Mobilising bodies, narrating security: tourist choreographies at Jerusalem’s Holocaust History Museum

Abstract

Memorials and museums commemorating war and atrocity mobilise visitors into narratives about security and sovereignty. The skilful architecture of Jerusalem’s Holocaust History Museum steers international tourists and Israeli citizens into a choreography that evokes the Holocaust as experience of radical insecurity and constrained mobility for Jewish victims. The visit reassuringly concludes with the establishment of the state of Israel, followed by familiar tourism rituals: beautiful panoramas, peaceful gardens, and souvenir shops. This ending constructs post-1948 experiences of mobility in Israel as characterised by security and freedom and obscures contemporary violence and unequal mobility/security landscapes in Israel and Palestine.