Notes to Hadassah Presentation

(Slide 1- Intro)

Thank Anna Walters and her committee for organizing this meaningful conference, “She Creates,”  Jewish Women in the Arts, the Hadassah Midwest Regional Council for inviting me to speak today, and my Mother, Sheila Dansinger, who is generously watching my son today--for making me a lifelong Hadassah member….

In the next 12 minutes I will be discussing the exhibition of Jewish art, prior to Israeli statehood and inclusion of Jewish art in museums.  The purpose is to examine the social and political power of Jewish art on display during the time in which early Zionist agendas were important to Jews.

 

(Slide 2- Henrietta Szold)

“For generations upon generations,” wrote Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), founder of Hadassah, “either because the world shut [the Jew] out, or because he shut himself out, from living influences, he forgot that in one of the niches of his nation’s history there stood one, Bezalel, the artificer.”[1]  (An “artificer” is a skilled worker, or inventor.) Margaret Olin quotes Szold in, The Nation without Art, a book which includes essays about forging national identity and claiming Jewish art history.  In the past, Jews have been traditionally discredited by anti-Semitic art historians and others as lacking an artistic legacy, therefore contributing to the notion that Jews were artless, therefore less human. (Have any of you ever heard that before?)  Szold’s Zionist work for Israeli statehood, health and youth programs helped to forge a Jewish national identity.  Examining the exhibition of Jewish art, during the time that Szold lived, will help us understand the social and political power which arose during the early years of Jewish display, which influenced acceptance, tolerance and ultimately contributed to statehood.

 

(Slide 3- blank slide)

 

Social and Political Power in the Early Days of Jewish Display

 

          Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage, by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, illustrates early exhibition of Jewish ritual art and material culture, represented between 1851 and 1940 at international exhibitions in Europe and America.  Representing Jewish objects in different ways; they each strove to “defend such universal values as religious freedom.”[2]  One of the main results of the exhibition and presentation of Jewish heritage in international exhibitions is that it created a place for Judaism to be included into the history of religion.  Kirshenblatt-Gimblett writes. “Each exhibition meditated on the unresolvable question; how Jews were to be defined and represented… with a larger social and political project in mind--- religious tolerance, social justice, freedom of expression, group survival and statehood”[3]

 

 (Slide 4- Goblet)

International Exhibitions

            At the Exhibition Universelle, Paris, 1878, there were eighty-two[4] Jewish objects assembled by Isaac Strauss.[5]  After the Enlightenment, Jews living in France, defeated in the Franco-Prussian war, were still trying to gain acceptance into society.  Jews were also falsely perceived as having no artistic history, thus being socially discriminated against as a less civilized culture.[6]

            Strauss obscured the religious or ceremonial function of the objects in favor of categorizing the objects scientifically by classification.  Groupings of similarities, by function and regional motifs allowed visitors to view the material in a general or neutral way.  Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that “Judaism, rather than Jews”[7] developed into the premise.  Both accepted and condemned, Jewish display was included in five Paris fairs (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900). 

           Jewish art was effectively exhibited as scientific display, rather than ceremonial ritual objects, because the citizens of France were able to accept generic information during a time of social stress and aided in helping to overcome traditional anti-Semitic notions with the scientific principals of the Enlightenment.   

            In 1887, Strauss’s collection was exhibited in England at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall in London.[8]  The curators explained that the art was less distinctly Jewish but “cosmopolitan.”[9]  Appealing to Victorian social norms of home, family and faith, this exhibit highlighted the “Jewish plan.”[10]  The Jewish plan became: exhibition of ritual setting; the synagogue, home and lifecycle events.  Patriotism was aligned with Biblical connection during the Victorian era.  The exhibition of Jewish art in this mode helped bridge a wider public interest. 

 

(Slide 5- Circumcision knife etc.)

           Jewish art was exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum from 1888-1897 by Cyrus Adler, the first Jew to receive a Ph.D. in Semitic studies in America.  Documented scientifically by classifications, Adler illustrated ideas in label copy rather than in objecthood.  The label texts offered demystified facts which helped to integrate Jews, as subjects, in to the history of religion and the framework of Biblical antiquities.  Adler was also instrumental in arranging foreign villages at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, as well as international expositions in Cincinnati, Atlanta and Nashville.

           

  (Slide 6- Back of Gallery)

     Two specific subjects were the focus of the exhibitions, biblical antiquities and the history of religion.  Material from these exhibitions became the basis for the museum’s permanent collection.  Adler integrated the two themes and Semitic studies with the evolution of Western civilization through concepts rather than objects.  Jewish art portrayed as a religious foundation of civilization was at this time used for the advancement towards social and religious acceptance.   Jewish art, eventually included in the National Museum’s permanent collection was a result of understanding the Jewish question by stressing commonalities in order to integrate Jews, thanks to the insight and experience of Adler as collector.  These examples have shown the early evolution of Jewish identity in international exhibitions by addressing the “Jewish question” relevant of its specific era’s social and political context. 

 

(Slide 7 Book Cover)

          A final example is of a 1930’s Zionist pageant, or exhibition, which addressed the Jewish question of statehood.  Meyer Weisgal[11] used pageants to mass people together to show collective support in numbers.  Zionist pageants, Israel Reborn, at the 1933 Hanukkah Festival and with The Romance of a People at the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, were both in Chicago.[12]  “Weisgal had three goals: furthering the Zionist cause by gathering support and funds to amplify the voice of protest against Hitler and raise money to help Jews leave Germany, and, at the same time…to stage a strong show of American Jewish solidarity.”[13] 

            Again, at the New York’s World Fair of 1939, Weisgal executed the Jewish Palestine Pavilion.[14]  Weisgal constructed a miniature Jewish State, including buildings and cultural institutions.  Interestingly, there was no exhibition of ceremonial art form the Diaspora, biblical antiquities, or religion shown in this exhibition, so important in the exhibition of Adler, in the earlier history of the evolution of Jewish exhibition.

          Studying the development of Jewish collection may be recognized as one way to record the acceptance of religious freedom and tolerance.  The Jewish question advanced or evolved as the needs of the world changed.  One observation is how powerful Jewish display may be in furthering a social or political agenda.

 

(Slide 8- Hanukkah Table)

            In conclusion, it is my belief that further “Jewish questions” will continue to evolve through out time and will be evident in the exhibition of Jewish art in museums and in private and public collections.  Some questions may be ones such as; how may the exhibition of Jewish art be the most relevant today in America with evolving cultural demographics?  Another Jewish question may be, how has the perception and implementation of Jewish exhibition changed due to political events, post 9/11?  And, how can Jewish art continue to foster an environment of tolerance and strive towards achieving the complete eradication of anti-Semitism, violence and terrorism still prevalent in today’s society. 

 

It is my hope that I have engaged you, as Jewish community members, in the opportunity to share together as pioneers, towards a solution of intolerance-- through the awareness of Jewish art history and identity, sharing in the mission as fellow “artificers,” or inventors, to establish a Jewish Art Museum of Minnesota; which will focus on our history of artistic contributions and provide a cultural legacy for our children’s children. 

(Blank slide for Q & A)

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[1] Margaret Olin.  The Nation without Art.  (United States: University of Nebraska, 2001) 36.

[2] Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.   Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage.  (United States: University of California Press, 1998), 79.

[3] Ibid, 80.

[4] Ibid, 81.

[5]  Ibid., 81.  The great-grandfather of Claude Levi-Strauss, an Alsatian Jew who relocated to Paris in 1827.

[6] Ibid, 82.

[7] Ibid, 83. 

[8] Ibid, 85.

[9] Ibid, 86.

[10] Ibid, 86. 

[11] Ibid, 120.

[12] Ibid. 120.

[13] Ibid, 121.

[14] Ibid, 121.