Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director, The Jewish Museum, announced today that Abigail Rapoport will become the Jewish Museum’s Curator of Judaica, beginning her new role on January 21, 2020.

Continuing its popular tradition, The Jewish Museum will be open on Wednesday, December 25 from 11 am to 5 pm.  For those looking for something special to do on Christmas, the Jewish Museum offers a fun-filled way to spend an enjoyable day during the holiday season and Hanukkah.

The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center will present the 29th annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF), January 15–28, 2020. Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, NYJFF each year presents the finest documentary, narrative, and short films from around the world that explore the Jewish experience. Featuring new work by dynamic voices in international cinema as well as film revivals, the festival’s 2020 lineup includes 30 wide-ranging and exciting features and shorts from the iconic to the iconoclastic, many of which will be screening in their world, U.S., and New York premieres.

Come to the Jewish Museum every Thursday in December, January, and February to toast the exhibitions Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art and Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone. Enjoy signature cocktails in the Museum’s lobby inspired by the exhibitions on view, crafted and served by Russ & Daughters at the Jewish Museum.

The Jewish Museum offers many ways to mark the holiday of Hanukkah, which begins at sundown on Sunday, December 22, 2019.  Highlights include a display of the Museum’s renowned collection of Hanukkah lamps; special family programs, including the annual Hanukkah Family Day; and unique menorahs, dreidels, and gift items available for sale in the Jewish Museum Shop.

The Jewish Museum will present Signs and Symbols: The Zodiac, featuring works from the Museum’s collection that depict the astrological signs. Jewish communities, adapting and adopting local practices over the centuries, incorporated these symbols into ceremonial objects, synagogue architecture, and art even though rabbinic authorities reject astrology as part of Jewish practice.

The Jewish Museum will present Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone, the first survey of the New York-based artist in the United States, from November 1, 2019 through January 17, 2021. The exhibition includes three decades of Feinstein’s work in sculpture, painting, and video, as well as a panoramic wallpaper, a major new commission, and the artist’s maquettes for sculpture. Taken together, the works emphasize the artist’s fascination with dualities: her investigations of masculinity and femininity or good and evil echo her formal explorations of balance and precariousness or positive and negative space. Feinstein’s art follows myriad lines of inquiry, but the idea of the feminine is central. She has made a sustained examination of the many ways this concept is manifested culturally. Female protagonists and figures proliferate in her work and bind it together across diverse media.

The Jewish Museum will present Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art, the first exhibition to explore the remarkable career of Edith Gregor Halpert (1900-1970), the influential American art dealer and founder of the Downtown Gallery in New York City. A pioneer in the field and one of New York’s first female art dealers, Halpert propelled American art to the fore at a time when the European avant-garde still enthralled the world. The artists she supported — Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Shahn, and Charles Sheeler key among them — became icons of American modernism. Halpert also brought vital attention to overlooked nineteenth-century American artists, such as William Michael Harnett, Edward Hicks, and Raphaelle Peale, as well as little-known and anonymous folk artists. With her revolutionary program at the Downtown Gallery, her endless energy, and her extraordinary business acumen, Halpert inspired generations of Americans to value the art of their own country, in their own time.

Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum’s 2019-2020 concert season continues on Thursday, November 14, 2019 at 7:30pm at the Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street). Grammy-nominated jazz singer, new music composer, and long time collaborator with Bang on a Can, Theo Bleckmann takes on the mysterious songbook of British pop icon Kate Bush in a project entitled Hello Earth! – The Music of Kate Bush that goes beyond re-creating her music to further realms of sound and interpretation. Joining him on this performance are long-time collaborators percussionist Ben Wittman, bassist Chris Tarry, and keyboardist Henry Hey,  along with special guest, multi-instrumentalist Caleb Burhans on viola, guitar, and laptop.

The Jewish Museum launches its fall 2019 season of public programs in October with lectures, panel discussions, performances, adult studio workshops, and more. Highlights include a panel discussion on American art today and politics with contemporary artists Mike Cloud, Louis Fratino, and Tschabalala Self on November 7; and performances featuring Theo Bleckmann on November 14 and Dynasty Handbag on November 21.

The Jewish Museum kicks off its fall 2019 season of family programs in September with concerts, family days, art workshops, and more. New this fall is The Sound of Color, a six-week program in partnership with the Diller-Quaile Music School for preschoolers and their families exploring how music and art intertwine. The Museum welcomes Dan and Claudia Zanes to its slate of family concerts, joining The FunkeyMonkeys, Hopalong Andrew, and Nefesh Mountain. Other programs on the schedule are the annual Hanukkah Family Day on December 15; drop-in art workshops every Sunday and on selected holiday weekdays; and family art activities. See below for details about each program.

The Jewish Museum will present Masterpieces and Curiosities: The Benguiat Collection, featuring over 30 works from the Museum’s H. Ephraim and Mordecai Benguiat Family Collection. This collection of 300 examples of decorative and ceremonial art related to Jewish culture is one of the formative groups of the Jewish Museum’s collection. The exhibition includes objects ranging from a newly restored Torah ark curtain from Istanbul (ca. 1735) to an ornately embroidered silk eighteenth-century pillowcase for the Passover Seder from Bulgaria.