Curator Q&A – For Richer For Poorer
with Elizabeth Selby, Curator of For Richer For Poorer: Weddings Unveiled What is your favourite object in the exhibition? There are so many! Probably the most intriguing and unique is a ledger that was kept by a shadchan (matchmaker) who was operating in the East End in the 1940s. It was quite usual for orthodox Jewish […]
Getting crafty – visitors respond to Abram Games’ work
by Alice Quine, Assistant Curator As part of the museum’s exhibition on graphic designer Abram Games, visitors were encouraged to create their own artworks using paper shapes and pencils, taking Games’ work as inspiration. Here is a selection of my favourite pieces, reflecting the wide range of interpretations created. Some visitors paid homage to Abram […]
Your Jewish Museum – Crowd Sourcing an Exhibition
by Lauren Hart, MA Student at King’s College London On Sunday 30 November 2014, I was presented with shards of glass that had been lovingly reassembled and placed within a blue plastic mould. This was the beginning of my internship on the King’s College London Cultural Institute’s exhibition, Your Jewish Museum: Love, an exciting collaboration […]
The Jewish Military Museum arrives!
by Sarah Fairhurst, Assistant Curator (Jewish Military Museum) The wait is finally over! Many objects from the Jewish Military Museum have now been installed into the History Gallery at the Jewish Museum. This is something we at the JMM have been working towards for over 18 months and it was so exciting to see it […]
Obscuratorial Finds – Why do we have so many… dresses?
by Alice Quine, Curatorial Assistant With the museum’s exhibition on weddings opening in the New Year it seemed apt to address the diverse range of dresses we have in the collection. From weddings to work dos, dresses can tell you a great deal about a specific period of history, as well as its owner’s social […]
Obscuratorial Finds – Oddities in the Archives
by Alice Quine, Curatorial Assistant With my last blog post focusing on the museum’s food related objects it seemed like a natural progression to move from goulash to ghouls. Some of the most interesting aspects of the collection are concerned with unusual historical practices which may now seem rather macabre. Dastardly Doctors – While many […]
LOVE… how do we celebrate, seal and remember it?
L to R: Boris Bennett, Wedding photograph of Mr and Mrs Simmons, 1935; 18th century wedding ring; Ketubah (marriage contract) 1806 Lend your own treasures to be displayed alongside ours in new exhibition series, Your Jewish Museum, beginning in January. Your object can speak to any type of love: divine, parental, romantic. Anything! Let the pieces above […]
Mark Titchner art installation
Yesterday saw the installation of a new work by Turner Prize nominated artist Mark Titchner at the museum, as part of Outsidereal, an art trail organised by Camden Council which will be running until 31 October. The text pieces created for us are based on the phrase ‘Not For Self But For All’, which is a translation of […]
Obscuratorial Finds – Why do we have so many…?
by Alice Quine, Curatorial Assistant In a practising Jewish household, food plays a very important role in religious holidays and celebrations. Many Jews keep kosher, whereby they only eat meat and dairy products which have been prepared in a ritually proper manner, and which must never be mixed or eaten together. At the Jewish Museum […]
Obscuratorial Finds – Why do we have so many…?
by Alice Quine, Curatorial Assistant While the museum holds a lot of quirky and fun objects, it is also home to many items of great historical importance. Though a large proportion of this collection is comprised of paper documents, accounts and records, it is the unique aesthetics of the objects that I feel hold the […]
