Following a yearlong, $14.5 million renovation, the Jewish Museum — which is housed a 1908 French Gothic mansion on Fifth Avenue — is opening two upgraded flooring to the general public.
Among the many new options on the museum’s reimagined third and fourth flooring: a brand new set up, “Identification, Tradition and Neighborhood: Tales from the Collections of the Jewish Museum,” which spotlights 200 gadgets from the museum’s everlasting assortment; 4 galleries for rotating displays and new acquisitions and the Pruzan Household Heart for Studying, that includes art-making studios, a contact wall, and an interactive, simulated archaeological dig.
The renovation is the brainchild of the museum’s director, James Snyder, who assumed the helm of the 121-year-old establishment in November 2023, following stints because the director of the Israel Museum and deputy director of the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York.
The renovation “gave us the chance to assume by a completely new narrative, a completely new technique for what we’re all about,” Snyder stated throughout a press occasion on Tuesday.
“These are advanced instances — they’ve been for some time. They’re getting an increasing number of advanced on daily basis,” Snyder stated. “Our job, significantly for culturally particular museums like this one, is to be the antidote to what’s actually a pandemic at this time — to the xenophobia, the racism, the ignorance that’s prevalent in all places now.”
Listed here are seven issues to see and do on the renovated Jewish Museum’s new galleries.
1. Marc Chagall’s “Self-Portrait with Palette” (1917)
Marc Chagall’s “Self-Portrait with Palette” (1917) is among the many new acquisitions on the Jewish Museum. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
This self-portrait by the lauded Jewish artist is within the Cubist fashion. An oil on canvas, the portray exhibits Chagall as a younger man holding a brush and palette, along with his hometown of Vitebsk (in at this time’s Belarus) within the background.
When the portrait was painted — through the Russian Revolution — Chagall had simply returned residence after three years at a Parisian artwork college with a purpose to marry his childhood sweetheart, Bella Rosenfeld, who modeled for a lot of of his works.
The portray, a brand new acquisition by the museum, was beforehand in a personal assortment. It was final publicly exhibited on the Tefaf New York artwork honest on the Park Avenue Armory in 2022. It hangs “in dialog” with a newly acquired piece by Alice Neel, titled “Nazis Homicide Jews,” from 1936, an unusually non-abstract work by Mark Rothko that exhibits a deconstructed crucifix, and three work by Romanian-Israeli painter Reuven Rubin.
2. 130+ Hanukkah lamps, from historical instances to the current
A glass case of greater than 130 Hanukkah lamps is a part of the Jewish Museum’s identification and tradition exhibit, drawn from the museum’s assortment. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
The Jewish Museum has greater than 1,400 Hanukkah menorahs in its assortment, and as a part of its new, fourth-floor studying heart, greater than 130 are on show in an area that’s open to a double-height gallery on the third ground.
The set up — that includes menorahs from throughout the globe, antiquity to the current day — is supposed to intensify “the central which means of sunshine as an emblem of enlightenment and hope throughout cultures,” per a press launch.
Specific highlights embody oil lamps from the 2nd to 1st century BCE, in addition to a “Menurkey” — a turkey-shaped menorah, devised by 9-year-old Asher Weintraub in 2013, when Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped for the primary time since 1888.
3. “The Return of the Volunteer from the Wars of Liberation to His Household Nonetheless Residing in Accordance with Outdated Customs” (1833–34) by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim
‘The Return of the Volunteer from the Wars of Liberation to His Household Nonetheless Residing in Accordance with Outdated Customs” by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. (Courtesy The Jewish Museum)
Thought-about to be the primary Jewish painter within the fashionable period, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim — born in 1800 in Hanau, Germany — is thought for being the primary Jew to obtain a proper arts training in Europe.
A lot of Oppenheim’s works — that are on view on the museum as a part of its everlasting assortment — showcase intimate portraits of Jewish life in Europe. Thought-about his masterpiece, “The Return of the Volunteer,” depicts a younger German Jewish man returning residence after serving to defend Germany towards the Napoleonic armies simply as his household is welcoming Shabbat. (Word the challah and kiddush cup on the desk.)
Oppenheim created the portray throughout a time of civil unrest following the 1830 revolutions in France, when some German states handed repressive laws towards the Jews. Per the Jewish Museum, “This portray has been interpreted as a reminder to Germans of the numerous position performed by Jews within the Wars of Liberation, and its political overtones are uncommon within the typically apolitical nature of Biedermeier artwork.”
4. Letters between George Washington and Moses Seixas
A letter change between Touro Synagogue president Moses Seixas and American President George Washington. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
A part of the brand new “Identification, Tradition and Neighborhood” exhibit is a piece on Jews within the Colonial Period. A spotlight listed here are letters from 1790 between new American President George Washington and Moses Seixas, the president of Jeshuat Israel of Newport, Rhode Island, now often known as the Touro Synagogue — the oldest synagogue in the US.
Washington got here to Rhode Island after the state ratified the US Structure with a purpose to promote the passing of the Invoice of Rights; upon Washington’s arrival in Newport, Seixas learn a letter aloud to the president, by which he expressed optimism on the freedom of faith that Individuals would see on this new nation.
“Could the youngsters of the inventory of Abraham who dwell on this land proceed to advantage and benefit from the good will of the opposite inhabitants —,” Washington wrote in response, including a citation from scripture, “whereas everybody shall sit in security underneath his personal vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
The letters are so delicate they’re stored underneath a window blind that guests manually pull up and down, to attenuate publicity to mild.
5. A toddler-friendly mock archaeology dig
Guests of all ages can dig for replicas of actual historical artifacts within the Jewish Museum’s newly renovated dig room. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
As a part of the Pruzan Household Heart for Studying, the Jewish Museum’s new mock archeology dig is thrice bigger than the earlier model. Right here, as a part of the guests can dig by 4 pits, every centered round a distinct period in time, for replicas of actual artifacts, equivalent to an Ottoman-era copper alloy coffeepot from Jerusalem, an historical Roman oil lamp and a calcite-alabaster jar from historical Egypt circa 1550 BCE.
The actual variations of these artifacts — most of them newly on show within the room — are additionally on show, accompanied by kid-friendly language. Households are supplied with an “Archaeologist’s Pocket book” to maintain observe of their finds.
6. “in full command of each plan you wrecked” (2024) by Zoë Buckman
“in full command of each plan you wrecked” by Zoë Buckman is on view on the Jewish Museum as a part of the third ground’s rotating exhibitions. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
Zoë Buckman, 40, is a British Jewish artist whose work has been featured within the UK’s Nationwide Portrait Gallery and who has emerged as a distinguished voice amongst artists on antisemitism within the wake of the Gaza battle. This ink, acrylic and hand-embroidered piece is Buckman’s debut on the Jewish Museum, which is a part of her “Who by Fireplace” sequence exploring Jewish personhood.
Situated on a third-floor gallery, Buckman’s work depicts a girl sitting on a chair; the piece’s title, “in full command of each plan you wrecked,” a reference to a Leonard Cohen lyric from “Alexandra Leaving.” The unfastened threads — usually discovered on the again of such woven items — subvert expectations of conventional female and home textile work.
7. A retrospective on the early works of Anish Kapoor
A few of the early sculptural pigment works of Anish Kapoor on the Jewish Museum. (Jackie Hajdenberg)
Born in India in 1954 to a Punjabi Hindu father and an Iraqi Jewish mom from Mumbai, Anish Kapoor rose to prominence as an artist exploring matter, non-matter, area and voids. “Anish Kapoor: Early Works,” on view till Feb. 26, 2026, is the primary American museum presentation showcasing Kapoor’s works from the late Seventies and early Eighties, “when he was nonetheless the traditional ravenous artist,” per the New York Occasions.
Snyder and Kapoor — a winner of the distinguished Genesis Prize — have beforehand collaborated on displays at MoMA and the Israel Museum; the Jewish Museum exhibit opens on Friday alongside the museum’s newly reimagined flooring. “He’s about this narrative of the expertise of the Diaspora and what it does to artists,” Snyder stated of Kapoor.
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