Jewish Museum London on the Move project awarded Heritage Fund grant
The Jewish Museum London is delighted to announce the recent award of funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund of £231,000 for our project Jewish Museum London on the Move. This generous grant will support the development of a new operating model for museum activities to be delivered out in the community after relocating from its building in Camden and entering a transition period towards a future museum.
The project runs from December 2023 to March 2025 and will support the successful transition and development of learning and collections programmes around the UK to existing and new audiences. The Museum’s award-winning learning programmes are being adapted for outreach in London Schools, along with virtual programming and broadcasts about Jewish Festivals. In person schools workshops will start again in partner venues from spring 2024 and plans are in place to develop the schools offer for 2025. Community and heritage partnerships will host family days around London and reminiscence sessions with Museum collections will take place in Jewish care homes.
The Museum is loaning collections to other heritage organisations include tailoring objects for Fashion City Exhibition at the Museum of London, and objects relating to fundraising and accounting to the newly opened Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland. Temporary displays planned as part of the project include Chanukah objects for Bradford synagogue, disability objects for the Jewish Deaf Association and a Celebration of Jewish Life at Swiss Cottage Library Gallery in March 2024.
Chair of Trustees, Nick Viner said: “The Trustees of Jewish Museum London are very grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for this investment which will enable our ongoing transition towards a future museum. We’re delighted that our objects can already be seen around the country, and this support will enable us to expand further our programme of loans and displays, alongside our education work. Jewish Museum London exists to celebrate the UK’s diverse Jewish community and heritage. Now more than ever we need to foster understanding between all cultures.”
Acting Director Sue Shave said: “This grant will have a huge impact on the development of our future plans and will increase our impact on a much wider audience engaging with heritage in the UK. Our visitor engagement from this broader presence will increase from 28,000 people a year coming to the Camden Museum to a potential audience of 155,000 people per year including schools and community groups, reaching people in different regions around the UK with physical and online collections for the first time.”
Stuart McLeod, Director of England – London & South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “We are delighted to support Jewish Museum London with their next steps in realising their future vision. This project will help the organisation ensure their collections remain accessible even during a period of transition, thanks to money raised by National Lottery players.”
For press enquiries, please contact David Lasserson and Eleanor Flanagan at Brunswick Arts: [email protected]
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Background Notes
Founded in 1932 by Professor Cecil Roth, Alfred Rubens and Wilfred Samuel, the Jewish Museum was originally located in Woburn House in Bloomsbury, it moved to an elegant early Victorian listed building in Camden Town in 1994.
The London Museum of Jewish Life was founded in 1983 as the Museum of the Jewish East End with the aim of rescuing and preserving the disappearing heritage of London’s East End – the heartland of Jewish settlement in Britain. While the East End has remained an important focus, the Museum expanded to reflect the diverse roots and social history of Jewish people across London, including the experiences of refugees from Nazism. It also developed an acclaimed programme of Holocaust and anti-racist education.
In 1995 the two Museums were amalgamated. Between 1995 and 2007 the combined Jewish Museum ran on two sites, but with a long term aim to find the means to combine the two collections, activities and displays within a single site.
Following years of planning and fundraising the Museum bought a former piano factory behind the Camden Town site and raised the required funds to combine and remodel the buildings. The new Museum opened to the public on 17 March 2010 and its award-winning education and exhibition programmes have attracted popular and critical acclaim.
In June 2023 Jewish Museum London announced the sale of the building in Camden, in order to develop plans for a new museum, fit for the future and more sustainable, in a more prominent location. In the meantime, the museum continues to share its collection with the broadest possible range of audiences, both in person and online.
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
As the largest dedicated funder of the UK’s heritage, The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033.
Over the next ten years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to bring about benefits for people, places and the natural environment.
We help protect, transform and share the things from the past that people care about, from popular museums and historic places, our natural environment and fragile species, to the languages and cultural traditions that celebrate who we are.
We are passionate about heritage and committed to driving innovation and collaboration to make a positive difference to people’s lives today, while leaving a lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy.
Follow @HeritageFundUK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLotteryHeritageFund www.heritagefund.org.uk
