The Babel Project

Towards the end of World War Two, and just after it, hundreds of Eastern European Yiddish-speaking Jews took the long trek to Melbourne - the end of the world - to rebuild their lives. Today, Melbourne’s Jewish culture is rich, vibrant and present in every slice of babka. This long journey is beautifully captured in Mameloshn - How Yiddish Made a Home in Melbourne at the Jewish Museum of Australia.

Not only will the exhibition add a little Yiddish to your vocab with lingo like chutzpah, shmendrik or schmuck, you can experience Yiddish culture with soundscapes, rare photographs and artefacts which have never been exhibited before.

But after contributing so powerfully to Melbourne’s culture over many years, Yiddish-speaking Jews are now passing on. “This exhibition is a tribute to them,” the exhibition’s curator Anna Epstein says. “Their children, immersed in Yiddish culture but whose mother tongue is English, face the task of holding onto Yiddish. It felt like the perfect time to tell the story.”

Fittingly, the Jewish Museum’s second exhibition The Babel Project celebrates diversity of culture and the unifying power of art. This exhibition is named after the biblical story of Noah’s descendents building a tower to reach heaven. Sounds like a good idea, right? God wasn’t too pleased about it so he punished everyone by confusing their language and scattering people all over the earth. (What a meanie.)

The Babel Project called upon participants from 15 countries - 36 of those people from Melbourne – to convey what they have in common. They were given disposable cameras and asked to take photos of, well, stuff. Their photographs of living rooms, fridges, shoes, gardens, families and friends create a collage that is a contemporary Tower of Babel - showing the Big Guy Upstairs that despite being scattered, people can be united in pretty incredible ways.