During one of my first visits to Israel, I toured a museum at Tel Aviv University that featured scale models of synagogues in many countries where Jews had settled. At the time, the museum’s Hebrew name, Beit ha-Tsefutsot, could be translated as the House of the Dispersion, or Diaspora. Many of the original synagogues had been destroyed, especially in Europe, and the elaborate models had to be based on photographs and written descriptions. I had wanted to see the miniature synagogues again, in the expanded and renamed Museum of the Jewish People, or ANU (Hebrew for We, or All of Us).
Our friends had told us about the museum’s transformation, but I had not expected ANU to be quite so exciting a place. A museum guide suggested that HL and I begin at the top, or third floor. That level was dedicated to contemporary Jews in all their diversity. Huge photographic portraits of different types of Jewish families lined the walls. On video screens, people described their approaches to their Jewish identities. Each participant had made a brief recording, and I do not know if the videos had been programmed to emphasize contrast. Certainly there were at least as many differences as the commonalities that the installation sought to demonstrate.
There were multimedia presentations on Jewish history that were as entertaining as they were informative. There were sections that highlighted Jewish contributions to culture, science and the arts. Some animations were accompanied by clever narratives and sound tracks. They seemed to appeal to elementary and high school students as well as to their teachers and superannuated foreign tourists.
One of the interactive exhibits that impressed me most was a virtual set of bookshelves, with titles visible on the books’ spines. When you selected a volume of poetry, it opened to a verse and its translation that had been set to music. Then a singer or group performed, a video appearing on a section of the screen.
ANU is the world’s largest Jewish museum, with a collection so vast that only a modest percentage of it can be displayed at any time. There were far fewer miniature synagogues to see than I recalled from that past visit. Yet I was not disappointed, as there was a profusion of treasures new to me.
I must mention that there was also a hastily mounted show of art inspired by the 7 October attack and its aftermath. That was curated by the art director of the Kibbutz Be’eri gallery, a survivor of the massacre. I am not including any of those images here.
Stone with text excerpted from Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, carving date unknown but at least 1,000 years old
Some contemporary members of our extended family
HL at the virtual poetry library
Kapparot, by Andi Arnovitz, from 2014, reinterpreted the list of transgressions recited on Yom Kippur. They were written on the black feathers; the white feathers were blank.
Model of the Zabludow wooden synagogue in northern Poland, reputedly constructed without nails in the 1600’s. It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1941.
One of the most valuable manuscripts in the museum’s collection, the Sassoon Codex is the earliest one containing 24 books of the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) bound as a book rather than a scroll. A scribe produced it in the 900’s CE. This was an exact replica in the case. Presumably, the actual Codex was deep in the museum’s vaults.
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