Jaarverslag 2011 - Joods Historisch Museum

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Summary
Last year, the impact of the economic crisis – as well as the unavoidable
government budget cuts – did not go unnoticed at the Jewish
Historical Museum (JHM). Nevertheless, with the support of our many
visitors and donors, we were able to put together a successful,
high-quality programme of events. The JHM managed to end the year
with good financial results.
The exhibitions Saul Leiter: New York Reflections and From Dada to
Surrealism: Jewish Avant-Garde Artists from Romania, 1910–1938 were
especially popular, placing the JHM firmly on the map as a museum of
Judaism and Jewish life in an international context, and as an
influential organization in the field of photography. Saul Leiter’s
evocative, polychromatic New York photographs were an instant hit
with our visitors, and our exhibition about Romanian artists shed light
on an underexamined aspect of Jewish history – life behind the Iron
Curtain.
After its run in Amsterdam, From Dada to Surrealism travelled on to
the Israel Museum. Three other JHM exhibitions also travelled the
world. Superheroes and Schlemiels: Jewish Memory in Comic Strip Art
was exhibited at the Judiska Museet (Stockholm), Charlotte Salomon:
Life? or Theatre? at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco),
and Images from the Land of the Bible: People, Lives and Landscapes,
1898–1934 at the Eretz Israel Museum (Tel Aviv).
In 2011, the Jewish Cultural Quarter attracted 227,680 visitors, 131,470
of whom went to the Jewish Historical Museum (the second highest
number of visitors in the museum’s history), 55,419 to the Portuguese
Synagogue, and 40,791 to the Hollandsche Schouwburg. On 1 January
2012, the Jewish Cultural Quarter introduced a single admission ticket
for these three organizations. The positive effect was immediately
apparent.
The restoration of the monumental Portuguese Synagogue was
financed, carried out, and completed within budget and within the
planned deadline, while the building remained open for religious
services and visitors – a minor miracle. The new underground
treasuries now contain some eight hundred spectacular ceremonial
objects from the more than four hundred year history of the Sephardic
community in the Netherlands.
For the past two years, the JHM has had a photography curator. This is
a deliberate choice. Photography is a popular medium, and therefore
an essential one for a museum that emphasizes cultural and religious
heritage. Partly thanks to our close contacts with the Fotomuseum
Winterthur in Switzerland and the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New
York, the JHM has been able to organize exhibitions such as Unguarded
Moments: Photographs by Marianne Breslauer and Saul Leiter’s New
York Reflections.
Our cooperation with De Nieuwe Kerk on the major exhibition
Judaism: A World of Stories also raised the profile of the JHM. The high
level of interest in our collection and the five hundred unique
international loans brought additional visitors to the JHM and brought
the museum to the attention of a much broader public. Our close
partnership with the Triton Foundation led to two special exhibitions:
An Encounter in Paris: Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, and Ossip
Zadkine and Sam Szafran: Figurative Artist in an “Abstract” Age.
Last year we discovered the identity of one of the men in an iconic
photograph, known around the world, of a German raid in Amsterdam.
His name is Meier Vieijra. This discovery immediately led to a
large influx of visitors. During Museum Night on 8 November, 13,273
people – a record number – visited the Hollandsche Schouwburg, the
Portuguese Synagogue, and the JHM to explore the past in a
provocative, interactive way.
We will continue building on that foundation, because our work
matters to the public.