The Jewish Museum is open 11 am - 8 pm. Please review visitor policies.
The Jewish Museum is open 11 am - 8 pm. Please review visitor policies.
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Plan your visit to the Jewish Museum and discover the intersection of art and Jewish culture Learn More
This year has presented challenges unlike any other, but we are grateful that together we have found new pathways for connection. As a result we are strengthening our mission to promote inclusion and illuminate the breadth of Jewish culture through art.
We are pleased to share the Jewish Museum’s very first digital newsletter. As you explore, I hope you will find that you have much to look forward to in the season of exhibitions and programs that we have planned for the months ahead—which can be enjoyed at the Museum, or from home.
You won’t want to miss the installation on the exterior of the Museum: Lawrence Weiner’s project, ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY HAVE THE SAME FACE, which signals a timely, restorative, and unifying sentiment. You can also look forward to the 2021 New York Jewish Film Festival, featuring virtual screenings and conversations with curators and directors of films from around the world that explore the Jewish experience.
I look forward to seeing you in the galleries or at a virtual program soon, and hope that you and your loved ones continue to stay healthy and safe.
As always, thank you for your incredible support of the Jewish Museum.
With best wishes,
Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director
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The first institutional survey of New York-based artist Rachel Feinstein, Maiden, Mother, Crone brings together three decades of the artist’s interdisciplinary practice in sculpture, painting, and video, as well as a major new commission. She borrows her subjects from religious texts and fairytales, high European craft and low American kitsch to explore her ongoing fascination with dualities: between masculinity and femininity or good and evil, suggesting that one cannot exist without the other.
In 2017, the Jewish Museum invited New York-based artist Jonathan Horowitz, known for his work that engages critically with politics and culture, to curate an exhibition addressing a resurgence of anti-Semitism. We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz expands upon the subject to explore how American artists from the 1930s to the present have responded to anti-Semitism, as well as to racism, xenophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The exhibition’s namesake, a 1942 painting by Ben Shahn titled We Fight for a Free World!, is on view alongside works by Horowitz and others, as well as 36 newly commissioned protest posters by contemporary artists. Moving from American social realism to the variegated expressions of artists grappling with systemic racism today, We Fight to Build a Free World touches on issues related to immigration, colonialism, political partisanship, and cultural identity.
Spanning more than 4,000 years of history through works from around the globe and across a range of media, the Museum’s rotating collection exhibition Scenes from the Collection explores the multifaceted global Jewish experience. Organized into thematic “scenes,” this ongoing exhibition features a diverse range of works from ritual objects to contemporary art, and invites visitors of all backgrounds to reflect on the inextricable link between art and cultural identity.
Through an exploration of photography, graphic design, and magazine art direction, Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine highlights the visual revolution led by European émigrés in the aftermath of World War II. These artists and designers, many of whom had been affiliated with the Bauhaus school, ushered in an era of visual culture that established the unmistakable identity of American magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Featuring works by Richard Avedon, Alexander Liberman, Irving Penn, Saul Leiter, Lillian Bassman, Gordon Parks, and Alexey Brodovitch, Modern Look showcases the immigrant storytellers who pioneered an editorial style that was distinctly American–fostering themes of innovation, inclusion, and pragmatism.
Broadening and enriching the collection with new acquisitions of art—including paintings, sculpture, photography, and Judaica—is at the core of the Jewish Museum’s mission. The Museum was founded with a gift of ceremonial art from Mayer Sulzberger to the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1904. The Jewish Museum’s collection now spans 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture through nearly 30,000 objects from around the world, from ancient artifacts to cutting-edge contemporary art.
These Torah finials are a significant addition to the Jewish Museum’s collection. A dedicatory inscription highlights their remarkable community provenance: the finials were sanctified [to God] by a congregation in the small mountain town of Surami, Georgia, on the 4th of Tishrei 5641 (September 9, 1880). The biblical verses engraved on each of the six sides, the spherical tops with bells hanging from chains, and the chased flowering foliage are features seen on Georgian finials, conveying Persian and Afghani stylistic attributes. These finials establish a small, important nucleus in the Museum’s collection of ceremonial objects used by Jewish communities in Georgia.
Singing Muezzin in Minaret is one of a series of 26 watercolors created for an edition of Tartarin de Tarascon and presented by the artist, Hans Felix Kraus, in a 1934 exhibition at the Vienna Secession, an experimental showcase of the contemporary art of the time. In these works, Kraus assimilates Cubism, Constructivism, and other formal languages of modernism to playfully illustrate Daudet’s mock epic of late nineteenth-century nationalist colonialism. The series was gifted to the Jewish Museum in 2019 by Helen Kraus, the artist’s daughter.
Included in the exhibition Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother Crone (see Now on View), Satyrs (2008) now has a permanent home at the Jewish Museum, as a 2019 gift of Julie and Larry Bernstein. Emblematic of the artist’s feminist reimaginings of classical mythology, the work is animated by dualities: of masculine and feminine, balance and precariousness, and positive and negative space.
This splendid marriage contract (ketubbah) from Gibraltar, created in 1841, records the marriage of Avraham ben Shimol and Bonita Zarfatti. Aramaic words at the top express well wishes for the couple: “a good omen and a fitting fortune, at a time that is favorable with God.” The ink on parchment is painted with a vividly colored, elaborate wreath of roses springing from an urn, characteristic of contracts from Gibraltar during this time. The prominent British crown above alludes to Gibraltar’s then-colonial status under the rule of Britain. By the time this contract was made, the Gibraltar Jewish community was at its most populous.
The Jewish Museum’s Fifth Avenue façade looks a little different this season. A newly commissioned piece by renowned artist Lawrence Weiner, ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY HAVE THE SAME FACE, now adorns and transforms the historic Warburg Mansion into a public artwork. Composed in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY HAVE THE SAME FACE represents a plea for shared humanity along Museum Mile.
Born in the South Bronx in 1942, Lawrence Weiner is known for using language to create his art, finding it an accessible and flexible medium that allows the viewer to think in new, challenging, and often unexpected ways. Weiner has a long history with the Jewish Museum, and has been included in and been the subject of five of the Museum’s exhibitions, beginning in 1970—most recently, he was included in the exhibition Take Me (I’m Yours), in 2017.
For this new artwork commissioned by the Jewish Museum, Weiner drew upon an old Yiddish phrase he often heard while growing up, ale Yevanim habn eyn punim, all Greeks (i.e., all non-Jews) have the same face. These words, an expression of Jewish self-isolation and anxiety, arose in response to the long history of anti-Semitism, repeating the same insularity and suspicion of “others” to which Jews were subject. Weiner reconceived this text to read ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY HAVE THE SAME FACE and translated it simultaneously into Arabic, Hebrew, and English. His reimagining of the effects of anti-Semitism is inseparable from the resurgences of xenophobia and racism we have seen enacted in our own city and around the globe today. Weiner’s artwork signals a restorative, unifying sentiment; it prompts us to think collectively, to imagine all that we may accomplish if we work together.
This installation is made possible through the generous support of Wendy Fisher and Dennis Goodman and the Kirsh Foundation, Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Shari and Jeff Aronson, Marian Goodman Gallery, Elyse and Lawrence Benenson, Alice and Nahum Lainer, David Shapiro and Abigail Pogrebin, an anonymous gift, Gail LeBoff, Monica and Carlos Camin, and Larry Warsh.
An eagerly anticipated annual event for film lovers, the New York Jewish Film Festival will be presented this year as an online edition—a first for the three-decades-long collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center. This year’s slate will include a range of films from around the world, from feature-length dramas and documentaries to a program of diverse shorts. Streaming on Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema platform, screenings will be easy to access from home, while providing viewers with flexibility as to when they’d like to view films. An all-access pass will be available in addition to individual film tickets, providing filmgoers with the option to enjoy the entire festival at a special rate.
See the full lineup and purchase tickets at filmlinc.org/NYJFF21
A few of this year’s festival highlights are:
Irmi, an inspiring documentary that tells the life story of Irmi, a Jewish refugee who escaped from Germany in the 1930s, during the rise of Nazism. With her husband and two children, she boarded a ship which tragically sunk into the English Channel. After being rescued by the British Navy, she awoke to discover that her family was lost. After a period of grieving, she said aloud to her friends, “I choose to live.” Irmi went on to marry twice and have more children, and eventually moved to (and fell in love with) New York City. Alongside photographs, archival footage, and interviews, narration is taken from Irmi’s memoirs and voiced by the legendary actress Hanna Schygulla.
The searing documentary Shared Legacies: The African American Jewish Civil Rights Alliance delves deep into the longstanding relationship between Jewish and Black communities in the U.S. Director and clinical therapist Dr. Shari Rogers shows how this union originated in a mutual recognition of the suffering of segregation, violence, and bigotry; and in the bonds of strength that emerged with the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and the rise of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1950s. But she also describes how this alliance has diminished in recent years. The film features archival footage and current interviews with leaders, witnesses, and activists, including the late great Congressman John Lewis, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, the scholar Susannah Heschel, and many others. Shared Legacies is presented collaboratively by the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, the Jewish Museum, and Film at Lincoln Center. The JCC’s Cinematters: NY Social Justice Film Festival takes place January 14-18, 2021.
Moving between drama and history, Winter Journey is based on The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Love and Music in Nazi Germany, a book written by classical music radio host Martin Goldsmith about the experiences of his musician parents before they fled Nazi Germany. The film brings to life their story in which, playing their instruments in a small orchestra that was set up by the Third Reich as a propaganda measure, they found a form of shelter. Including fascinating re-enactments of the interviews done as research for the book between Goldsmith and his father, played by the late Bruno Ganz, the film’s dramatic sensibility is enhanced by a layering of visuals and sounds.
Images: Irmi (2020) directed by Susan Fanshel and Veronica Selver; Shared Legacies (2020) directed by Dr. Shari Rogers; Winter Journey (2019) directed by Anders Østergaard.
The New York Jewish Film Festival is made possible by the Martin and Doris Payson Fund for Film and Media.
Generous support is also provided by Wendy Fisher, Dennis Goodman and the Kirsh Foundation, Sara and Axel Schupf, The Eve Propp Family Fund, Mimi and Barry Alperin, Louise and Frank Ring, the Aboodi Family, the Ike, Molly and Steven Elias Foundation, Barry F. Schwartz, The Carl Marks Foundation, Inc., Amy and Howard Rubenstein, Steven and Sheira Schacter, and through public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council.
Additional support is provided by the Consulate General of Denmark in New York, the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York, the Consulate General of Israel in New York, the Polish Cultural Institute New York, and the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York.
Opening March 19, 2021, Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine offers a look at a significant era in magazine photography that extended from the 1930s through the 1950s. The exhibition’s catalogue features an essay by Maurice Berger, the distinguished curator and art historian who was known for his groundbreaking scholarship on race and American visual culture. His COVID-related death earlier this year represented the loss of a valued colleague and friend of the Jewish Museum. During his illustrious career, Berger worked with the Museum on multiple projects, including as a consulting curator, and a contributor of essays for several of the Museum’s exhibition catalogues.
Berger is remembered in this article in the Jewish Museum’s blog, published in late March. For the exhibition catalogue, Berger wrote about African American representation in photography during the show’s era, and the transformative power of Gordon Parks’s work.
Parks’s fashion photographs for the Chicago-based African American magazine Circuit’s Smart Woman, where he was photo editor in the late 1940s, were remarkable in their complexity and social intent. As with his portraits and street photographs, these images were distinguished by their visual and emotional complexity, going “far beyond surface aspects [to] interpret dynamically and originally the essence of the subject," as one critic wrote at the time. These pictures underscore the extent to which the black press provided African American women with models and icons of beauty that were virtually missing from the mainstream press.
In the ensuing decades, Parks’s fashion pictures for Vogue, Glamour, and Life continued to represent his models as complex beings rather than as inscrutable mannequins. A dynamic photograph of his muse Bettina Graziani—"at work modeling fall college clothes,” as its caption for Vogue reads—exemplifies this approach, representing his subject not as an empty signifier of style but as a working woman. Commensurate with Parks’s notion of the environmental portrait, in which the setting provides social or cultural context, the photograph is set across the street from Manhattan’s Hunter College, an institution founded to educate and empower young women regardless of race, religion, or class. Significantly, the image is also a double portrait: the photographer Frances McLaughlin-Gill faces the model as she looks down into the viewfinder of a Hasselblad camera. The startling effect creates a mirror image of the unseen action in front of both women, each rigorously practicing their own profession, in which a female photographer serves as a proxy for Parks—a photograph, to quote the photo historian Deborah Willis, that serves as a “powerful mirror reflecting the achievements of individuals and the transformation of fashion history.”
In his broad range of work, from fashion pictures to street scenes, Parks’s embrace of mass media was undoubtedly related to his understanding of photography’s authority to change perceptions about race. If the camera was his “weapon of choice," as he called it, to fight oppression, the magazine page offered a wide-reaching platform on which to wage this battle.
Led by Museum educators, Adult Group Tours at the Jewish Museum provide attendees with new perspectives into the art, context, and narrative of the Museum’s exhibitions, as well as the chance for in-depth dialogue while exploring significant works of art.
This season, the Jewish Museum has developed a range of Virtual Group Tours, making it possible for friends, colleagues, alumni, or community groups to safely enjoy this experience together from anywhere in the country—as an enriching activity or even a memorable holiday gift. Tours are led over Zoom, and accommodate both small and large groups. Each tour is 45 minutes long, with time for discussion and questions from the group.
Explore a range of exhibitions from the past, including Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art, Modigliani Unmasked, and Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922. If you haven’t been able to visit the Jewish Museum this season, experience We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz, or find out what’s new in the rotating collection exhibition, Scenes from the Collection, which highlights objects from the Museum’s unparalleled collection.
Learn more about tour options and pricing, or schedule a tour through the online Tour Request Form. For additional questions, please call 212.423.3270 or email schedulingcoordinator@thejm.org.
This December, don’t miss this exclusive behind-the-scenes account of We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz, with Leon Levy Assistant Curator, Shira Backer.
Tuesday, December 22, 3 pm
Event held via Zoom
RSVP
Jewish Museum members are always among the first to experience new exhibitions—before they open to the public. Keep an eye out for special invitations by email to private previews, for a memorable first look at the Museum’s groundbreaking shows.
Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine
March 2021
You can now take advantage of members-only virtual events, plus priority access to new digital content and savings on select Museum programs! Keep an eye on your inbox for email notifications.
Save 10% on a distinctive selection of Jewish ceremonial objects from traditional to contemporary, exhibition-related merchandise, jewelry, books, and toys. Take advantage of this members perk on-site at the Museum’s Cooper shop and online at Shop.TheJewishMuseum.org.
The Jewish Museum is housed in the historic Warburg Mansion, designed in the French Gothic chateau style in 1908. The building served as the private home of Felix and Frieda Schiff Warburg for many years. The Warburgs were ardent philanthropists and proponents of the arts. In 1944, Frieda Warburg made an iconic and generous commitment to the arts when she donated the Mansion to become a museum of Jewish art and culture.
To honor the Warburg family tradition of giving, the Jewish Museum has created the Warburg Society—a special group of vital supporters who provide for the institution’s future by incorporating it into their legacy through a planned gift or bequest. Warburg Society members have a profound impact on the Jewish Museum’s compelling exhibitions and unparalleled educational programs. Members also look forward to invitations to exclusive events.
For more information about the Warburg Society, our upcoming event, or to plan a person consultation, kindly contact Toni Levi, Senior Major Gifts Officer, at 212.423.3347 or tlevi@thejm.org.
This season at the Jewish Museum, Talks & Performances are presented virtually, with exciting YouTube video releases that can be watched, shared, and enjoyed at any time. Offered in conjunction with the exhibition We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz are two distinct and thought-provoking discussions that explore the power and controversial aspects of memorials and monuments, featured below.
Enjoy these programs, and more:
In this lecture based on his most recent book, The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between, James Young traces what he calls an “arc of memorial vernacular” from Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to Germany’s Holocaust counter-monuments and Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, to the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Young also includes reflections on his experiences as a juror for memorial competitions and a discussion of the way reflections on memorial art turn into practice. Watch online
The Unite the Right rally of August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia galvanized a national conversation about the removal of Confederate monuments that has since intensified. Many more statues and figures have been the subject of public debate in recent months, as the violent histories of colonialism continue to be called into question. Darsie Alexander, Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator, moderates a discussion on the past and future of this topic with architect Mabel O. Wilson and artists Nicholas Galanin and Kris Graves. Watch online
Enjoy the full range of virtual Talks & Performances. Explore past programs featuring artists, curators, and more, with new videos launching throughout the season, via the Jewish Museum's Talks & Performances YouTube playlist. Watch online
View our calendar of upcoming Talks and Performances
Featuring virtual concerts, art-based activities, and more for kids of all ages, Family Programs at the Jewish Museum offer a broad range of offerings for families to enjoy together. Some of this season’s highlights include:
Dance to the toe-tapping sounds of Nefesh Mountain during a lively YouTube concert that premieres on December 25. Led by singer Doni Zasloff and her multi-instrumentalist husband Eric Lindberg, Nefesh Mountain performs a vibrant blend of bluegrass, Celtic, and Appalachian melodies with a Jewish soul.
Free with RSVP, one ticket per household. YouTube link sent with RSVP email confirmation.
Discover how artists change everyday materials into imaginative works of art! With the holiday of Tu B’Shevat (birthday of the trees) coming this month, think about ways to be kinder to the earth and reuse materials around you. See works in the Jewish Museum collection made from a playful mix of objects such as light bulbs, metal cans, stones, wood blocks, and more, and design a unique robot character out of materials you find or collect.
Free with RSVP, one ticket per household. Zoom link sent with RSVP email confirmation.
Designed for kids and adults to explore together, At-Home Art Activities are inspired by objects in the Jewish Museum’s collection and exhibitions. Discover these exciting projects featuring the art of Lee Krasner, Sol LeWitt, and others. Start creating now
View our calendar of upcoming Family Programs
On February 24, 2021, at 7:30pm EST, the Museum will present its first virtual gala. Purim Ball 2021: Where’s the Party??? will honor Shari and Jeff Aronson, Jonathan Horowitz, and the Jewish Museum’s Essential Staff.
Reimagined as a virtual experience to be hosted online, the gala will feature an ensemble of world class performers as they roam the city in search of the party, culminating in a series of show stopping numbers in the Museum’s galleries. With all proceeds supporting the Jewish Museum, you won't want to miss the surprises and guest appearances that are in store.
To reserve your virtual seat or learn more, call 212.376.5586 or email Melissa Mundy at PurimBall@dsconsultinggroup.com.
Robert Pruzan, Chairman of the Board, The Jewish Museum; Rachel Feinstein; Claudia Gould, Director, The Jewish Museum; and Rivka Saker. Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Daphna Saker and Rivka Saker. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Marc Jacobs, Rachel Feinstein, and Char DeFrancesco. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Rachel Feinstein (wearing the “maiden” mask she made) and her mother, Daria Feinstein (wearing a mask she made of parrot feathers). Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Amy Astley, Rachel Feinstein, and Yvonne Force Villareal. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Claudia Gould, Director, The Jewish Museum, and Laurie Simmons. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Jewish Museum trustee Stephen Scherr; Susan Scherr; Tracey Winn Pruzan; and Robert Pruzan, Chairman of the Board, The Jewish Museum. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Joseph Neubauer; Janette Lerman-Neubauer, Vice Chairman of the Board, The Jewish Museum; and Morris W. Offit, Chairman Emeritus, The Jewish Museum. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Thomas Mars, Char Defrancesco, Marc Jacobs, and Sofia Coppola. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Marc Armitano Domingo, Antwaun Sargent, Ryan McGinley, and Miles Greenberg. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
Robert Pruzan, Chairman of the Board, The Jewish Museum. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Charles Bronfman. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Rivka Saker. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Members of the Jewish Museum’s Purim Ball 2020 After Party Committee. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
The Jewish Museum’s 34th Annual Purim Ball 2020 After Party. Photo: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com
The Jewish Museum’s Purim Ball 2020 After Party. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Performer at the Jewish Museum’s Purim Ball 2020 After Party. Photo: Ryan Kobane/BFA.com
Purim Ball 2020: A Night to Remember
Last spring, the Jewish Museum held its annual Purim Ball at the Pierre, NYC, recognizing cultural honorees Rivka Saker, founder of Artis; and Rachel Feinstein, artist and subject of the Museum’s exhibition Rachel Feinstein: Maiden, Mother, Crone. The Museum was fortunate to celebrate this festive event along with its presenters and guests, only weeks before COVID-19 restrictions went into effect.
Inspired by Ben Shahn’s We Fight for a Free World!, on view in the same gallery, artist Jonathan Horowitz invited 36 contemporary artists to create political posters, addressing issues of their choice. Own one of these vibrant and expressive works, printed to order, from the Jewish Museum Shop.
Giclée, printed on enhanced matte papers with archival inks
20"w x 30"h
Price: $200.00
Members: $180.00
Every purchase supports the Jewish Museum.
