Anu – Museum of the Jewish People

Anu – Museum of the Jewish People stands at the entrance gate to Tel Aviv University's campus in Tel Aviv.[4] A 1998 background note placed the institution, then known as the Museum of the Diaspora, on the university campus.[5] Archival records document a 1981 visit by Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and his wife and a third-anniversary dinner held under the patronage of Israeli President Itzhak Navon.[6]

The museum's stated mission is to present the continuing 4,000-year story of the Jewish people, nurture belonging and Jewish identity, and serve as a central address for Jewish discourse, engagement, and learning among individuals, families, communities, and organizations in Israel and around the world.[1] The Knesset passed the Beit Hatfutsot Law in 2005, defining the institution as "the National Center for Jewish communities in Israel and around the world."[1][7] Its stated purpose encompasses representing all parts of the Jewish people, highlighting the creative work and cultural riches of communities across historical periods, connecting Jews to their roots, and presenting Jewish culture, faith, purpose, and achievements, including world Jewry's contributions to humanity.[1]

The idea for a museum depicting Jewish life in the Diaspora was first proposed by Nahum Goldmann at a World Jewish Congress meeting in Stockholm in 1959.[1] Goldmann, co-founder and president of the World Jewish Congress, envisioned it as a monument to Jewish communities worldwide, past and present.[8] Planning and construction stretched over the following two decades, with the content developed by a team chaired by Karl Katz of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and including Israeli poet Abba Kovner, scholar Bezalel Narkiss, Paul Kedar, and director general Jesaja Weinberg, who led the project from 1970.[9] The original building was designed by Israeli architects Eliahu Gwircman and Itzhak Yashar following an international competition whose judges were headed by Mies van der Rohe.[9] The major portion of establishment funding came from the Council of Organizations of the United Jewish Appeal in New York.[9]

The institution opened on May 15, 1978, as Beit Hatefutsot, the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora.[1] Its early years drew considerable public and civic attention: by 1981 it had hosted a symposium for Israeli children living abroad, received Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and his wife as guests, and celebrated the third anniversary of its opening with a festive dinner under the patronage of President Itzhak Navon.[10][6]

Beth Hatefutsoth launched an online site in 1996, aiming to link Jews in the Diaspora and Israel through virtual exhibitions, information about museum activities, and databases.[9] By 2006, the Douglas E. Goldman Genealogy Center's computerized database contained more than two million names, while the museum's resources also encompassed a visual documentation center with more than 60,000 images, a film archive of approximately 900 titles, and a Feher Music Center with materials ranging from liturgical music to folk and pop.[11]

In 2009, plans for a major renewal were reported publicly. The project was to produce a 16,000-square-meter facility, with a permanent exhibition covering 4,200 square meters across three floors in the Nahum Goldmann building.[12] Estimated at $25 million at the time, the project was financed by the Government of Israel, the Claims Conference, the NADAV Fund, and other international donors.[12] The eventual cost of the full renewal reached $100 million and involved approximately a decade of planning followed by four years of extensive construction.[7] The State of Israel, the Nadav Foundation, and private philanthropy are identified as funders of the completed project.[2]

In March 2018, while much of the museum was still under renovation, the renewal project opened its first temporary exhibition — "Let There Be Laughter — Jewish Humor Around the World" — featuring installations that included a recreation of the Seinfeld Manhattan apartment, a kitchen-shaped shrine to Jewish mother jokes, and a replica bar where visitors could watch an hour-long stream of Israeli stand-up comedy.[4] The renovated museum reopened in March 2021 under the name ANU – Museum of the Jewish People.[2] At the reopening, director-general Dan Tadmor described the earlier institution as a pioneering, innovative museum that had become a destination for visitors from Israel and abroad.[7]

The original Beth Hatefutsoth permanent exhibition was designed to present Jewish history and life during 2,500 years of Diaspora without historical artifacts or relics — a distinctive and then-innovative approach.[9] Rather than organizing material chronologically or geographically, it was arranged thematically in six sections: The Family, The Community, Faith, Culture, Among the Nations, and The Return — a conceptual structure credited to Abba Kovner.[9] Together, the sections presented a broad picture of the spiritual and social life of Diaspora Jewry.[9]

Among the exhibition's most notable features was the Chronosphere, a planetarium-like hall in which 35 synchronized projectors displayed an audiovisual account of Jewish history on the dome and walls.[9] Four study areas offered short documentary films and computer terminals containing information about Jewish communities around the world, allowing visitors to request data about specific communities — a forward-looking interactive element for the era.[9]

The museum also held temporary exhibitions on Diaspora Jewish life and history alongside lectures, symposia, study days, and seminars in its B'nai Zion auditorium.[9] Thousands of Israeli high-school students attended special programs through the museum's Youth Division, while a separate department organized programming for Jewish youth from the Diaspora in partnership with the World Jewish Congress, conducted in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.[9]

One of the exhibition's most iconic features was its Synagogue Hall, which opened with the museum in 1978 and contained 18 intricate miniature synagogues representing Jewish houses of worship from around the world.[13] In a 2016 redesign, the gallery retained those 18 models and added three more; interactive displays and films explored the synagogue's roles in gathering, study, work, and prayer.[13] Donor Alfred Moses gave $6 million toward the overhaul, with $5 million earmarked specifically for the synagogue gallery.[13]

The 2021 renovation tripled the museum's exhibition space, producing approximately 7,000 square meters of galleries across three floors and four new wings.[14][7] The new name, ANU — Hebrew for "we" or "us" — was selected from approximately 70 proposed alternatives.[7] Museum research found that the word "Diaspora" no longer reflected contemporary discourse about the Jewish world, could alienate potential visitors, and risked creating a narrow or mistaken impression of the museum's contents; the new name was presented as expressing the diverse backgrounds, beliefs, opinions, and identities that together form the Jewish story.[7]

The renovated museum is organized across three thematic levels.[2] The first, "The Mosaic," addresses modern Jewish identity and culture. The second, "The Journey – The Jewish Story Through Time," presents Jewish history around the world. The third, "The Foundations – A Common Core, A Universal Message," focuses on Jewish practices and beliefs and includes works commissioned from modern artists alongside 50 short films.[2] Chief curator Dr. Orit Shaham-Gover described the museum's renewed approach as moving away from an account centered on Jewish victimhood and toward a wider presentation of culture, creativity, and achievement alongside tragedy — in her words, a decision to "give up the position of the victim" while continuing to acknowledge historical atrocities and give other aspects of Jewish life a different balance.[2]

The exhibition included approximately 600 historical and rare objects from different countries and periods, new artworks, at least 50 films, and more than 20 interactive exhibits.[7] Among the displayed objects were an embroidered collar from the robe of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the original screenplay of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and guitars belonging to Leonard Cohen and Gene Simmons.[7] The 2021 art collection featured works by artists from Israel and abroad, among them Diane Arbus, Alfred Stieglitz, André Kertész, Christian Boltanski, Dor Guez, Ran Slavin, and Yossi Berger — comprising both works gathered for the museum and works created specifically for it.[7]

The museum retained 11 restored synagogue replicas in a dedicated gallery — the Alfred H. Moses and Family Synagogue Hall — as a legacy of the earlier institution's celebrated models.[15] Interactive touch screens allowed visitors to design a synagogue, and recordings of piyyutim, including versions from Middle Eastern, African, and Asian communities, were made available for exploration.[4] Other displays invited visitors to explore Jewish achievements in the arts, interact with a digital Jewish-cuisine display, and hear Sephardic chants and poems performed by Israeli musicians.[15]

Life-size projections of Jewish families from around the world, accompanied by audio descriptions in six languages, greeted visitors throughout the exhibition.[15] "Jewish Voyages," an animated film projected around a digitized world map, opened and closed with a busy scene at Ben Gurion Airport.[4] Interactive experiences allowed visitors to explore Jewish food, music, names, quotations, and places.[7] A film about the Bible's influence on American civilization was staged around a Passover Seder on Manhattan's Upper West Side.[4]

In May 2023, Alfred H. Moses purchased the Codex Sassoon at Sotheby's on behalf of the American Friends of ANU and donated it to the museum.[16] The near-complete Hebrew Bible sold for $33.5 million at the hammer, or $38.1 million including fees, and was intended to join the museum's core exhibition for permanent public display.[16] The acquisition marked a significant expansion of the museum's holdings of original historical artifacts.

From its earliest years, Beit Hatefutsot invested in building databases of Jewish community and family information. By 2006, the Douglas E. Goldman Genealogy Center's computerized database contained more than two million names.[11]

By 2021, ANU had introduced a genealogy application using Geni.com family trees to show visitors how they were connected to more than 1,000 notable Jews represented in the museum's exhibitions.[3] The museum also offered remote robot tours for people unable to visit in person and assistive technology for blind and visually impaired visitors.[3] The ANU Open Database Project includes images, genealogical records, family trees, and other material concerning Jewish families throughout history.[17]

Throughout its history the museum has hosted temporary exhibitions connecting audiences to specific diaspora communities and historical moments. An exhibition titled "Tree of Life – The Jews of Hungary, 1981–2004" presented 40 photographs by Andres Lacko.[8] Images taken between 1981 and 1988, when Hungary was under Communist rule, focused largely on cemeteries, gravestones, former synagogues repurposed as storehouses, and elderly Jews in places where communities had disappeared or were in sharp decline.[8] Photographs taken in Hungary and Slovakia between 2000 and 2004, after the fall of Communism in 1989, depicted dynamic communal life and young people's active participation in revived Jewish communities.[8]

Lacko's project began after a 1978 visit with his father to Dunaszerdahely, then in Czechoslovakia and now Dunajská Streda, Slovakia, where his grandfather was born.[8] He described taking the photographs as "a journey into my family's past, about which I knew very little."[8] The exhibition was shown in conjunction with the Hungarian Embassy in Israel and was planned to travel to the Photography Museum in Budapest and other Hungarian galleries.[8]

In May 2024, the World Jewish Congress's Jewish Diplomatic Corps delegation visited the museum's memorial exhibition for the October 7, 2023, terrorist massacre.[18] Delegates viewed dozens of works by Israeli artists engaging with the themes of October 7, terrorism, grief, loss, and the realities of war — an experience the World Jewish Congress characterized as "profound and somber."[18]

Along with its exhibitions, the earlier institution organized special programs for thousands of Israeli high-school students through its Youth Division, and separate programming for Jewish youth from the Diaspora conducted in partnership with the World Jewish Congress in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.[9] In 1981, Beit Hatfutzot organized a symposium specifically for Israeli children living abroad, documented in archival records held by the National Library of Israel.[10]

The museum's 2021 redesign was guided by a deliberately broadened understanding of Jewish peoplehood. In a 2021 interview, chief curator Dr. Orit Shaham-Gover described the renewed institution as aiming to tell the complete story of the Jewish people rather than functioning only as a Holocaust museum or an art museum.[19] She explained that the account was designed to include Jewish communities and histories beyond Western Jewish culture — explicitly naming those of North Africa, Yemen, and India — and to present Jewish life through creativity, cultural dialogue, and flourishing as well as through persecution and catastrophe.[19]

Shaham-Gover described the museum's approach as presenting the Jewish people as dispersed around the world and telling the story of the whole people "from a position of equality," without positioning Israel as the singular correct destination and Jews elsewhere as merely in transit.[19] This framing was described as a departure from the earlier institution's more overtly Zionist message; questions about how to present Israel's relationship to diaspora communities were debated by a content committee that included donor representatives.[19]

The museum deliberately foregrounded women's historical contributions, employing feminist scholarship to recover the influence of women whose roles had been erased from conventional historical accounts.[19] The museum's presentation of contemporary Jewish identities and family structures was made intentionally inclusive, encompassing secular, Haredi, gay, and interfaith families; Shaham-Gover acknowledged that this curatorial choice drew criticism from some quarters.[19]

The museum's 2009 planning documents expressed similar ambitions, envisioning a pluralistic and modern institution representing the communities, streams, and groups that comprise the Jewish people, with visitors participating in the museum's narrative rather than acting only as spectators.[12] The planned themes at that stage included Jewish unity and diversity, modern Jewish life, Jewish interaction with surrounding cultures, women's place in Jewish life, and the significance of the Land of Israel and the State of Israel.[12]

Several aspects of the museum's 2021 relaunch generated commentary and debate. Sarah Rindner, writing in the Jewish Review of Books, raised the question of whether the museum's presentation of contemporary diaspora life might become dated, noting that COVID-19 had already transformed Jewish life, particularly in the non-Orthodox world.[4] She also observed what she described as an irony in the museum's 2021 opening: it reopened while celebrating Jewish interconnectedness at a moment when it was virtually impossible for non-Israelis to enter Israel.[4]

The museum's curatorial decision to include works by artists accused of serious misconduct attracted attention. Shaham-Gover described the museum's policy as distinguishing between creators and their work while acknowledging allegations and the history of men abusing power.[19] The museum's representation of the full range of contemporary Jewish identities and family structures, including its inclusion of interfaith and gay families, likewise generated criticism.[19]