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Click here for Museum programs for 5770 (2009-2010)

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THE TEMPLE JUDEA MUSEUM

EXHIBITION: 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)

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

Link to previous Exhibitions

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@KenesethIsrael.org

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