Few — if any — institutions or organizations carry out as much research, publication, and other activities related to the documentation and analysis of Jewish heritage as the Center for Jewish Art at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
We have highlighted a lot of the work of the Center, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019.
It has just published a report detailing activities carried our during and just before the pandemic — between June 2019 and December 2021.
The illustrated, 45-page Report includes numerous links to specific projects, project reports, and online videos.
It’s a extraordinarily rich and varied compilation, including
- research expeditions to document Jewish heritage in Romania, Hungary, Russia, and Croatia
- book and article publications
- lectures and seminars (online and in-person)
- expansion of and additions to the Center’s photo archives and databases
- conferences and workshops
- new and ongoing projects (including documentation of Holocaust memorial monuments
It all combines to provide a vivid picture of the scope of current research — and the current state and diversity of Jewish heritage.
The Report writes:
The Center has expanded its key project, the Index of Jewish Art, with tens of thousands of new entries, conducted scholarly research, documented Jewish material culture during field trips, shared its findings at conferences and workshops and reached out to new audiences.
In the year 2019 the Center for Jewish Art celebrated the 40th year of its existence. Mishna
Avot 5:21 says “Forty [years] – for understanding” (לבינה ארבעים בן).
We hope that we indeed have arrived to a better understanding of our three major goals: the first is to increase the knowledge on Jewish visual culture in its different manifestations, by conducting academic research, publications and lectures. The second is the in situ gathering of material by documentation of Jewish heritage, and its preliminary research. The third goal is the developing of the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, which constitutes an accessible solid academic base for further research by the world-wide scholarly community, as well as a repository of records on Jewish material culture.
Click here to access the Report