Ruminations on New Narratives in Jewish Museums: Notes from the American Alliance of Museums 2016 meeting
Earlier today I was fortunate to participate on a panel discussing new narratives in identity museums. Speaker represented museums focusing on the the Civil War, Industrial History in Baltimore, and artistic expression in the gay community. I was invited to discuss the perspective of American Jewish museums. The following are notes from my presentation, adapted slightly for your reading pleasure.
For several years, the Council of American Jewish Museums has asked our community to consider fundamental questions about how we can remain relevant in the 21st century, in particular who we serve and how we will find support in the future. These questions are the result of generational shifts among our core constituencies, a fragmentation of what it means to be Jewish in America, and changing priorities among our most reliable philanthropic sources. To us, at the heart of these issues is the story our institutions tell – one that has, by and large and heretofore sought to be authoritative, comprehensive, and reflective of a particular way of thinking about American Jewish identity. However, such discourses find little resonance with contemporary audiences. We find ourselves looking at a period of prolonged ambiguity in determining which stories we will tell and how we will tell them. What new narratives of American Jewish identity and experience will have contemporary resonance?
But let’s get some context. The seeds of Jewish museums in the United States were sewn in the late 19th and early 20th century with the creation of a handful of collections that sought to chronicle Jewish civilization. But it was after the Second World War that most American Jewish museums were created, significantly in reaction to the destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust, but also as a response to antisemitism in the American-Jewish experience. Jewish museums strived to be what Edward Rothstein recently described as “a tribute to Jewish continuity,” most critically, for the Jewish community – which largely footed the bill. These institutions told a story of “us,” of “our” sufferings and “our” triumphs. Through religious objects, art, and historical ephemera, they told about Jewish resilience over centuries of persecution. The story in America was one of integration, prosperity and achievement in a land of opportunity and religious liberty. These narratives expressed pride and success with the founding of the state of Israel three years after the Holocaust. The underlying message was of ethnic and political unity, rooted in historical experience and an ethical code rooted in religion.
And that story worked for nearly two generations. The first Jewish museums including the Jewish Museum in New York and the Skirball museum in Cincinnati – now Los Angeles – were joined by dozens more by the first years of the 21st century. Every city seemed to have a museum that told this story, usually with a local twist. But then the boom ended.
A new generation of American Jews have since found a voice (or voices). For them, this narrative is antiquated. A 2013 study of trends in American Jewish life by the Pew Research Center confirmed what Jewish museums and other cultural organizations had suspected for over a decade. Younger generations of Jews had a sense of identity largely divorced from religion and history, but, rather, rooted in a conception of Jewish ethics and values. Jewish communal institutions – including museums – failed to resonate with that identity. Be it the receding presence of the Holocaust in American Jewish consciousness, the complicated issue of Israel as a component of Jewish identity, or the growing acceptance of multiple, or hyphenated identities in American life, Jewish museums needed a new story to tell. Making things trickier was sudden shifts in the philanthropic landscape. Jewish museums in the early 2000s suddenly found themselves with shrunken budgets as priorities changed among Jewish donors generally, and especially after the double hit of the 2008 financial crisis and the Madhoff Ponzi scheme.
From the vantage point of Jewish museums, the challenge is how to remake ourselves for this new generation who we mean to reflect. How do we cope with the lack of familiarity with even the most rudimentary components of Jewish history, and multiple, overlapping and conflicting identities among this supposed core constituency? This audience thirsts for touchstones that connect with their own sense of Jewishness, and find the authoritative tone of many exhibitions and programs to be just another form of Hebrew or Sunday school.
Since well before 2008, the Jewish museum and cultural field has seen contraction and consolidation. Collections have been consolidated to varying degrees of success, as in the case of the Center for Jewish History. Others – and the number is growing – have been transferred to historical societies and universities, such as the Magnes in Berkley. More recently, several holocaust education centers and memorials have merged, or are in the process of merging with museums, largely for lack of audience and support.
Over the past decade, Jewish museums have sought to evolve to meet this maddeningly complex climate. Some use Jewish history as a jumping off point to access more universal concepts in American culture and history, but with little reference to an overarching, or sometimes any narrative. These approaches seek to bring Jewish history and culture to a broad audience who, hopefully, will care. Perhaps, most notable are efforts at two of the oldest Jewish museums. The Jewish Museum in New York is in the process of remaking itself into an art museum – or back into an art museum – with its collection of Jewish art and Judaica at its core. This means revising its decades-old historical, mono-narrative core exhibition into a series of encounters with Jewish art – divorced from a particular story. The museum has experimented with this approach in a series of warmly-reviewed temporary projects. Perhaps the best example of a successful attempt at this kind of narrative (or non-narrative) is the sprawling Noah’s Ark exhibition at the Skirball museum in Los Angeles where visitors immerse themselves in their “favorite childhood tale” through manipulatives, gallery happenings and programs. The project has been lauded by critics and visitors alike. Yet, the story’s biblical and Jewish origins, and its historical centrality to Jewish identity, are nearly completely absent from the presentation.
I should also mention the growing number of Jewish historical buildings that have become sites for a mix of Jewish programs and exhibitions, as well as other events that have nothing to do with the history of the space. The 6th and I historic synagogue in DC is the best-known example, but you’ll find others in Los Angeles, Tucson, and elsewhere. Many museums look to these institutions especially as models. But, then again, what’s the story?
Indeed, these shifts have been met with criticism from Jewish intellectuals and museum critics. Perhaps the loudest, but not the only voice, is Rothstein’s. He and others have criticized the universalization of Jewish experience for lacking historical rigor, of creating “loose analogies that don’t withstand scrutiny,” and obscuring the religious dimensions of Jewish identity and culture. His and others’ opprobrium in the pages of Mosaic Magazine earlier this year on the state of Jewish museums, perceive the impulse to derive universal meaning from the unique Jewish story as part of a wider trend among identity museums. Are we simply pandering to a new audience when we should be educating them? Rothstein and other critics nonetheless, call out exceptions, temporary and core exhibition projects that reflect institutions that have doubled down on Jewish history and culture – focusing on and elevating the particular over the universal. But, the bigger question, is anybody seeing and engaging with either approach in earnest?
For the moment, the answer is unclear. As I started by saying, American Jewish museums find themselves facing a prolonged period of ambiguity related to changes in our audiences who, in turn, demand a different story or stories. And, for the moment, we find ourselves at the beginning of this slog, looking for a solution that feels right – a new narrative, or, frankly, narratives that reflect the Jewish experience, as opposed to the voice of the Jewish community.
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