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museums


Jacob’s Sons in the Bishop’s Palace Jacob’s Sons in the Bishop’s Palace
Wednesday, November 14, 2012 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The current Baron Rothschild is one of the British philanthropists backing a new museum of Christianity in Britain, built around a dazzling series of thirteen Baroque paintings, each over eight feet tall.
Keep Calm and Carry On Keep Calm and Carry On
Tuesday, November 13, 2012 by Dov Lerner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Shabbat is designed to be a day of rest and communal prayer. But due to halakhic restrictions on their carrying items from one place to another, observant Jews can become prisoners in their own homes.  
First, Build an Art School. First, Build an Art School.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Before Zionists built Israel’s first kibbutz, first university, or first luxury hotel, they built an art academy. Bezalel opened in 1906, not because the Jewish homeland needed an art school more than it needed a university but because the Zionist leadership thought an art school would be an effective motor of economic growth.
Editors' Picks
Jew in a Box Benjamin Weinthal, Foreign Policy. Is an exhibit at Berlin's Jewish Museum featuring a Jew sitting in a glass box, to answer visitors' questions, useful pedagogy, or "pathetic and useless"?
A Jewish Disneyland? Ellen Barry, New York Times. With Moscow's new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Vladimir Putin is appealing to Jews who fled the country to return—while Shimon Peres thanks Russia for "a thousand years of hospitality."
Holocaust Museums, Yesterday and Today Edward Rothstein, New York Times. It isn’t only the history of the Holocaust that you see on display in Israel’s Holocaust museums. It’s also the history of the history of the Holocaust.
Jewish Studies without Jews Geoff Vasil, DefendingHistory.com. The Lithuanian government lavishes funding on museums dedicated to commemorating the country's extinct Jewish culture.  The problem is that Lithuania's Jewish culture is still alive.
The Fate of the Aleppo Codex Ronen Bergman, New York Times. The medieval manuscript contains a warning to would-be thieves: “Cursed be he who steals it, and cursed be he who sells it.”  One huge ransom and several international maneuvers later, about 200 pages are missing . . .