We search text all the time — why can't we search speech? This thought led Anne Wootton in 2012 to co-found Pop Up Archive, a Bay Area startup whose software allows users to automatically transcribe, index and tag sound files from anywhere on the web, making the sound searchable to the second. Pop Up Archive has processed over 700,000 […]
The hat of activist Carol Ruth Silver -- and the political buttons that adorn it -- is the point of departure for this PopUp Exhibition on Jewish participation in the Civil Rights movement. Carol Silver was the first white Freedom Rider to be jailed (1961). Her letters to her mother and the typescript of the […]
Dr. Yael Chaver teaches Yiddish language and literature at Berkeley. Her presentation will tell a story of Yiddish linguistic development that contrasts the cultural context of Soviet Russia, with that of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants in New York on opposite sides of the Atlantic in the 1920s. Posters and grammar books from the Magnes will serve […]
As objects engraved with magical formulas, amulets offer fascinating insight into the world of beliefs that informed them. The Magnes is fortunate to own a vast number of both paper and metal amulets, designed to protect the bearer from harm. Several amulets will be on display during this PopUp Exhibiton by Yosef Rosen, a Doctoral […]
The debate about Sigmund Freud’s ambivalent relationship with Judaism found new inspiration in the last few decades through a wave of new publications that focus on Freud’s last work,Moses and Monotheism (1939). Dr. Sharvit’s lecture will instead concentrate on an earlier essay by Freud, The Moses of Michelangelo (1914). In this work, initially published anonymously, […]
Jews have lived in Morocco for over two millennia, both prior to and eventually deeply integrated with Moroccan Muslims. Their communities were also among the largest in the Arab world, and boast an impressive cultural heritage, expressed in The Magnes Collection through textiles, photographs and illustrated manuscripts. Join Professor Emily Gottreich in exploring the history […]
Special Weekend Opening on CalDay! April 18 & 19, 11AM-4PM ON VIEW THIS SPRING: The Future of Memory: Jewish Culture in the Digital Age What should we remember? What should we forget? And who decides? An innovative project that includes an installation, a museum exhibition, and a digital research lab in which museum professionals, scholars, […]
Creating a good exhibition generally depends on the ability of the curator and the museum staff to tell a good story. What is needed is not so much a variety of interesting objects as a definite focus on narrative, with which the audience can interact. Join Professor Thomas W. Laqueur (Helen Fawcett Professor of History, […]
The Mikraot Gedolot are an edition of the Biblical text that juxtaposes the fully vocalized Hebrew text of the Bible with the commentaries of various Jewish exegetes, such as Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) and Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, published in Venice by Daniel Bomberg (1524-25). Editions of theMikraot Gedolot continue to be published to this […]
Helen Burke (1916-1997) was the artist-in-residence at the Swig Camp Institute, a sleep-away camp for teenagers operated by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now known as the Union for Reform Judaism) in Saratoga, California. Ms. Burke taught generations of campers the art of metal sculpturing and welding. She inspired them to create a Holocaust […]
Join us for the 2015-2016 inaugural PopUp Exhibition, learn about this year’s program, and meet Argentine artist Andres Waissman (Buenos Aires, 1955), who will be interviewed by Buenos Aires gallerist, Gachi Prieto, about his work, and the role of art in contemporary Argentina. The presentation will be accompanied by the display of Waissman’s painting, La […]
Noa Bar Gabai is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at UCLA. Her dissertation focuses on “Messianism and Masortiyut: The Poetics of Traditionalism in Mizrahi Hebrew”. In this PopUp Exhibition, Noa will put “orientalist” Jewish art and objects from Yemen and North Africa that are part of The Magnes Collection in conversation with her research. […]
