NJJN Newspaper Excerpt

Exploring Jewish art museums
on the Internet

by Abbe Klebanoff
Special to the NJ Jewish News

This month Bissel Byte explores art, but not for its own sake. Instead, this column scours the web for virtual Jewish art museums.

While the obvious problems of losing detail and texture, among other aesthetic considerations, exists, there are advantages of browsing art on the web. First and foremost, locating additional information on a particular subject is only a mouse click away. That said, this column will not include Holocaust art museums -- that is a subject for another column. However, some of the museums cited in this column feature Holocaust themes.

Surprisingly, many of the Jewish art museums that maintain web sites seem to be short on, well, art. However, the National Museum of American Jewish History (www.nmajh.org), located in Philadelphia, should stand as a model for all virtual Jewish art museums. It combines attractive, fast-loading graphics and an inviting, easy-to-navigate home page with plenty of background information. And there is art and more at this site.

Three previously mounted exhibits, including "Art Spiegelman: The Road to Maus," can be found under the previous exhibitions link. The exhibit features the comic-book account of Spiegelman's parents' experiences in the Holocaust, as rendered in his two volumes of MAUS, whose creation is also highlighted. Filled with animation and sound, the page is beautifully executed.

Another exhibit: "Making a living, Jews at Work -- The challenge of Piety: Satmar Hasidism in America" offers a photographic glimpse at the Satmar hasidim, "the largest, most traditional, and most isolated of New York's hasidic communities."

Click on the link called Timeline to view a timetable of American history, American Jewish history and world Jewish history from the 1400s to the 1900s. It's a nice touch and the table is laid out in an easy to read fashion. A form at the bottom of the page allows visitors to offer suggestions for the timeline.

The Philadelphia museum's future exhibition, "Creating American Jews," which tells the story of Jews' trying to keep a bond with their religion while figuring out their place in American culture, will soon be on line.