Council of American Jewish Museums
In This Issue
Conference Hotel
Oregon Museum Moves
Criss-Crossing LA
MJH Expands
21st Century Skills

Be there: CAJM 2010


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Don't miss inspiring contributions from architect Frank Gehry, Rabbi David J. Wolpe, and museum scholar Selma Holo.  Register for the CAJM conference in L.A.
     
Visit us all over
...
   OJM visitors
(Oregon Jewish Museum,
Portland, OR
)

Or visit us on the web at

What is CAJM?
     
Jewish art and history museums, historic sites, historical and archival societies, Holocaust
centers, children's museums, synagogue museums, community centers, and university galleries ... the professionals and volunteers who work in them ... the children,adults and families who visit them ... the patrons who support them ... the organization  that keeps them vital.

What We Do
Through training of museum staff and volunteers, information exchange, and advocacy on behalf  of Jewish museums, CAJM strengthens the Jewish-museum field in North America.
If you let us know ...

JM, Goldberg 
     
... we will let others know

(From Neil Goldberg, A System for Writing Thank You Notes, at The Jewish Museum, NYC) 

There's always something beautiful, meaningful or eye-opening going on at Jewish museums.  Please share your museum's news and events.
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OCTOBER E-NEWS | 2009
Landmark Hotel for Conference
CAJM 2010 conference attendees will visit many Los Angeles landmarks European Dayand will sleep in one, too. The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, a modernist classic from 1966, was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, later the architect of the World Trade Center inEuropean Day New York.  This newly renovated historic hotel, adjacent to Beverly Hills, occupies the former back lot of 20th Century Fox. It has hosted presidents, moguls and rock stars and, in 1969, a state dinner honoring the Apollo 11 astronauts.  Since current owners have threatened to raze it, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed the hotel among America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Oregon Jewish Museum to Move
Following an exhaustive six-year search, the OJM is preparing to move to a former film studio building in Portland.  Director Judith Margles reports that the 6,400-square-foot facility will permit larger and multiple concurrent OJM renderingexhibitions, and expanded programs and services. Spaces that once served as film vaults will provide a safekeeping solution for the museum's collections and artifacts; a former screening room will be configured for school presentations, museum and community programs, movies, digital presentations and online meetings.  With the relocation will also come convenient parking, handicapped accessibility, and a more extensive volunteer program.  In a collaborative venture, the OJM will sublet a portion of the space to the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center.  Check the museum's website for an "On the Move" section that tracks progress through the December 2009 reopening.
Criss-Crossing the City of Angels
CAJM 2010 will take participants to outstanding Jewish museums and to other world-class cultural institutions in Los Angeles. Among the stops on our itinerary will be the new BroadBroad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which was designed by Renzo Piano as the first phase of LACMA's Transformation expansion project. On view at UCLA's Fowler Museum, devoted to art and material culture from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas, will be materialNick Caves from the permanent collection and a large exhibition of work by Chicago-based artist and former Alvin Ailey dancer, Nick Cave.  The exhibition includes his "soundsuits" mixed-media sculptures.  The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation collection is housed in a magnificent Beverly Hills estate and features over 400 modern and contemporary artworks.  An optional pre-conference visit to the Getty Center includes tours of the exhibitions Migrations of the Mind:  Manuscripts from the Laurence J. Schoenberg Collection and In Focus:  The Worker, as well as an opportunity to explore Richard Meier's iconic architecture and artist Robert Irwin's evocative gardens.
 
Keeping History in New York Harbor
The first permanent addition to the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust since 2003 will open on November 6.  The new Keeping History Center will offer a state-of-the-art, interactive, digital visitor experiKeeping History, MJHence.  The Center, designed by C&G Partners and Potion, occupies a 2,200-square-foot space with panoramic views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.  Fittingly, its first phase installations include Voices of Liberty, a soundscape of emigre voices - Holocaust survivors and Soviet refuseniks, among them - and Timekeeper, which uses aGoldworthy time-lapse camera to explore Andy Goldsworthy's Garden of Stones outside the museum.  Phase II, due in 2011, will let visitors add their own voices, "curate" their experiences, and help them see that they are part of the history they keep.
21st Century Skills
Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills, a new online publication from The Institute for Museum and Library Services, identifies key skills that are required in a post-induIMLS 21strial, knowledge-based economy.  These include technological literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, environmental literacy, and global awareness -- and museums are well positioned to support them. Download the report here, which includes case studies and an institutional self-assessment.