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HISTORY OF EXHIBITIONS: 1995-1999
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| 1999 |
WITH EYES TOWARD ZION: THE POLITICAL
CARTOONS OF NOAH BEE
January 10 to August 3, 1999
Curated by Stephen Frank. The work of the pioneering American-Jewish
political cartoonist Noah Bee appeared for more than three decades in weekly
Jewish newspapers throughout the United States. Bee, who began drawing
cartoons as a youth in Palestine in the 1930s, commented throughout his career
on events of Jewish interest around the world, and especially in the Land
of Israel. The first retrospective exhibition of Bee’s work, With Eyes
Toward Zion showcased 50 original drawings.
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| 1998 |
CREATING AMERICAN JEWS
September 17, 1998 to October 6, 2002
Curated by Karen Mittelman. This exhibition explored
the evolution of Jewish ethnic identity in America. The gallery installation,
scholarly catalog and video installation interpreted the diverse, often conflicting
ways Jews have sought to “be Jewish” in America from colonial times to the
present. The project illuminated the historical choices and the cultural
negotiations involved for successive generations in “becoming an American.”
GALUT: PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK BERGHASH
September 17, 1998 to January 3, 1999
Photographing and interviewing a broad cross-section of
American Jewry, Berghash explored the question of how Jews living in Diaspora
define and describe themselves. The exhibition included stylized portraits,
in both color and black and white, of American Jews from across the country,
from the ultra-orthodox to the ultra-secular.
"HOLY LAND": AMERICAN ENCOUNTERS
WITH THE LAND OF ISRAEL IN THE CENTURY BEFORE STATEHOOD
January 23 to July 5, 1998
Developed in cooperation with The Center for Judaic Studies
at the University of Pennsylvania. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of
the founding of the State of Israel, this exhibition examined the many different
ways that American Jews envisioned the Land of Israel from the mid-nineteenth
century until the eve of World War II. The exhibition traced the growing
scholarly interest in the ancient Near East, as well as a wide range of popular
encounters including museum exhibitions and World's Fair displays, children's
stories and tourism. HOLY LAND deepened the story of the founding of
the State of Israel by examining diverse American notions of the “Holy Land,”
and the ways the Land of Israel came to embody historic, religious, and political
ideals.
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| 1997 |
TOO JEWISH?: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL
IDENTITIES
July 27 to December 26, 1997
Organized by The Jewish Museum, New York. TOO JEWISH?
explored the resurgence of ethnic consciousness over the past decade among
Jewish artists, and raised questions about ethnic identity and cultural stereotyping.
The 23 artists selected for the exhibition - including Ken Aptekar, Archie
Rand, Art Spiegelman and Rhonda Lieberman - challenge and rethink representations
of ethnic identity.
DAUGHTER OF ZION: HENRIETTA SZOLD AND
AMERICAN JEWISH WOMANHOOD
January 15 to June 15, 1997
Organized by the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland.
Henrietta Szold (1860 - 1945) was among the first American Jews to work for
a renewed identification of the Jewish homeland in Palestine. She founded
Hadassah, which forged a new identity for American Jewish women as the providers
of health care and social reform in the land of Israel. In this exhibition,
personal artifacts from Szold’s life, including items which she kept on her
own desk, emphasized her passionate concern for the land of Israel, while
objects relating to her many Zionist projects illuminated the impact she
had on the lives of so many American and European Jews, including the safe
transport of over 11,000 children from Europe to Israel during World War
II in her Youth Aliyah movement.
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| 1996 |
ART SPIEGELMAN: THE ROAD TO MAUS
August 1 to December 31, 1996
 Organized
by The Galerie St. Etienne. MAUS, Spiegelman's stunning comic-book account
of his parents' experiences in the Holocaust, has sold more than 200,000 copies,
and was recently awarded a special Pulitzer Prize. This exhibition traced
the creation of the two volumes of MAUS, which Spiegelman crafted from hours
of interviews with his father, a survivor. Artists' sketches and design studies,
family memorabilia and interview excerpts reveal the evolution of a powerful
work of art.
MAKING A LIVING: AMERICAN JEWS AT WORK
March 27 to July 21, 1996
Curated by the NMAJH's Stephen Frank and Karen Mittelman.
Drawing on the Museum's collection of nearly 700 items documenting Jewish
occupations -- from a shohet's knife to a broadside from the first
Jewish fur trader in Alaska -- this exhibition included trade tokens, advertising
novelties, storefront signs, product labels and tools of the trade. Artifacts
were selected to illustrate the diversity of Jewish occupations and the rich
material culture these businesses have left behind.
THE CHALLENGE OF PIETY: SATMAR HASIDIM IN AMERICA
March 17 to July 21, 1996
An exhibition of photographs organized by the Judah L. Magnes Museum. German
photographers Maud B. Weiss and Michael Neumeister offered the first comprehensive
look at the Satmar Hasidim, the largest, most traditional, and most isolated
of New York's Hasidic communities. Accompanied by text from Jerome R. Mintz's
Hasidic People: A Place in the New World, these black-and-white
photographs provide a glimpse into the religious life and culture of the Satmar,
whose community has become the focus of a Supreme Court case concerning separation
of church and state.
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| 1995 |
BECOMING AMERICAN WOMEN: CLOTHING AND THE JEWISH IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE,
1880-1920
September 11, 1995 to March 3, 1996
Curated by Barbara Schreier, Deputy Director of the Chicago
Historical Society. NMAJH and Ellis Island were this exhibition's only East
Coast venues. Comprising almost 600 items of clothing and personal objects,
as well as photographs, documents, advertisements and oral histories, BECOMING
AMERICAN WOMEN looked back to women's lives and clothing in Eastern Europe
and illustrated how women remade themselves in the New World, and how their
new identities were reflected in their attire.
FRINGE OF THE DIASPORA: THE JEWS OF WYOMING
May 7 to July 24, 1995
In this exhibition, photographer Penny Wolin documented
what it means to be a Jew from the "Cowboy State" for four generations of
Wyoming Jews, using a process that included oral history and extensive research
in archives, attics and basements. FRINGE OF THE DIASPORA paired Wolin's
photographs with her research on the family history of each of her subjects.
Wolin also included photographs of artifacts and documents from previous
generations of families.
WE MAKE MEMORIES: A
VIDEO INSTALLATION
BY ABBE DON
January 19 to July 24, 1995
In WE MAKE MEMORIES, artist Abbe Don used computer
technology to force the audience to consider the power of family history
and memory in exploring their Jewish identities. Don presented a video-computer
pictorial timeline that revealed family stories passed down through four
matrilineal generations.
STRONG HOUSES: MULTIMEDIA WORKS
BY CAROL HAMOY
January 19 to April 26, 1995 
Carol Hamoy's sculptural collages explored Jewish female
identity, tradition and spirituality. Many of Hamoy's sculptures incorporate
domestic objects and household ephemera, including ribbon and fabric fragments,
that have been traditionally identified with women's lives. The artist drew
her inspiration from a variety of sources including Jewish folklore, American
history, the Bible, and her own family's past. A section of the exhibition
paid tribute to great women of many professions, including artists, dancers,
vocalists and writers.
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