Diaspora Museum Offers a View of Jewish Life Outside of Israel

by Daniel E. Levenson

June 11, 2009

JERUSALEM -The narrow alleyways of the Old City of Jerusalem, the magnificent views from the mountaintop city of Tzvat, the ruins of an ancient synagogue in the Golan – all of these things tell a piece of the story of the Jewish people. They tell of millennia of Jewish life in our own land, the triumphs and struggles, the hardships and victories. But there is of course more to the history of the Jews than only our experience in Eretz Yisrael – there is not only a nearly two-thousand year period of both joy and pain, of wandering and exile, but also of hope, faith and celebration. This experience of the Diaspora/exile is the focus of Bethatsufoth, the Diaspora Museum, which is located on the grounds of Tel Aviv University.  As Marc Kurs, Director of the Visitor Center at the museum put it, their goal is to acquaint visitors, and especially Israeli youth, with “…the vibrancy of life, the creativity, the art,” of life in Diaspora communities around the world.

Wedding Party: This is one of several exhibits devoted to key moments in the Jewish life cycle, depicting a wedding party standing beneath a chuppah, or traditional Jewish wedding canopy.

Bethatsufoth is also an important resource for those wishing to search for their roots in Jewish communities around the world. A new, searchable genealogy database is available for use by visitors, and there is also an archive of film and photographs  from these same communities as well as rare images of Jewish life in Europe before the Shoah. The museum itself is divided up into display areas focusing on different aspects of Jewish life, ranging from “Education” to “Holidays,” although these different areas are often connected, as Mr. Kurs noted, standing in front of a display relating to the Jewish time cycle, “This is the time cycle, and this is the life cycle, the two intertwine always.”  Displays include models of synagogues from around the globe, including a shul located in Aleppo, Syria which incorporates design elements from the surrounding Muslim culture and another in China which was built hundreds of years ago by a Jewish community which has since disappeared.

Synagogue in China: This is model of a synagogue discovered in China, it is not know what became of the people who built it or the community which worshiped there.

The museum is about to undergo a major renovation involving the redesign and updating of many of the exhibits, according to Hagai Segev, Director and Curator of Temporary Exhibits, who explained that while the museum has drawn praise from around the world since first opening in the 1970’s, the mode of display and the interactive components have not kept pace with advances in exhibition design over the years.

Arch of Titus: All of the exhibits at the museum are composed of replicas and representations of certain themes or ideas which are connected to life in the Diaspora. Here we see a recreation of the Arch of Titus, which is located in Rome and celebrates the sacking of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus in approximately 70 CE.

For more information on Bethatsufoth, you can visit their website by clicking here.

All images and text copyright Daniel E. Levenson 2009.