New Beginnings: The Skirball Museum Collections and Inaugural Exhibition

In 1996 The Skirball Museum in Los Angeles opens its doors to a new era. Now the central component of the recently completed Skirball Cultural Center, the museum is home to one of the most significant Judaica art collections in the Western Hemisphere, which encompasses four thousand years of Jewish historical experience. Full-color illustrations showing objects from each of the museum's collection categories are accompanied by essays explaining the significance of the art. The museum's long-term inaugural exhibition, Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America, and the ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology exhibits of the Discovery Center are also documented in this comprehensive book. The museum preserves more than 25,000 objects that reveal much about daily life, beliefs, customs, worship, human yearnings, and artistic achievement from biblical to contemporary times. They reflect Jewish life in virtually every corner of the globe as well as the museum's commitment to exploring American Jewish life in the context of American society as a whole. Over the years the Skirball Museum has continually expanded its meaning and purpose in a changing world. The reshaping and reopening of this valuable repository of Jewish cultural history in the Skirball Cultural Center is a signal event for art historians and Judaica scholars, and it also offers rich learning opportunities for anyone seeking to understand the human spirit through art.

Arts & Photography

Skirball Museum

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Skirball Cultural Center

The Skirball Museum in Los Angeles houses one of the most significant Judaica art collections in the world. Curatorial and academic scholars come together in this volume to discuss the museum's origins and it's collections, which encompass 4000 years of Jewish historical experience. Colour illustrations showing objects from each of the museum's collection categories are accompanied by essays explaining the significance of the art. The two final chapters document the museum's inaugural presentation, "Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America", and the ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology exhibits of the Discovery Center.

Israel through American eyes: A century of photography

Gilbert, Barbara C

On moral grounds: President Harry S. Truman and the birth of the State of Israel

Grossman, Grace Cohen, and Kirschner, Robert (Edited by)

Homecoming to the Holy Land: New works

Zabari, Moshe

Romance and Ritual explores the Jewish wedding and related themes of courtship and married life through customs and rituals from different times and places. Included are may treasured works, including rare, illuminated ketubbot (wedding contracts) from the 17th to 20th centuries and embroidered Wimpels or Torah binders; newly restored American wedding gowns from the late 19th century to the present accompanied by personal and touching stories; and mementos--postcards, sheet music, invitations--that celebrate the universal aspirations couples have when embarking upon marriage. Additional wedding clothing reflects Jewish communities in Morocco, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Rhodes. Portraits celebrate the virtues of marriage, depicting couples well into their marriages. Essays on wedding dress preservation and recommendations to the modern bride are also included. 
Though Jewish law stipulates very few requirements for a wedding, many special customs and rituals have been developed over time and in different countries to embellish this important personal event. The ketubbah documents the marriage. A huppa, or canopy, symbolizes the home the couple will build together. Blessings are recited and the bride and groom share from the same cup of wine. The giving of the ring represents the promise of the ancient wedding vow. Sometimes the groom breaks a glass, the bride circles the groom, family and friends lift the couple on chairs.

Romance and Ritual: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding

History

Sabar, Shalom

Gilbert, Barbara

Gozani, Tal

World

No Sign of Ceasefire; An Anthology of Contemporary Israeli Poetry features the work of eleven distinguished poets. Translated from Hebrew, their poems address issues - great and trivial - of modern life in a country that struggles to survive. Like the poets who proceeded them, these writers contemplate isolation and national identity with individual voices. They also ponder lust, spirituality, family, the Arab-Israeli conflict, nature, sexuality, science, and history, and provide a thought-provoking exploration of contemporary Israeli society.

No Sign of Ceasefire: An Anthology of Contemporary Israeli Poetry

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

A Lone Traveler: Einstein in California

Margaret Leslie Davis

William M. Kramer

LIGHT & NOIR: Exiles and Emigres in Hollywood, 1933-1950

Berger, Doris et al

Max Liebermann (1847-1935), the leading artist in Germany from the early 1890s until the Nazi takeover in 1933, was known later in his career for his singular approach to Impressionism. Initially a realist painter, his work at times moved into the more abstract realm of "pure painting," which earned him the moniker, "Manet of the Germans." Liebermann, a self-assured cultural leader and the descendent of a successful German-Jewish family, was a celebrity in his own day. He was president of the Berlin Secession from 1898 until 1910 and, during the Weimar Republic served as president of the Prussian Academy of Art from 1920 until 1932. This first English-language publication on Liebermann looks beyond the factual details of his life and work to explore the virtuosity of his art and the personal attributes on which it oftentimes was based. Essays by German and American scholars provide creative new ways of understanding and interpreting Max Liebermann and the times in which he lived.

Max Liebermann: From Realism to Impressionism

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Books by Skirball Cultural Center