Council of American Jewish Museums
         E-News | January 2012  
 
In This Issue
Motor City Frontiers
Berger Joins the Breman
Book Award to Dash Moore
Conference Fellowships
Advocate for Your Museum
CAJM is ...
Jewish art and history museums, historic sites, historical and archival societies, Holocaust centers, synagogue museums, Jewish Community Center galleries, children's museums, 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.
 

BE SURE TO STAY AND EXPERIENCE ALL OF THE CONFERENCE     

You won't want to miss the concluding session of the 2012 CAJM conference, scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, February 28th and titled "Motor City Frontiers."  A very distinguished panel of Detroit leaders will consider the challenges faced by this unique community and how its story might inform the work of cultural institutions across the country. CAJM museums can learn much from Detroit - its ethnic and racial diversity, its complicated history of urban migration to the suburbs,Juanita Mooreand its emerging opportunities.  Visionary university educator
David Egner
Richard L. Rogers, will serve as moderator.  President  of the College of Creative Studies and co-chair of the Detroit Renaissance Task Force, Rogers has held leadership positions at the University of Chicago and The New School. His panel members will include Graham Beal, the internationally-respected Director, President and CEO of the Detroit Institute of Arts; Lila Corwin Berman, Associate Professor and Director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University and an historian of Detroit's Jewish community; David Egner(left); and Juanita Moore(right).  Egner is President and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation, Executive Director of the New Economy Initiative, and a key player in Detroit's revitalization.  He previously led the Michigan Nonprofit Association and worked for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  Moore is President and CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, which we will visit during the conference, as well as an AAM board member.  She was previously Director of the American Jazz Museum and the National Civil Rights Museum. 

 

NEW DIRECTOR AT THE BREMAN

This month the Breman Jewish Heritage and Holocaust Museum welcomes its new Executive Director.  Aaron Berger, former director of the Albany (GA) Museum of Art and the          Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art, succeedsAaron Berger 2 Founding Director Jane Leavey, who retired on December 31, as reported in a previous issue of CAJM's e-news. Berger brings extensive non-profit administrative and fundraising experience, including previous roles as Partner and Principal, respectively, with fundraising counsel Alexander-Haas and Turning Point: Leadership Resources for Nonprofits. The latter Atlanta-based organization assists cultural leaders through development evaluations, institutional planning, and leadership retreats. Berger holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with an Art History concentration from the College of Charleston. We welcome Aaron and wish him great success as he takes the helm at this outstanding regional museum.

 

CAJM KEYNOTER RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS BOOK AWARD        

Together with her co-editor Marion Kaplan, University of Michigan Professor Deborah Gender and HistoryDash Moore  is the recipient of this year's National Jewish Book Award for Gender & Jewish History (Indiana University Press, 2011) in the category of Anthologies and Collections. The volume, written to honor the memory of distinguished historian and founder of Jewish gender studies Paula Hyman, includes essays by two former CAJM speakers, Beth Wenger and Deborah Lipstadt, and other noted scholars of Jewish History, such as Todd Endelman, Elishiva Carlebach, and Marsha Rozenblit. According to Dash Moore, "the book and the award are a tribute to Paula Hyman - the field that she inspired and the students she mentored." Congratulations to Deborah, who will deliver the CAJM keynote address in Detroit.  Join us at the conference, February 26-28th

 

THIS YEAR'S FORTUNATE FELLOWS

CAJM is grateful to the generous funders who make it possible for us to award conference fellowships for emerging professionals to individuals who are relatively new to the Jewish museum field and who have never attended the gathering before. We are pleased to announce that this year's CAJM Fellowships go to Aviva Babins, Justein Heritage Museum at Baycrest (Toronto); Rachael Binning, Jewish Museum of Maryland (Baltimore); Daniella Gold, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LA); Zachary Paul Levine, Yeshiva University Museum (NYC); Sandra Marianne Preston, Oregon Jewish Museum (Portland); and Jennifer Roberts, Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (NYC).  If you are attending the conference, please look for these individuals and welcome them as colleagues.

 

AAM MUSEUMS ADVOCACY DAY

AAM's important annual opportunity for cultural institutions to state their case in Washington, DC will take place on February 27 and 28.  Although the Congressional visits coincide with the CAJM conference, our alliance will be represented by Amy Smith, a staff member of the Jewish Museum of Maryland.  There are many related ways that you can advocate for your institution in conjunction with this event and throughout the year. Read about it on the American Association of Museums website. 

 

CAJM Puts the Spotlight on You

HUC-JIR Hilu

CAJM offers resources for learning all year round on our website and at our annual conference; models professional standards; offers opportunities for information exchange; and works on behalf of Jewish museums and museums with Jewish content, like the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum in New York.  The image to right is from HUC-JIR's exhibition, Nathan Hilu's Journey: Word, Image, Memory, which continues through March 30, 2012 See what other Jewish museums are presenting across North America by visiting CAJM's At Our Museums  page, the central address for you and the public to find out what's happening at our member institutions.
 
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