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Museum of the Jewish People Press Examples
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Beit Hatfutsot Celebrates Double Chai
Dec 19, 2014 |
By Masha Leon
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Donors combine for $10m gift to Beit Hatfusot
Mar 4, 2014 | San Diego Jewish World
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Jewish Peoplehood in a Multicultural World
Nov 25, 2013 | Huffington Post Blog
By Irina Bevslin Kogan and Sean London
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Israeli Museum to Open Exhibit on Foreign Volunteers in War of Independence
May 22, 2012 | The Algemeiner
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Museum Gala Celebrates Communities of the Jewish Diaspora
Dec 5, 2011 | The Algemeiner
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Museum of the Diaspora changing its name, and focus
Mar 4, 2010 | J Weekly (S.F Jewish Bay Area)
By Dan Pine
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No Longer in Exile: Overhaul of Diaspora Museum Reflects a New Zionist Narrative
Jul 8, 2009 | Forward Magazine
By Nathan Jeffay
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Beit Hatfutsot Celebrates Double Chai
Dec 19, 2014 |
By Masha Leon
T’was the first night of Hanukkah as 250 guests gathered at The Pierre to celebrate the candle-lighting and relish the welcome by Daniel Pincus the new, young president of American Friends of Beit Hatfutsot/The Museum of The Jewish People.
Pincus, whose family roots include Germany, Chile, Latvia, Lithuania, U.S. and Israel” said that though the museum’s past imperative had been “ to tell the story of the Jewish Diaspora—from the Destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. to the Creation of Israel in 1948 — there is a new story to be told of the Jewish People living throughout the world today.”
Among the guests at the 36th Anniversary Gala were honorary chair Sen.Joseph Lieberman, his wife Hadassah and Beit Hatfutsot Board of Governors co-chair Ambassador Alfred H. Moses who had worked in the administrations of presidents Carter and Clinton and had been involved in saving more than 300,000 Jews from Communists Romania.
Sam Bloch, Senator Joe Lieberman and Hadassah Lieberman // Photo by Karen Leon
Reflecting on the prior night’s pre-Hanukkah “candle-minus-one” candle lighting, ceremony at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Israel’s Consul General Ido Aharoni, when asked what Brooklyn meant to him, replied: “When I think of Brooklyn, I think of a defining event that took place there in 1918 — a fateful meeting between young David Green and a young nurse Paula Moonves — later Mr. & Mrs. David Ben Gurion!. Most Israelis don’t know this chapter in the history of the founding fathers of Israel.”
When in 2005 CBS chairman Leslie Moonves was honored by The American Theatre Wing Dinner, I had asked him “whence his name Moonves?” He replied: “It’s Jewish, from the Ukraine…. My great-aunt Paula who was married to Ben-Gurion used to pour tea with lemon for me.”
Beit Hatfutsot Chair of the Board of Directors Irina Nevzlin Kogan, described working for this Tel Aviv museum as “a labor of love.” Beit Hatfutsot CEO Dan Tadmor informed: “Despite a summer of war, we again broke our attendance with over 200,000 this year. Our exhibitions ran from Alfred Dreyfus to Jewish Mysticism, Jewish fashion designers” and confided: “In the last 48 hours we gained possession of a 400 year old Megilat Esther from Iraq which had been smuggled out by the Mossad” informing “In 2015 our archives will be fully digital and available on line.”
Gala co-chair and museum Board of Governors member Harvey Krueger — whose own philanthropy on behalf of Israeli institutions is legendary — described honorees Nira and Kenneth Abramowitz as “among the stalwarts of Beit Hatfutsot. Our supporters range all over the spectrum of Jews connected not by political views or by religious affiliation, but by a commitment to Klal Israel in its entirety, leaving room for many different approaches.”
A special presentation was made to American Friends of Beit Hatfutsot co-founder Sam E. Bloch whose curriculum vitae under the heading of “Holocaust Survivor” includes: young partisan in the Belarus forest, President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants; President of the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Association, senior executive of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel…and more.
http://forward.com/the-assimilator/211278/beit-hatfutsot-celebrates-double-chai/#ixzz3pIUpuYd8
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Donors combine for $10m gift to Beit Hatfusot
Mar 4, 2014 | San Diego Jewish World
The Maltz Family Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, established by Milton Maltz and his wife Tamar, and Ambassador Alfred Moses and his family, have committed a pair of significant gifts of $5 million each for a combined $10 million to Beit Hatfutsot, The Museum of the Jewish People, in Tel Aviv.
Milton Maltz, founder of Malrite Communications Group, Inc., and his wife Tamar Maltz are no strangers to founding and building museums. They were involved in the establishment of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland, Ohio, and conceptualized and created the widely-popular International Spy Museum of Washington, D.C. Milton is a trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Tamar serves on the museum’s Accessions Advisory Committee. Their most lasting and inspired gift to the Cleveland museum was for the development and installation of Gallery One, a group of highly interactive and nationally-acclaimed galleries that blends art, technology, and interpretation.
Milton and Tamar Maltz
(Photo: Rachel Hickey, courtesy of Florida Weekly)So why the interest in yet another museum — this latest being in Israel? They believe that today’s youth, who more and more use non-print media to discover their relevance in the world around them, and who will become tomorrow’s museum patrons, can be engaged through a museum’s educational platform that tells stories in profound, interactive, and transformative ways.
Alfred Moses, a prominent lawyer and businessman and Chief Strategy Officer, Senior Partner and Co-Founder of Promontory Financial Group, co-chair of the Board of Governors of Beit Hatfutsot, who served as liaison to the Jewish community during President Carter’s Administration and as Ambassador to Romania and in other capacities during President Clinton’s Administration, has earmarked a $5 million gift to building the Great Hall of Synagogues at Beit Hatfutsot. The Hall of Synagogues will show three millennia of Jewish life with its many faces to serve as inspiration for a vibrant future Jewish life.
Alfred Moses (Photo: Beit Hatfutsot)
Ambassador Moses believes that it is important to show the far-reaching depth of the Jewish people, “The Holocaust with its devastating tragedy was neither the beginning nor the end of Jewish history. It was a period of twelve catastrophic years over a span of three millennia.” “Beit Hatfutsot is a locus of discourse about the history, values, ethical issues and future challenges facing the community.”
“The Great Hall of Synagogues, to be built at Beit Hatfutsot, will portray unity but also diversity in its creation of synagogues, old and new, from many lands, presenting the different architecture, different styles, braiding together myriad threads of the Jewish spirit into one theme, as a gathering place for Jews to celebrate their Jewishness. Synagogues have always been a communal home for culture, learning, celebrating and just congregating,” adds Ambassador Moses.
“Beit Hatfutsot is a singular place, in the heartland of Judaism, the land of Israel,” says Milton Maltz. “It is a focal point for world Jewry and those interested in the Jewish story and its universal lessons. It embraces the total of Jewish history, all view points, past, present, and future. It presents the Jewish narrative in stimulating, impactful, current, appealing, and varied educational approaches relying on technology and geared to young people.”
According to Irina Nevzlin Kogan, Chair of Beit Hatfutsot, “These two significant gifts, which were pledged within weeks of each other, are important milestones in making the museum one of the key builders of the Jewish future. The museum will tell and chart the narrative of our people as a whole, preserve many individual stories, and serve as a platform for Jews worldwide to connect to one another. These gifts will further the mission of Beit Hatfutsot both as a museum and as a global center and will augment its various components: the museum’s core exhibition and special exhibits; its vast database; the international School of Jewish Peoplehood Studies; the genealogy center; and the Jewish web portal.”
Beit Hatfutsot is a steward of Jewish civilization, heritage and future direction. The stories and experiences it highlights are transformative and universal. It inspires people to tell their personal and family histories as part of the remarkable and ongoing story of the Jewish people. For more information regarding Beit Hatfutsot, The Museum of the Jewish People, visit: www.bh.org.il.
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Jewish Peoplehood in a Multicultural World
Nov 25, 2013 | Huffington Post Blog
By Irina Bevslin Kogan and Sean London
Conservative and Reformed Jews regard each other warily. Both look sidelong askance at the Orthodox community -- which in turn all too frequently shivers apart across ideological lines, the followers of each rabbinical lineage sublimely convinced that they alone have plumbed Judaism's true depths. Israeli Jews who trace their lineage to modern Israel's founders tend to see our faith through a Zionist lens, and so, inflected as this prism is with 19th century continental Romanticism, to question whether the Mizrahi Jews of North Africa and the Near East are their kin, in the fullest sense. And within the Middle Eastern communities, Moroccan feuds with Yemenite... and so on... and so on... and so on...
While vanishingly few of us, then, have ever truly set aside the solidarity that has sustained us as a people for three millennia, all too many of us are prejudiced and yes, even flat-out, no-getting-around-it racist towards other Jews.
To be sure, things are better than they once were.
Flooding into New York City in the late 19th century , Eastern European Jews turned to the city's established German congregations for the helping hand that after centuries of Tsarist oppression they so desperately needed. Largely regarding their Slavic kin as an invading horde, the Hochdeutsch Jews turned them an exceptionally cold shoulder for decades, relegating them to harshest squalor.
Often known as Sepharadim after the Hebrew for Spain, North African and Middle Eastern Jews trace their ancestry back to the storied Jewish communities of medieval Iberia. For all that luminaries from Baruch Spinoza to Chief Justice Benjamin Cardozo have sprung from these illustrious bloodlines, when the Mizrahi Jews fled to Israel in the wake of horrendously bloody mid-20th century Muslim pogroms, they were greeted at airports and harbors not with open arms, but with sheers and insecticide: with their European Sturm und Drang heritage, native Israelis just knew (nobody needed to verify) that the "Arab Jews" had been made unclean by their centuries in the Muslim world. And so Israelis shaved their returning cousins bald, men, women and children alike, and engulfed them in toxic clouds of DDT. Not that this treatment cleaned anything beyond their skin -- and so Israel embarked upon an aggressive campaign to ensure that "their" culture wasn't "contaminated" by "Islamic" influence, to include force-feeding Mizrahi children curricula that completely elided their native culture. But of course re-education would take time to set in -- and so for their first years in Israel, Mizrahi Jews were de facto barred from residing in Israel's major cities, restricted instead to squalid tent cities (ma'abarot) or decrepit border towns.Though Israel was largely founded by Russian and Polish Jews (although the contributions of communities such as the Yemenite were numerous and of the utmost historical significance) when the Jews of Russia and the Soviet bloc made their way to Israel after the Iron Wall's crumbling, their reception carried strong overtones of the outrages that had attended upon the reception of Mizrahi'im decades earlier. In proof positive that past oppression is no guarantee of future egalitarianism, tensions with the Israeli Sepharadi communities were often particularly severe. "I spent my whole life thinking I was Jewish, and came to Israel to learn I was Russian" ran the common, extremely bitter refrain.
Today, Jews of all ethnicities and religious backgrounds mix cordially even in the US' most exclusive synagogues and neighborhoods. Mizrahi Jews occupy the highest echelons of the Israeli private and public sectors. The Jews of the former Soviet Union have long since become the backbone of the burgeoning Israeli high-tech and financial sectors.
And yet in too many ways the Jewish house does remain divided against itself. If we are ultimately to stand, then, much work remains to be done.How best to eradicate prejudice? To be sure, we must continue to academically deconstruct, to publicly and aggressively inveigh against all forms of bias, preconceptions, bigotry, and the abhorrent actions that almost uniformly flow from the adoption of such beliefs. What, though, of the redeeming power of art, stories? If prejudice is based on a fundamental, willful blindness to that which unites us, might great art, bewitching stories that speak powerfully to our souls' innermost commonality, not beguile even hardened audiences into recognizing if not fully acknowledging that in reality, there is no "Other"?
This will be our share of the war against the specter of racism that continues to haunt our people.
In a bit less than a year, we will have ushered what was once known as the Museum of the Diaspora, or Bet Hatefutsot, through its transformation into the Museum of the Jewish People. Reincarnated, we will stand as stewards to the Jewish people entire, forever enshrining the traditions of even the smallest, most obscure of our communities. Our aim, though, is not merely to curate. Rather, we intend to showcase in the most enthralling ways, the sheer, incontrovertible Jewishness that shines forth from all of our communities. As we count down the months to our re-opening, we've already begun to stage early events and exhibitions -- and now, we'll also be using the space that The Huffington Post has so graciously gifted us with to weave the tales of our people around the world and down through the ages. We'll be presenting you with new stories every Friday. This, in the way, perhaps, of food for thought for whatever if any kind of Kabbalat Shabbat you hold.
Through our Museum, which we pray you'll find as breathtakingly beautiful as we do; through our global exhibitions and events; through the histories both ancient and modern we'll spin, we hope to delight and enchant, to bring forth laughter and tears, and most of all to dispel any doubts that might yet linger amongst our people that the Jewish family is, always has been, and always will be, a family of equals -- and by so doing, to exponentially hasten the emergence of a truly pluralistic Jewish Peoplehood, wherein the heritage of every last one of our communities becomes an ineradicable part of the bedrock upon which all Jews will forever be able to build their identities.
We are not working solely against the prejudices that remain lamentably rife within our own ranks, nor even solely on the Jewish people's behalf.
Beyond showcasing the incontrovertible Jewishness of our communities, each of our exhibitions, each of our stories, will lovingly frame our people's essential -- sometimes glorious, often laughably ridiculous, and certainly frequently flawed -- humanity. By showing our visitors and readers of all races and creeds themselves in us, we intend of course to launch a headlong attack on the anti-Semitism that is once more rearing its ugly head in the West and elsewhere, that would have it that Jews are sub- or indeed in-human. Through this assault we likewise intend to strike a major blow in the larger, critically important war for a truly pluralistic, wholly multicultural world -- after all, by undermining the racist narratives directed against our own kind, do we not inevitably raise questions about other racist narratives?
But of course subversion-by-suggestion isn't nearly a powerful enough gambit in a game with such high stakes.
In furtherance of the essential cause of universal cultural pluralism, then, our stories will strongly highlight the many wonders of the communities in which our people sheltered throughout our ages-long exile. Can anti-Muslim hysteria fully survivedetailed descriptions of the incredible heights of science, literature, philosophy, medicine that Jews witnessed and helped Followers of the Prophet scale whilst we resided with them over the centuries? Can anyone who hears about the incredible warmth, the depths and breadths of humanism and visionary imagination that we saw from the Chinese whilst putting down stakes in Kaifeng and elsewhere, fully cling to any lingering animus towards our East Asian brethren? Upon learning of the gorgeous sophistication and grace that our forbearers marveled at in East Africa -- 90 years before Columbus sailed the Atlantic, the region was already a trading partner of storied Ming China -- could anyone give full credence to poisonous hectoring about inherent African atavism?
We warmly invite you all, then, to join us for what we hope you'll agree promises to be an amazing, exceptionally worthy ride! We hope to hear from you in the comment sections and to see you on our tours and at our museum!
Until next week, Shabbat Shalom, to all!
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Israeli Museum to Open Exhibit on Foreign Volunteers in War of Independence
May 22, 2012 | The Algemeiner
Beit Hatfutsot, the “Museum of the Jewish People” in Tel Aviv, announced the opening of a new exhibition focusing on Jewish volunteers from around the world in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence in 1948. The exhibition will open on June 1.
In November 1947, the UN General Assembly decided to divide the country into a Jewish and an Arab state. After Arabs objected to the plan, surrounding nations attacked the new Jewish state and the War of Independence broke out.
Most of the Jewish foreigners who volunteered to fight in the war on behalf of Israel were from English-speaking countries and significantly contributed to naval, medical, infantry, tank, and artillery operations. They were known as “Machalniks”—4,500 volunteered and 123 were killed.
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Museum Gala Celebrates Communities of the Jewish Diaspora
Dec 5, 2011 | The Algemeiner
Friends and supporters of Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People – celebrated “a Vision for the Future” at a warm and welcoming Gala in New York City, December 1st. Over 500 gathered to recognize the young leadership of three vibrant segments of the world Jewish community, “Saluting a New Generation,” pay tribute to the historic organizational contributions of B’nai Zion, and honor the contribution and work of Alfred H. Moses.
Introduced as a visionary, the “third Moses,” Alfred H. Moses accepted the Yakir Beit Hatfutsot Award with praise for the work of the Museum and a call for involvement in its future. Adviser to presidents, former Ambassador to Romania, Chief Operating Officer of Promontory Financial Group and Chairman of the International Council of Beit Hatfutsot, he spoke of his decision to make being Jewish an integral part of his life. He expanded on a theme discussed in a New York Times article, opining that participating in Judaism “is increasingly a matter of choice,” and that “the essence of our Covenant gives us tools to deal with the disparate and often confusing aspects of modern life,” Moses credited the teachings of the Torah and Talmud as his inspiration “to work to make peoples’ lives better,”
Since its founding in 1978, the Museum has been a leading resource for the worldwide Jewish community. It is completing a “cutting edge” facility in Tel Aviv integrating technology and content, enabling each visitor to personally engage in the 4000 year history of the Jewish people. On this Gala evening, Beit Hatfutsot recognized the important involvement of diverse young Jewish leadership, honoring Dor Chadash, a group for Israeli-Americans, 30 Years After, which promotes the involvement of Iranian American Jews in Jewish political, civic and cultural Jewish life and RAJE: the Russian American Jewish Experience.
The long term support of the B’nai Zion organization was recognized in a tribute lauding that organization’s historic and continuing support of the Museum.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/12/05/museum-gala-celebrates-communities-of-the-jewish-diaspora/
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Museum of the Diaspora changing its name, and focus
Mar 4, 2010 | J Weekly (S.F Jewish Bay Area)
By Dan Pine
Avinoam Armoni loves Jewish family trees, and wants to collect them. All of them.
Sounds quixotic, but as CEO of Beit Hatfutsot, Israel’s Museum of the Jewish People, Armoni knows he has a big story to tell. And part of it involves rounding up as many Jewish family trees as possible.
It’s just one of his plans for the institution formerly known (in English) as the Museum of the Diaspora.
Beit Hatfutsot opened its Tel Aviv doors in 1978. The museum has had its ups and downs since then, but Armoni hopes to launch a metamorphosis for it, both physically and philosophically.
“The conceptual change is that the museum tells the story of the Jewish people, not just the diaspora,” Armoni said during a recent swing through the Bay Area. “Therefore the story begins with Abraham and Sarah, and it does not really end. Whoever walks into the museum adds his or her personal story — we are all part of the story.”
Armoni says he will gut much of the current museum and build a new $45 million facility on its Tel Aviv University site. It will feature a newly redesigned core exhibit, auditorium, classrooms and state-of-the-art technology.
With fundraising more than halfway to the goal, Armoni expects construction to begin next year, with the new museum opening in 2013.
“Golden Age of Spain” is on permanent exhibit.
The hope is that the new Beit Hatfutsot will once again become a major draw for tourists and Israelis, who once flocked to the museum by the hundreds of thousands every year. Those numbers have dwindled drastically in more recent years, thanks in large part to an outmoded mission statement.
The initial aim of Beit Hatfutsot, Armoni says, was “to tell the story of the diaspora. The [founders] came from Europe, post-Holocaust. The concept was to tell their story, starting with the destruction of Second Temple, while the end of story was the beginning of the Zionist movement. That was the final chapter of the diaspora in their eyes. Everyone would pack their bags and come to Israel.”
Unfortunately for them, not all Jews packed their bags. Diaspora Jews continued to thrive, especially in North America — and thus, according to Armoni, the museum left them out of the story.
Other stories left out were those of Jewish women, Sephardic Jews, Mizrachi Jews from Arab lands, Falash Mura from Ethiopia and other non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations. The Jewish universe is vast, and Armoni intends to include all in the new Beit Hatfutsot.
“We are not trying to define who is a Jew,” Armoni says. “This is open to anyone who wants to discover their roots, values and history.”
Born in Jerusalem, Armoni earned a law degree from Hebrew University and a master’s of public administration from Harvard. He went on to have a distinguished career in pushing for pluralism and democracy in Israel.
He served as chair of the Technological College of Beersheva and as vice president for external relations at the Hebrew University. As executive director of the New Israel Fund from 1991 to 1997 he represented the liberal organization internationally, growing its budget from $5 million to $17 million.
Armoni later volunteered to help Beit Hatfutsot with long-term strategic planning, and when a vacancy opened up in the top slot, he threw his hat in the ring.
His Jewish family tree plan is no pipe dream. Partnering with Myheritage.com, and the Douglas E. Goldman Genealogy Center, Beit Hatfutsot is attempting to compile the world’s largest database on Jewish family histories. About 3 million names have already been entered, and anyone who wants to can participate by downloading family tree software from the museum’s Web site.
For Armoni, Beit Hatfutsot is more than a job. He believes in the mission.
“When you come here, you start at a replica of the Titus Gate, where Romans carried off Jewish slaves,” he says. “Two thousand years later we are standing in the middle of the largest Jewish university in the world, speaking the same language of 2,000 years before.
“We are alive, and our captors? Well, not even doctors speak Latin anymore. We have survived, and that’s the journey you take in our institution.”
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No Longer in Exile: Overhaul of Diaspora Museum Reflects a New Zionist Narrative
Jul 8, 2009 | Forward Magazine
By Nathan Jeffay
It has long epitomized the Jewish state’s superiority complex toward Jews who live abroad. Tel Aviv’s Museum of the Jewish Diaspora was theoretically about the Jews living dispersed around the globe, but its narrative had them all ending up in Israel.
Image: courtesy of the diaspora museum
Leaving Zion: One of the exhibits near the entrance to the Diaspora Museum displays a detail from the Arch of Titus, which shows the treasures from the Second Temple being taken out of Jerusalem.
Now, with a big jolt of funding, the museum has announced that it will completely overhaul its exhibitions in an effort to put Diaspora Jews on an equal footing with those in Israel. The state-funded museum, which opened in 1978, will soon begin a $25 million project to expand its footprint, redevelop the exhibitions and reopen in 2012 with what essentially will be a new museum, including a new name: the Museum of the Jewish People.
One of the main things that will be changed in the new museum is the old-fashioned Zionist narrative, which expected the Diaspora to disappear as Jews immigrated to Israel. Currently, the Jewish past is dealt with in five sections on Diaspora history. The sixth section deals with the end of the Diaspora in the establishment of the State of Israel. It’s a reality that has not come to pass, and the new museum will reflect that.
“The idea of the museum’s founders was that it was the history of the Jewish Diaspora, which started with the destruction of the Temple and ended with the return to Zion, the last chapter in Diaspora history,” Avinoam Armoni, CEO of the museum, told the Forward. “But 31 years on, we know that there is still life, and thriving life at that, in the Diaspora, meaning we need a different approach.”
Located on the Tel Aviv University campus, the museum houses permanent exhibitions, a genealogical database and photo archives. Abba Kovner, leader of the Vilna Ghetto uprising, conceived it, and when it opened it was considered a sign of the growing intimacy between Israel and Diaspora communities. The detailed redevelopment plan was announced at a meeting of the international board of governors at the end of June. The redevelopment will go forward without the museum closing.
At the new museum, there still will be exhibitions on the establishment of the State of Israel, but there also will be major displays on contemporary Jewish life outside Israel. An international advisory board, comprising members of communities across the world, will be involved in planning them.
“There will be no endpoint to the exhibition,” Armoni said, drawing a contrast with the current exhibition. “It will start with Abraham and Sarah from the Bible, and there will be no end — it will continue to develop as the story of the Jewish people is still unfolding.”
The plan will be bankrolled by the government of Israel and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the central body for Holocaust restitution claims. Donors also will contribute, including a fund run by the Russian-born, Israel-based oligarch Leonid Nevzlin, chairman of the museum’s international board of governors.
The funding represents a change of fortunes for the museum, which has spent much of the past decade in financial crisis — to the extent that on several occasions, there have been rumors of impending closure. The museum today has the feel of an institution that has lost its former glory; many of the features that were cutting-edge when it opened no longer work, due to poor upkeep.
The museum’s fortunes turned around in 2005, when the Knesset passed a law making the museum a national institution and ensuring it an annual budget from state coffers. Around the same time, Nevzlin became involved and became a major funder.
The changes at the museum represent the latest stage in an evolution in Israeli thinking about the Diaspora. Until the 1970s, Zionists of all political shades tended to be committed to the principle of shlilat ha’galut, translated as “negation of the exile.” The Israeli school curriculum promoted the idea.
In the 1970s, the language used was softened. People began to refer less to the galut, or “exile,” and more to the tefustot, or “Diaspora.” Nevertheless, there was a widespread belief that the future of the Jewish people lay in Israel and not in the Diaspora, and it was in this context that the Diaspora Museum was established.
Haifa University sociologist Oz Almog, an expert on contemporary Israel, told the Forward that the mindset today could not be more different: “Ask Israelis now what they think about Jews coming from countries where they aren’t persecuted, like the U.S. and Britain, to live in Israel, and they’ll say, ‘Those who do are nuts.’”
Museum insiders say that nowadays, using even the word “Diaspora” in the museum’s name is considered chauvinistic, because it puts foreign Jews in a single boat even though their cultures are diverse — hence the new name.
“There was a sense that “Diaspora” is a pejorative term,” said Mark Kurs, director of the visitor center.
There has been a notable lack of opposition to the changes. Even pressure groups that fight to strengthen Zionist identity in Israel, such as the hawkish Institute for Zionist Strategies, which produces leagues of tables telling how well different lawmakers score in terms of “Zionist legislation activism,” welcomed the plan.
“Zionists don’t expect every Jew to move to Israel today,” institute founder and president Joel Golovensky said.
It is not only the Israel-centric mindset that will be challenged in the new displays. Women and Sephardim, who were given short shrift in the old displays, will be given more prominence in the new designs — as will non-Orthodox religious movements.
Hebrew University sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi said the fact that it has become commonplace for Israelis to move abroad, either permanently or for a stint, makes it contradictory for their families to look down on Diaspora Jews. More than this, she said that while Zionist ideology traditionally preached that Jews are vulnerable in the Diaspora, today, following two intifadas and various other attacks, “many people are not so sure that Israel is the safest place for Jews.”
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