Mazel tov to Michal Vaněk, who on June 1 took up the post of Director of the state-run Slovak National Museum (SNM) – Museum of Jewish Culture.
In a statement, Branislav Panis, the General Director of the SNM, said among the biggest challenges Vaněk will tackle during his mandate will be an overhaul of the permanent exhibit and expansion of museum facilities.
This will entail “the preparation of a new permanent exhibition of the history of the Jewish minority in Slovakia and the creation of space for education, and other activities for museum visitors of all ages,” he said.
Vaněk has worked at the SNM – Museum of Jewish Culture since 2008, and for several years has served as its deputy director. He is a graduate of the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus and the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava.
The museum opened in 1993 as one of the first new Jewish museums to open in post-communist east-central Europe. It displays ritual and other objects as well as an exhibition on the Holocaust and is housed in the Zsigray Mansion in Bratislava — the sole surviving house of Bratislava’s former Judengasse (Jewish Street): the city’s old Jewish quarter was demolished in the late 1960s when a bridge and highway were built. The museum also administers a permanent exhibition in the synagogue in Prešov.
It is one of two Jewish museums in the Slovak capital. The Bratislava Jewish community administers a separate community museum in the women’s gallery of its synagogue, which opened in 2012.