BtE), and Christiane Twiehaus (MiQua). We look forward to future collaborations and the forthcoming opening of this promising museum.