Yalla. Arab-Jewish Encounters. An exhibition of the Jewish Museum Hohenems in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Munich

The history of Jews in North Africa and Western Asia is marked by close cultural proximity to their Arab environment—by shared languages, musical and intellectual traditions, as well as by ruptures, exclusion, and violence. Over the course of the 20th century, this shared past was increasingly shaped by ideological reinterpretation or suppression.

The exhibition brings together seven artists of Jewish origin with family roots in North Africa and Western Asia—including Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Morocco— whose works intertwine personal memories with historical experiences of exile, loss, and social marginalization. The result is a polyphonic space in which the past continues to resonate into the present, and where belonging emerges as a fluid and often contradictory experience between cultures, languages, and memories.

An exhibition of the Jewish Museum Hohenems in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Munich.