The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

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	Collections The cultures of the Jews in the Global Diaspora and the American West	Visit The Magnes Open to the public with exhibitions and programs that foster community, learning and growth	Research Tools and tips to explore the archives, library and museum collections on site and online

researchguide_0.png	Collections The cultures of the Jews in the Global Diaspora and the American West
magneshistory.png	Visit The Magnes Open to the public with exhibitions and programs that foster community, learning and growth
researchguidepinson.png	Research Tools and tips to explore the archives, library and museum collections on site and online

Welcome to the Magnes!

Exhibitions, Programs, and 15,000 Objects from Around the World

The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life was established in 2010 following the transfer of the Judah L. Magnes Museum to the University of California, Berkeley. Its remarkably diverse archive, library and museum holdings include art, objects, texts, music, and historical documents about the Jews in the Global Diaspora and the American West. As one of the world's preeminent Jewish collections in a university setting, it provides highly innovative and accessible resources to both researchers and the general public. The holdings of The Magnes continue to grow. In 2017, The Magnes established the Taube Family Arthur Szyk Collection, and in 2018 it received the gift of the Roman Vishniac Archive.

We are open to the public Tuesday - Friday from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We are closed on the weekends, Mondays, and on University Holidays.

The Magnes will be closed beginning June 25th.

Come see our new exhibits in the fall.

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Hanukkah Lamp engraved with the emblem of the Della Torre Family

On View:

Feb 26, 2019 to Jun 28, 2019

The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West.

Read more about Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations

Vanished no more: Giant of photography Roman Vishniac finds a home at The Magnes

Photograph [2016-6-10]: [Albert Einstein in his office, Princeton University, New Jersey], 1942, Roman Vishniac

Read Berkeley News announcement of the gift of the Roman Vishniac Archive to The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life.

Read more about Vanished no more: Giant of photography Roman Vishniac finds a home at The Magnes

Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations

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On View:

Feb 26, 2019 to Jun 28, 2019

The Worlds of Arthur Szyk | The Taube Family Arthur Szyk Collection

A. Szyk, Institute for the Publication of the Works of Arthur Szyk in Lwow (Self-Portrait), ca. 1932-1933, 2017.5.1.36

On View:

Aug 28, 2018 to Dec 14, 2018

Jan 29, 2019 to Jun 28, 2019

Acquired by The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in 2017 thanks to an unprecedented gift from Taube Philanthropies, the most significant collection of works by Arthur Szyk (Łódź, Poland, 1894 – New Canaan, Connecticut, 1951) is now available to the world in a public institution for the first time as the Taube Family Arthur Szyk Collection.

Pièces de Résistance: Echoes of Judaea Capta From Ancient Coins to Modern Art

Bar Kochba

On View:

Aug 28, 2018 to Dec 14, 2018

Jan 29, 2019 to Jun 28, 2019

Notions of resistance, alongside fears and realities of oppression, resound throughout Jewish history. As a minority, Jews express their political aspirations, ideals of heroism, and yearnings of retaliation and redemption in their rituals, art, and everyday life.

Centering on coins in The Magnes Collection, this exhibition explores how the Jewish revolts against Hellenism and the Roman occupation of Palestine (Judaea Capta) echo from antiquity into the present.

Project “Holy Land”: Yaakov Benor-Kalter’s Photographs of British Mandate Palestine, 1923-1940

Tel Aviv Expands...

On View:

Aug 28, 2018 to Dec 14, 2018

Jan 29, 2019 to Jun 28, 2019

For nearly two decades, Yaakov (Jacob) Benor-Kalter (1897-1969) traversed the Old City of Jerusalem, documenting renowned historical monuments, ambiguous subjects in familiar alleyways, and scores of “new Jews” building a new homeland. Benor-Kalter’s photographs smoothly oscillate between two worlds, and two Holy Lands, with one lens.

a tsigele | one little goat: El Lissitzky’s Chad Gadyo at 100 (1919-2019)

El Lissitzky, Chad gadyo (1919) Title Page

On View:

Aug 27, 2019 to May 29, 2020

One hundred years since the publication of Chad Gadyo, an illustrated version of the famed Passover song by the Russian Jewish artist El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, 1890-1941), a rare copy of this work has now found its way to The Magnes, thanks to a gift by Ira Fink and Penni Hudis of Berkeley.

Souvenirs from Utopia: The Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem (1906-1932)

Ya-halili. Silhouettes: IX

On View:

Aug 27, 2019 to May 29, 2020

At the turn of the 20th century, under Ottoman rule, Jerusalem was rapidly developing into a center of Jewish cultural activities. The protagonists of this scene were, for the most part, recent East-European Jewish immigrants. They had been inspired to move to Palestine by the emerging Zionist movement, and were eager to shake off the oppressive conditions they had experienced under the Russian Empire.

June 2019

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
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						« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

2	3	4	5	6	7	8
« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

9	10	11	12	13	14	15
« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

16	17	18	19	20	21	22
« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

23	24	25	26	27	28	29
« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

30	1	2	3	4	5	6
« Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations Memory Objects: Judaica Collections and Global Migrations 67-1-4-36_1_web.jpg 2/26/2019 to 6/28/2019 Every week, Tuesday-Friday, 11am-4pm, during the UC Berkeley Fall and Spring Semesters. The First World War (1914-1918) uprooted millions across Europe, and beyond. Many Jews left Eastern and Southern Europe, bringing with them prized personal and communal belongings. In an attempt to rescue precious heritage from imminent destruction, these “memory objects” often ended up with museums, collectors, and art dealers in the West. Location: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Read More »

The Magnes: Social Media, Internships, and Exhibitions

Posted on Thursday, September 8, 2016

I am delighted to share the wonderfully insightful reflection and writing of Isabel (Issy) Steckel (Wesleyan, 2019), this summer’s Social Media intern at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Issy, a Bay Area native, interested in all things art, Italy, and Jewish studies, dove in, head first to her position as Social Media intern. Her knowledge and expertise only served to garner more publicity for The Magnes, and to bolster our social media presence, tripling our follower count on Instagram.

Power of Attention: Shiviti Manuscripts at The Magnes

Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Over the course of this year, our Magnes Graduate Fellow, Yosef Rosen, in collaboration with our former Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) student, Zoe Lewin, worked extensively with The Magnes’s shiviti manuscript collection.

The Magnes: A Student Manifesto

Posted on Friday, May 6, 2016

I am delighted to share an essay by Lauren Cooper. Lauren, who is graduating from UC Berkeley this Spring, with a Major in Comparative Literature, and Minors in Spanish and History, has been involved with Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) that I direct at The Magnes for the last two years.

Carla Shapreau awarded Palisca Award for the digital edition of looted music manuscript

Posted on Friday, November 20, 2015

Carla Shapreau, a faculty member at Berkeley Law whose research involves the Nazi-era plunder of musical cultural property and the restitution of those possessions, a senior fellow in the Institute of European Studies and a curator at the Department of Music, as well as a member of the Magnes Working Group on Mapping Diasporas, is the recipient with two co-authors of this year’s Claude V.

Greg Niemeyer on The Materials of Memory | PopUp Exhibition @Magnes December 9, 2015

Posted on Thursday, October 22, 2015

Greg Niemeyer is Associate Professor of Art Practice and the Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media (bcnm.berkeley.edu). Born in Switzerland in 1967, he studied photography and classics, and received his MFA from Stanford, where he founded the Digital Art Center.

Living by The Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Everyday Power of Text

Posted on Friday, August 14, 2015

Living by The Book (2015) Exhibition Catalog

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