Support Your Jewish Museum in Berkeley

The Magnes swelled with energy as 300 people packed the building to learn from and engage with more than 30 artists, authors, and curators during the museum’s Jewish Arts & Bookfest on May 4. And on a mild evening in March, music, laughter, and dancing filled the Magnes’s auditorium during a Henna Party, presented in partnership with JIMENA, Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. Just a few weeks earlier, the same space hummed with excitement as Dr. Hélène Jawhara Piñer demonstrated how to make “Maimonides Charoset” during a program on historic Sephardic foodways.

These events, along with dozens of other public programs, classes, and group visits—many of which centered on our recent exhibition In Plain Sight: Jewish Arts and Lives in the Muslim World—created profound experiences that brought people together, encouraged understanding across difference, and highlighted the complexity and richness of Jewish life in the past and within Jewish communities today, including our own here in the Bay Area. Through your participation in these programs and your generous support of the museum’s work, you help make the Magnes the vibrant and lively place for gathering and learning that it is.

“Sharing a meal with other attendees yielded new connections”

Henna Party attendees dance in celebration during the Mizrahi Jewish Henna ceremony led by Rabbi Tsipora Gabbai.

Photo by Aaron Levy-Wolins/J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

“This lecture on Sephardic Jews and food was an exceptionally wonderful and rewarding experience.”

Culinary historian and cookbook author Jawhara Piñer reflected on ways food can tell stories as she shared recipes based on her research into historical sources including medieval cookbooks, Inquisition trials, and medical treatises.

I am grateful that even amidst the uncertainty of the current political climate and the challenges that the arts, culture, and higher education sectors are facing, you have chosen the Magnes as a place of connection with other members of the community, with Jewish culture and history, and perhaps even with your own sense of self.

As the academic year closes, I am proud of the work we have accomplished with your help. Please make a gift today to launch us into the new academic year. With your help, we can reach our spring goal of $36,000 by June 30, which will help us create fresh opportunities for student engagement, research, and community programming through the Magnes’s extraordinary collections.

On behalf of the entire Magnes team, thank you for your support. We look forward to welcoming you and the whole Magnes community back to the museum in August with the opening of our next exhibition, Flowing through Time and Tradition, an exploration of the cultural and religious significance of water in Jewish life, and new opportunities for discovery and connection. Your generosity will play a powerful role in sustaining and growing an anchor of the UC Berkeley and Bay Area Jewish communities.

With gratitude,

Hannah E. Weisman
Executive Director