BERLIN — On her first day as the director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, Hetty Berg sat alone in her third-floor office, looked into a camera and introduced herself to her new team of around 160 people, most of them stuck at home because of the coronavirus lockdown. It was not how Ms. Berg, 59, had envisioned her start at the helm of one of Europe’s leading museums. She was taking up the position nine months after its previous director had stepped down following a furor in which critics said the institution had become too political and had lost its focus on explaining Jewish history. “That was a very surreal beginning,” she said of that virtual meeting in April. Still, it was important to reach out to her team, Ms. Berg said, to communicate who she was and to hear their ideas of where the museum should be going.

Source: New York Times August 26, 2020 15:11 UTC