Exhibition - Engaging with History: Works from the Collection

Engaging with History: Works from the Collection features a selection of objects, including painting, sculpture, photography, and ceremonial art from the Jewish Museum’s collection of over 30,000 works.

The Museum’s dynamic holdings reflect an ever-evolving understanding of the relationship between art and global Jewish culture across time, striving to capture history as it unfolds in the contemporary moment. As the Museum reimagines a largescale presentation of its collection, which will open on the third and fourth floors in late 2025, this installation features some of the Jewish Museum's greatest treasures as well as new acquisitions on view for the first time.

The exhibition features a wall of portraits, including works by Richard Avedon, Dawoud Bey, and Kali Spitzer; a recently acquired tapestry by William Kentridge; a bracelet of charms assembled by Greta Perlman from late 1941 to late 1944 while she was interned in the Theresienstadt ghetto–concentration camp in former Czechoslovakia; an installation by Christian Boltanski; and highlights from the Jewish Museum’s extraordinary collection of Hanukkah lamps.