September 11 - December 4, 2009
Tel-Aviv: A Love Story at 100*

       Flying Camels; Seashells; a Cinema; and the White City

                          This exhibition showcases the founding of "The First Hebrew City" through objects, video, historic and contemporary photographs,
and original art work, with special emphasis on The White City, Tel-Aviv's Bauhaus heritage

Program: Sunday November 15^th, 3:00pm

(Kick-off of the Legacy Heritage Innovation Israel Project**)

             Speaker: Professor Fred Lazin, University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

Prof. Lazin’s talk is co-sponsored by the Israel Advocacy and Cultural Committee of KI

"Israel's Changing Collective Identity." 

This talk follows changes in Israeli society from the Sabra Culture of pre-state Israel to the “melting pot” of the 1950s and 1960s to today’s “multiculturalism”.  It deals with the place of Oriental Jews, ultra-Orthodox, Liberal Judaism, Russians, Israeli Arabs and McDonald’s in Israeli society.  References will be made to the important role played by the City of Tel Aviv in Israel’s cultural developments

*NOTE:   Tel-Aviv is a Philadelphia Sister City

For more information contact: Rita Rosen Poley, Director/curator

TJMuseum@KenesethIsrael.org, (215) 887-2027, www.kenesethisrael.org/museum

Open: 9am – 5pm Mon. – Thursday, Friday till 8:00pm, Sun. 9:00am – 1:00pm

Or by appointment, groups welcome, an accessible facility
 

(Artist: Joan Myerson Shrager)

(December 29, 2008 – March 15, 2009)

I have often said that an exhibition is really like a story told through a picture book. Our current exhibition is Shooting Star and a list of its “pictures”, more specifically, its object list, might not reveal the story line so easily. What do a lock of hair, some ice skates, photographs, silver candle sticks, a top hat, some dolls and a child’s tea set tell us? The exhibition object list also includes a set of photographs from the Yad VaShem Archives (Israel’s Holocaust Museum), and original art work. How do these disparate items come together to tell a story that is important to a Jewish museum? 

Shooting Star tells stories of hope and despair. It found its beginning with a story of a child’s doll left behind when its owner escaped Nazi Germany for Palestine during WWII. It found its impetus through a photograph of a little girl bought on EBay. The 1938 photograph was of Judith Sternchuss (Shooting Star) who was killed in 1944 at the Stutthof concentration camp. Her fate was ascertained only years later by a childhood Christian friend who had kept the photo and sought out her friend’s fate. In the photograph a beautiful, young Judith lovingly cradles her doll. 

These two incidents lead me to research within our own congregation. Right here at KI I found miraculous stories of children saved from the Holocaust. In every case a doll was central to their stories. As a curator I felt that the objects needed interpretation, commentary, elucidation. I immediately thought of the wonderful members of the KI Artists’ Collective and I invited them to create original artwork that would interpret the theme of a childhood lived or lost through the terrible prism of the Holocaust. 

Families fleeing from Nazi terror often traveled with only the clothes on their backs. If a mother managed to save the family’s Shabbat candlesticks it was considered a triumph. Therefore, for a child to save a treasured doll, truck or stuffed animal was highly unusual. There is a nurturing comfort factor associated with having a doll or stuffed animal and one can only imagine the importance of the inanimate companions, presented here, to the children who loved them. Marlene Adler, Linda Nesvisky, Rhea Dennis, Stan Singer and Joan Myerson Shrager have each created moving and original art work that can only ad to the emotional impact of the stories told here. 

On Sunday February 1^st, at 3:00pm, KI member, Ruth Kapp Hartz will speak at a reception in celebration of the exhibition. Ruth is the subject of the book, “Your Name is Renee: Ruth Kapp Hartz’ Story as a Hidden Child in Nazi-Occupied France”

Author: Stacy Cretzmayer, Oxford University Press, 1999

Photo by Stan Singer  (About Stan Singer)

View other images for the Sternchuss exhibition

Link to more Photos from the Tel Aviv Exhibition

Link to the Curator's statement Tel Aviv Exhibition

Link to the Lobby Showcase of Trip to Cuba

Link to the Curator's statement Cuba Showcase Trip

   ENTERING FROM THE INSIDE: The Art of Memory.
                         by Michele Brody.
              September 19 - November 14, 2008.             
                        Click here for Invitation and details

   Click here and listen to an interview of Michele Brody and
Rita Rosen Poley by KYW reporter, Karin Philips.

    View some Images during preparation for the Project:>click  

     View some Images of the Exhibition:>click

     Watch a Video from the Exhibition:>click
 

An Installation by Michele Brody
The Temple Judea Museum
Elkins Park, PA 

A MEMORY OF THE PROJECT BY TEMPLE JUDEA MUSEUM DIRECTOR AND CURATOR, RITA ROSEN POLEY

When the museum approached Michele Brody to create an installation for our gallery, the prism through which we looked in making this choice was certainly the past artistic achievement of this distinguished artist and her interest in Jewish thought. It was Michele who, upon visiting the museum and studying its history, saw the larger possibilities that ultimately brought us to the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation – Artists and Communities grant that supported The Art of Memory. 

Throughout her residency Michele was unwavering in her commitment to the dual goals of her project: an art installation of the highest esthetic standards, and broad-based community involvement that would inform and inspire her, as well as enrich those who participated. 

Looking back at the discovery process of the young children of the KI Religious School and the Ivy Leaf School as they explored the original Temple Judea building with cameras in hand was inspiring. One could also sense the pride of the elder community members as they shared their memories with Michele in the many interviews she conducted. A search for related objects and documents resulted in the wonderful photo essay by artist Joan Myerson Shrager that was an integral part of the exhibition.

For me specifically, when I heard our local Korean coffee shop owner, when interviewed by Michele, talk about how he has been personally enriched by the cultures of the largely Jewish and  African-American neighbors who make up his clientele I was tremendously moved. At our public celebratory reception youngsters, African-American and Jewish, read from their original handmade books (made in workshop with Michele.) Their words proved to me that the ability of art to educate, inspire and bring people together is alive and well in a little Jewish museum in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, thanks to one visionary artist, a supportive museum community and funders who believe and make it all possible.
 

CONGREGATION TEMPLE JUDEA HISTORY 

The fall of 1930, during the height of the Depression, was not an auspicious time to launch a new synagogue. However, other forces encouraged the founders of Congregation Temple Judea to look, optimistically, beyond financial stress. Paradoxically, those same forces would bring about its end after a relatively short, but vibrant, 52 years.  

Between 1880 and 1930, there was an unprecedented Jewish immigration to the United States. Many immigrants settled in Philadelphia and, as the city became overcrowded, people began to move outward, developing new synagogues as part of this population shift. 

In October of 1930, in a room above a Five & Ten Cent store on Ogontz Avenue, 14 couples gathered for the first service of a new, unnamed Reform Jewish congregation. It would become the first synagogue founded on the tenets of Reform Judaism in Philadelphia.

 A commitment to such a venture during the Depression required unusual fundraising techniques. A newly formed Sisterhood ran “Dutch” suppers and rummage sales; “Rainy Day” bags were sewn by volunteers from donated material so that members could contribute saved pennies in order to build a new Temple.

At a February 1931 meeting it was decided to tax each couple $10.00 so that a more permanent place of worship could be rented. Eighty dollars was collected that night and Congregation Temple Judea was chosen as the official name of the heretofore “little synagogue.”

That first year a catered Community Passover Seder was held in the newly rented, congregational building. The cost was $1.50 per adult and 75 cents per child. A religious school was started and, by the end of 1931, 112 students filled eight classrooms led by volunteer teachers. A library was started with a donation of 100 books.  

In December, 1931, a Men’s Club was organized and the Temple soon became a vital force in communal and philanthropic activities. In 1933, the Sisterhood, aware of the potential disaster hanging over the world, signed a petition for world disarmament and sent it to President Roosevelt. Members became active in the Federation of Jewish Charities. Sisterhood joined the Peace and World Relations Movement 

Over the next seven years the congregation officially functioned as a Temple and, as it grew, occupied a series of rented properties. The first had no floor or electric lights and members used the headlights of their cars in order to lay a floor in the building at night. A local cleaner, caught up with the enthusiasm, cleaned the entire building for free. The first pulpit, Ark and Torah were borrowed, volunteers formed a choir, and an organ was rented for $12.00.  

In 1938, Arthur Lefco, as president and building fund chair, led a campaign that raised $3,000 for the purchase of land at 6929 North Broad Street, as the site of a permanent congregational building. The distinguished architectural firm of Thalheimer and Weitz was hired, and a construction contract for $37,500 was awarded to general contractor, Samuel H. Levin. The building, finished the fall of 1939, was paid for by 1948.  

During WWII the congregation was drawn into the conflict in various ways. Many served in the military. More than $115,000 worth of War Bonds were purchased, and congregational membership was extended to families of servicemen. Blood drives were sponsored, surgical dressings sewn, contributions made to the war effort and Armed Forces members gathered at the Temple for entertainment.
                                                                  
In 1941 Rabbi Meir Lasker, who became the driving force behind the formation of Temple Judea’s magnificent Judaica collection, assumed the Temple Judea pulpit. Rabbi Lasker was also a forceful communal voice for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. Among his many accomplishments was the reinstitution of Bar Mitzvah, a practice that had fallen into disuse in Reform custom. In September 1950, when television was still an oddity, a Temple Judea Bar Mitzvah service was televised on station WPTZ. 

By 1949 membership had grown so that it was necessary to expand the building, adding an auditorium, classrooms and kitchen. A new Ark was donated by noted ironworker Jules Yellin, whose firm handled the $146,000 construction project. The congregation grew to 650 families and cemetery burial plots were secured for the congregational family at King David Cemetery in nearby Bensalem.

Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s Temple Judea remained a close knit, active congregational family. However, in the end, the same forces that set in place its founding also caused its demise, as the population continued its movement north. Keneseth Israel and Rodeph Sholom, both once inner city Reform synagogues, moved to suburban Elkins Park, in the late 1950s.  

By the 1980s Temple Judea could no longer sustain a viable membership and negotiations led to the merger, in 1982, of Temple Judea with Keneseth Israel.  The York Road building was sold to The Ivy Leaf School for African-American children. The proceeds from that sale were used to create The Temple Judea Museum at KI, in order to preserve and display the Judaica collections of the two synagogues. Since its founding, the museum has flourished and grown into an important collecting and exhibiting center for Judaica and the related visual arts. The former congregation’s Ark and Eternal Light (Ner Tamid) are displayed in the museum gallery, along with its important painting by noted 19^th century, European artist Lazar Krestin. This collection assures that the name and spirit of the “little synagogue” have not been lost.
 

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS AND EXHIBITION:

ENTERING FROM THE INSIDE: The Art of Memory

For more than six months, Michele Brody researched the communities of Elkins Park and East and West Oak Lane seeking background and learning about the people who enriched the area. She recorded interviews about the neighborhood with various residents and business owners. She explored the North Broad Street site of the former home of a Reform synagogue, Congregation Temple Judea, whose building was sold in 1982 to The Ivy Leaf Middle School, the oldest independent African American school in Philadelphia.  

Brody, inspired by history and neighborhood evolutions, based The Art of Memory on the process of changing the way visitors to the museum see and think about the space of the gallery and its namesake.  “When I learned that the Temple Judea site was an African-American school that recently experienced a transition similar to one experienced by the synagogue, I designed this installation to connect the histories of these organizations,” says Brody. “Both communities symbolize a historic trend, of dislocation and change.  

In preparation for assembling the interior installation,  which metaphorically recreated the interior of the original Temple Judea sanctuary, Brody had students from KI, the Museum’s affiliated congregational school, and Ivy Leaf take field trips to each other’s schools and document their perceptions in hand-made books that include photography, stories and illustrations. The children’s books were on view and an exhibition catalogue is available.  

The installation incorporated growing grass, hand made paper, copper tubing, DVD, video and audio recordings to make its point. A special photo essay by KI artist Joan Myerson Shrager was an essential part of the exhibition.         

Entering from the Inside: The Art of Memory was an Artists & Communities program of Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, which is made possible by major funding from Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Heinz Endowments, the William Penn Foundation and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Additional financial support was provided by The 5-County Arts Fund: A Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. It is funded by the citizens of Pennsylvania through an annual legislative appropriation and administered locally by GPCA, which is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal agency, PECO and Montgomery County.  In addition, The Mandell Foundation and private donors contributed.
 

Funders of ENTERING FROM THE INSIDE (List incomplete)

The Artists & Communities* program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation: www.midatlanticarts.org  The Mandell Foundation, The 5 County Arts Fund**, Private Donations         

*Artists & Communities, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, is made possible by major funding from Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Heinz Endowments, the William Penn Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

**5-County Arts Fund: A Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. It is funded by the citizens of Pennsylvania through an annual legislative appropriation, and administered locally by GPCA. PCA is supported by the NEA, a federal agency; by PECO; and Montgomery County .
                                

Temple Judea Museum
has previously featured

“Treasures from the Collection of
 Mimi Grimes”
20th century Jewish ephemera.
A Journey from the Cairo Genizah to the Twenty-First Century
 

Exhibition Dates:
          October 21, 2007 - January 11, 2008

Opening Reception and Program

          Sunday, October 21st, 3:00 – 5:00PM

Rabbi Lance J. Sussman  at 4:00PM

And Everything They Had Gathered: Genesis 12:5

Click here for more information

View Images from the Exhibition

Previous Exhibit:
                             Deborah Schafer

CHUTZPAH, SCHMALTZ, WHIMSY AND REALISM: THE ART OF DEBORAH SCHAFER -
Temple Judea Museum Exhibition - extended through July 14.

Click--> Chutzpah, Schmaltz, Whimsy and Realism:
(Including an image of   Deborah's: Bagel Brunch at the Union League)

           Click-->  Thoughts from the Artist                     

                                                 Previous Exhibit
 The Eugene and Marie Buxton CollectionOf Jewish Music and Performing Arts

                                  View Images from the Exhibition

                                   Description of the Exhibition

                                   Read what the "Forward" had to say about the exhibit
        

Some of the artists whose works have been exhibited recently at the Temple Judea Museum
 

Temple Judea Museum
Rita Rosen Poley, Director/Curator
Karen Shain Schloss, Chair

THE TEMPLE JUDEA MUSEUM
The Temple Judea Museum was founded in 1984 to contain the merged Judaica collections of two Philadelphia – area synagogues, Temple Judea, and Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel. The museum staff includes a director/curator and an active group of volunteers. The Friends of the Museum offers tours and special events.

PERMANENT COLLECTION:
The Temple Judea Museum has as its mission the presentation of Judaica, the visual objects that signify the observances of Judaism. The mandate of the museum begins with a collection of almost 1000 objects: its preservation, growth, exhibition, and use as an educational tool. 

The museum's collection contains artifacts from countries around the world including: the United States, Italy, Germany, Poland, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, France, Hungary, Holland, England and Israel. Holdings include a fine assortment of antiquities from ancient Israel, a comprehensive textile collection, books, paintings, prints, photographs, and a variety of ephemera that complement the many precious and rare objects preserved in this collection.

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:

• A major collection of silver ceremonial objects.
• The second oldest American ketubah (marriage contract) from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1778.
• An embroidered Torah wimpel (binder), one of the oldest known to have survived the Holocaust, made from an infant's swaddling cloth, 1695
• A unique, contemporary Elijah's Chair, used in covenant ceremonies, commissioned by the Friends of the Museum.
• A religious commentary printed in Venice, Italy, 1574.

ACTIVITIES:
In addition to its collection and preservation activities the museum operates an annual schedule of three to four original exhibitions that are free and open to the community. These exhibitions vary widely in content and theme, but the educational content of an exhibition is always of paramount importance. Of each yearly cycle of exhibitions one is drawn exclusively from the collection. The other exhibitions extend the reach and scope of the museum beyond the limits of the collection. A recent exhibition about the Bezalel School, Israel’s first art school, included objects drawn from the Temple Judea Museum along with works borrowed from three private collections. 

Some past exhibitions have focused on the Jews of Ethiopia, Jewish soldiers in the Civil War, Israel, Jewish rituals of the life cycle, the Holocaust, comic books as an expression of Jewish experience, hand-made books, and art of the bible. Every one of our exhibitions contains a separate set of labels written especially for children, so that families visiting independently can approach the exhibition material in an interactive way. 

Lectures and tours, often drawing visitors from different religious and ethnic groups, deepen the educational value of the exhibitions. Senior, church, and school groups are among the many visitors the museum welcomes each year from our local community, Greater Philadelphia, many states of the union, and abroad. Museum volunteers conduct special tours of the synagogue’s famous suite of stained glass windows by noted artist, Jacob Landau.

 

For more information, or to set up a group tour, call the Museum at 215-887-2027 or 215-887-8700, or fax 215-887-1070.
  E-Mail:  TJMuseum@aol.com