Highlights: Online Tour
Video for the tour:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DSWR0Z8F9XCCU0mlIbst8-v-04lDG_VT/view?usp=share_link
We recommend to download the script
| In this column you will find your film times. Begin playing film 0:00:00 Talk over film. Stop at 0:01:20. Start film at 1:20. Rachel Freier 00:01:20 – 00:02:38 Rabbi Sharon 00:02:41- 00:04:02 Lawrence Dryfus 00:04:04- 00:05:02 Hannah NW London 00:05:04- 00:06:09 Cinema 00:07:22- 00:08:50 This is Holywood film 00:08:49- 0:12:48 Jewish Voyages Film 00:17:52- 00:25:30 Donna Gracia Film 0:30:15- 00:32:23 Fatima 0:35:17- 00:36:20 | Highlights Tour Hello and welcome to ANU, the Museum of the Jewish People located on the beautiful campus of Tel Aviv University in Israel. We are so excited to have you with us for an Online Highlights Tour of our museum. My name is _____ and I will be showing you around. This tour will last around 40-45 minutes, with time for questions throughout and at the end of the tour. Thank you to _______ (client organization) for having us on today. Before we begin the tour, there are a few important logistic points to review: In just a moment, I will be sharing my screen and we will figuratively walk through the museum together. Just like our in-person tours, our online tours are filled with questions and opportunities to share our own stories and learn from others in the group. I will be asking you questions throughout the tour, and you are welcome to answer them, or ask questions of your own as we go along. If you feel comfortable doing so, please write your questions and answers in the chat, which can be found by clicking the ‘chat’ button at the bottom of the screen. If you prefer to ask a question anonymously, you can send me a question directly instead of to the whole group. Please keep yourself on mute throughout the tour for the convenience of others. Now, let’s get started! Question: Raise your hand if you have been to Israel before? Now raise your hand if you have been to ANU, which was previously called Beit Hatfutsot or Diaspora Museum, before? Question: If you have been to our museum before, write which year you were here in the chat. Our new museum opened to the public in March of 2021 after a ten year, $100 million-dollar renovation with over 72,000 square feet of exhibition space with countless artifacts from around the globe and displays of the unique as well as the everyday, modern and ancient Judicia, and art. We have 54 specially produced films, and 25 interactives across 4 wings spanning 3 floors waiting to welcome you. . So, without further ado, let's start exploring! We begin on the third floor of ANU, called “The Mosaic”. On this floor we will explore the Jewish world today and in the past century. We will look at the contributions of the Jewish people to the arts and culture via theater, dance, music, cinema, literature and more. We will meet some of the luminaries of the Jewish people; some who you may know and others who may be a surprise to you. But we begin with people from all over the world describing what it means for them to be Jewish today. There are 21 individuals in all, but today our time will allow us to meet just two. Guides: You can pick 2 of whichever people you think will best suit your group. Let’s meet Rachel Freier, a Hassidic woman from New York who is a mother of 6, and a grandmother as well as a Judge in the State of New York. She will talk to us about her education and how it brings her closer to her beliefs. Let’s meet Rabbi Sharon Brous who is a universalist who believes in Tikun Olam, helping to repair the world, for all people, not just Jews. She has a vision of a world redeemed. Let’s meet Laurence Dreyfuss, a Jewish man from the United States who will share his connections to his Jewish identity through culture. Let’s meet one more person and hear about their experience being Jewish in today's world. Let’s meet Hannah from North West London. She follows tradition as a way to connect with her historical roots and she makes choices in her everyday life to connect with her history. Question: Do you feel the same way this person does? Write your answers on chat. Question: Does culture or conviction tie you to your beliefs? Question: Did this person resonate with how you feel about your roots? Question: If you could describe your own Jewish identity in 3 words, what would they be? Mine are spiritualty, history, tradition… (enter your three in the chat). Now that we’ve met some Jews in the world today, let’s see how they fit into our Jewish tree. Let’s take a look at some of the different branches of Judaism and stroll through our section on Jewish Life in the 21stcentury: Population, location and streams of Judaism. In this area of the museum, we are up high on the tree of Judaism, at the tips of a multitude of branches. The trunk of our tree is strong and sends up lots of different branches that can sway in the wind without breaking. Each branch represents a different ideology or set of thoughts and traditions that various Jewish groups follow, such as Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and more. All the branches have a place on our tree, which brings us to our museum of ANU, the collective ‘we’ where we all have a place. We also see how Tikkun Olam, or the idea of ‘repairing the world’ through actions, is interwoven through all different branches. Question: On which branch would your individual leaf fit onto our tree? Where do you think the generation before you would fit onto the tree? Where will the next generation fit? As we continue our tour of the third floor, we come to sections on culture where we talk about the influence of Jews in theater, dance, music, film and other arts. We’ll see how their Jewish identities affected their craft, and visa versa. Guides: Either you can choose or you can let the group choose between two areas. Question: Should we check out Jewish film or Jewish music? You pick! One area that is easy to talk about is the Jewish influence on cinema. Question: What makes a film Jewish? (If no answers, suggest: Jewish director/actors/subject) You think that we are going to go straight to Hollywood, but I’d like to take you somewhere else – Bollywood and the films that come from India. It may surprise you to learn that Jews played a major role in the early days of the vibrant Indian cinematic industry. Particularly prominent was a group of Jewish actresses who captured the imagination of Indian audiences with their charm and beauty. One major reason for their prominence were conservative attitudes among Hindi and Muslim men in India towards women on the big screen. Before our Jewish heroines came to the silver screen, women’s roles were played by men. Jewish women are some of the most famous screen stars of Bollywood and the founders of the industry. Here we see Rachel Sofer, whose screen name was Arati Devi. She was born in Rangoon, Burma in 1912 and moved with her parents and siblings to Calcutta, India, circa 1923. In the 1930 social norms in India prohibited local women from appearing in films, so Jewish actresses took the place of the men that they had acting in the female roles. Many of these actresses became the biggest stars of the day, including Nadira; Florence Ezekiel, Sulochana; Ruby Mayers. and Pramila; Ester Victoria Abraham. Pramila – our Ester Abraham – was an Indian model, actress and the first woman film producer in the Hindi film industry. She was born in 1916 – to a Baghdadi Jewish family and was a brilliant scholar – winning 6 art diplomas in London and becoming the headmistress of Talmud Torah Jewish Boys’ School – before becoming a film star and being named the first Miss India in 1947. She passed away in 2006 as one of the most loved actresses in India. Question: Are you surprised to hear about the Jewish influence in Bollywood? Or Egypt? We can also talk about the actors and actresses of the largest film industry in the Middle East, Egypt. This is not an industry that we would expect a lot of Jewish entertainers to be in, yet we find some of the biggest stars of the early era of film were, in fact Jewish. Mounir Mourad, born Maurice Zaki Mordechai, was an Egyptian singer, actor, and distinguished composer who played an important role in Egyptian and Arabic language cinema in the 20th century. Laila Mourad was a renowned Egyptian actress and singer, who gained huge popularity in the late 30s and 40s with a long list of successful films. Elias Moadab, known as Ilya Mohadab Sasson, was an Egyptian comedian born to a Jewish Syrian father and Jewish Egyptian mother in the city of Tanta. He began his career working in many shows and played in many films, most notably the 1948 classic ‘Anbar’ that starred Laila Mourad. Dawoud Hosni was born to an Egyptian Jewish family in 1870, and is regarded as one of the most distinguished Egyptian composers. He was the composer of the first Egyptian opera, “Shamshoon and Delilah”, and later composed many theatrical musicals for Ukasha, Muneera al-Mahdia, and Muhammed Bahgat, famous stars of the time. On top of that, it is said that he was also a teacher for icon Umm Kulthoum – the biggest star of them all. We can also look at the Jewish influence in music, from the most well known Jewish composers to modern day singers. Question: What makes music Jewish? Let’s take a minute to focus on an Israeli singer that achieved international fame: Ofra Haza. We can see her costume here from her famous single Galbi, which is a poem in Arabic that she performed in many different languages with an ancient Yeminate tune. Ofra Haza was an Grammy Award-nominated Israeli singer and actress, commonly known as "The Israeli Madonna". Born in Tel Aviv in 1957 as the youngest of 9 children, of Yemenite-Jewish heritage, Haza's music is known as a mixture of traditional and commercial singing styles, fusing elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration and dance-beat. She became successful in Europe and the Americas; during her singing career, she earned many platinum and gold discs. In Israel, Haza was an influential cultural figure who helped to popularize Mizrahi culture. She proudly brought her Yemenite identity, both in music and dress, to the forefront of Israeli culture. As we continue in our conversation about representations of identity, let's head over to folklore and some of the objects that Jews collect and use to tell their Jewish story. I wonder which pieces will remind you of something you have at home? We have amulets for good luck, and ritual objects for holidays and everyday practice. One of my favorite pieces is the golden ’Kiddush to Go’ set by artist Arik Weiss. This set includes everything that is needed for celebrating the Shabbat, but it is like a ‘to go’ cup, since in this modern era we sometimes are too busy to be at home for Shabbat. It also references the concept of the wandering Jew: throughout the millennia, we have moved from place to place, and constantly had to take our rituals with us. Question: Does anyone have a very special ritual object that was passed down from one generation to another? Share with us in the chat. We’re getting to the end of the third floor now, to a section called “Luminaries”. As we enter the Luminaries section of our gallery, look to your left to see interactives, where we can find thousands of points of light by discovering different Jewish people who achieved great things and made great contributions to the world. Question: What qualities do you think define someone who is a luminary? Write in the chat. Let’s meet someone that I consider a luminary. Do you all recognize this collar? The Late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, served a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for 27 years. She championed the rights of women across the country. Her story is not only a Jewish one, but a Jewish-American one. She was proud of asking people “What is the difference between a librarian in Brooklyn and a Justice on the Supreme Court?” her answer was “One generation.” Ruth embodied the idea that America was the land of opportunity, and did so while proudly staying true to her Jewish roots. She was always quick to point out that the phrase “In God We Trust” was a guiding light for her and in her office she kept a Hebrew sign that read’ tzedek, tzedek, tirdof’, which means ‘justice, justice, shall thou pursue’. She died on the eve of Rosh HaShana 2020. It is said that the righteous die at the very end of the year because they were needed until the very end. Question: If you could be curator for a day, who would you add to our list of luminaries? What object would you place in our museum to represent them? Write in chat who and what object. Second Floor: Now we are going to move on down the stairs to the second floor, which is our history floor. It's on this floor that we learn about the history of the Jewish people from the beginning to today. Before we start to walk through history, let's take a minute and look at our personal histories. Question: Which country is your family from prior to ______ (their current home country, ex: the USA). Where were they 150 years ago? Let’s see how many different places we come from and see how close we can come to the 50 locations that we have here on our Wall of Communities. My family is from _______ (write your own in the chat) This beautiful wall tells the stories of 50 of the main Jewish centers throughout history and was done by an Belarussian- Israeli artist, Lena Revanko. Here we see representatives from each of 50 main Jewish communities throughout history. Each location has a historical figure that represents the community from which they come. The interactive stations that you see below allows you to read about the history of each location. You can find out the history of the place where your family came from, such as ___________ (read locations from the chat). Now before we begin our journey into Jewish history, it's important that we consider certain figures that may not be accurately represented in history. Here we can see a part of the installation by an artist named Carol Hamoy called The Invisible Part of the Children of Israel. Here we have 100 transparent, vinyl dresses, each one different, suspended from the ceiling next to parchments listing the references of Jewish women from the Torah whose names have been lost. The idea of the work is that throughout history, womens’ roles were transparent and their stories oftentimes not recorded. One of the great joys of being part of ANU is helping to bring to light and focus the many Jewish women whose stories have not been told. Question: How can we put a spotlight on missing narratives? Art? Ritual objects? News articles? Prayers? Let's continue on our tour of the museum with a peek into the Jewish Center of Antiquity: Babylon, Alexandria and the Land of Israel. Babylon, which is modern day Iraq, is where Jews came twice in our history. After the destruction of the first Temple, they established a strong community in Babylon and even after the construction of the second Temple, there remained a strong presence there. After the second temple was destroyed around 70 CE, Jew returned en-masse to Babylon and many continued their migration from there. We see the beginnings of the separation from Christians in one of our beautiful dioramas that was preserved and updated from our previous collection. We see here a very interesting incantation bowl from the 5thth to 7thh century CE. These bowls were considered good luck charms and were made out of clay with an inscription written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic with the picture of the angel, Sarfie, who is protecting the home of Kafnai ben Imma and his wife Imai bat Annai. We can see these names written on the bowl along with the incantation for protection from the demons, who are depicted in the middle of the bowl. These bowels were buried under the threshold of the home's door to trap and propel any bad spirits away from the home. Question: Do you have any type of good luck charms or objects in your home today? What is it? As we move forward through the history floor we see the movement of the Jewish people from Babylon and into the two streams of Judaism that we know today, Sephardim and Ashkenazim. Ashkenazim originated in central Europe, in France and Germany, and later spread to Eastern Europe as well. Question: Raise your hand if you have Ashkenazi roots. Sephardim, which has roots in the Hebrew word Sepharad or Spanish, were based in the Iberian peninsula. This today covers Spain and Portugal. Question: Raise your hand if you have Sephardi roots. Sephardim lived the Iberian Peninsula from the second century alongside Muslim and later Christian neighbors. There were great centers of Jewish study and culture during this period. There were also many instances of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination against Jews. In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand expelled Jews from Spain. Five years later Jews were expelled from Portugal as well. Many Jews fled to other countries that would accept them, such as India and Holland. The legacy of the Jews who stayed behind and practiced their faith in hiding, know as conversos, still reverberates to this day. Guides: Choose either Belmonte or Donna Gracia When we recall the stories of conversos, secret Jews, we think of a time over 500 years ago, but sometimes the grain of history carries forward as if no time has passed at all. Here we see a couple in Belmonte, Portugal lighting an oil lamp in a wood closet in 1989. This couple is part of the conversos community that to this day light sabbath flame using common oil lamps filled with olive oil and lit with special wicks that are woven by the women of the community. They recite a prayer in Portuguese that has been passed down generation to generation. Question: If your religion was no longer allowed, what ceremony would you risk life and limb to preserve? Let’s move on to the next gallery of ANU where we enter into the early modern period where we learn about the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, and the Ottoman Empire. Do you see the woman in the pictures that looks like a queen? That is our Donna Gracia Ha Nasi. She grew up in a family of conversos in Portugal. Let’s see a short film about this amazing woman. Question: Raise your hand if you had heard about Donna Gracia before? Question: How do you think growing up as a Converso, or Jew who had to hide their Jewish identity and practices, affected her decisions? Let’s continue seeing our museum by moving on to the Gateway to the Modern section of this floor. We are speaking about the 18th-20th centuries. We will walk past the ghetto gates that have been thrown open for the Jews and enter into the modern world, where we, as Jews, decide how much or how little to take part in life outside of our communities. We see life in Western and Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Islamic countries. We see the pictures of families that are assimilating into the modern world. We see the faces of Eastern Europe, the generations together as big, extended families. We see the modernizing children and the older generation. Question: Which family photo would you have been in 150 years ago? We can see some beautiful artifacts from the Mizrachi Jewish world. Let's hear an amazing story about one very small, but significant piece that was loaned to our collection. Question: Does your family have a very important artifact that was passed down through the generations like our Fatima medallion? Share with us on chat what and from where. Now let’s look at the fourth and final section in our rotunda is the Great Migration of Jews to the United States. Question (for American groups): What year did your family immigrate to the United States? The great migration occurred from 1881 to 1914. It was a time when Jews flooded into the new world looking for religious freedom and tolerance and a better life for their families in the Goldene Medinah, or Golden Land. While Jews have been in the United States since the mid-17th century, this larger wave of immigration of Jews at the end of the 19th and into the 20th centuries is the basis for much of American Jewry today. Let’s meet a few of these American Jews. Guides: Pick one of the following 3: Sandy Koufax, Mo Berg, Max Fuchs. Sandy Koufax: We have some baseball memorabilia from one of the greatest Jewish players that inspired a generation, Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax. Not only was he the youngest player ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a hero to American Jews when he did not pitch in the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Although he was not religious, his profound statement that his Judaism was more important than professional pressure inspired a whole generation. We also see here the chest protector of Mo Berg, the smartest player in baseball. It was his legend off the baseball diamond that has earned him a place in our museum. When World War II broke out he joined the OSS, which later became the CIA. He went on several missions, including one to gather information on the Nazi nuclear program. He spoke multiple languages and was a winning contestant on a radio game show. He did reconnaissance work for the OSS in Japan and was instrumental in filming locations in Japan for military intelligence that proved invaluable during the war. He graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School. After his death, per his request his remains were scattered over Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. Question: What kind of message did Sandy Koufax send by refusing to pitch on Yom Kippur. Question: Would you have done what Sandy Koufax did? Would you have missed the biggest game of your life because of a Jewish Holiday? Question: Do you think Mo Berg was more proud of his ball career or his other accomplishments? Here we see the US Army dog tags of a very special soldier, Max Fuchs, an immigrant to the US from Poland that joined the US army to go back to Poland in an attempt to help his relatives that were left behind. Max Fuchs landed at Omaha Beach and 4 months later was in Aachen, Germany where he volunteered to serve as the cantor at Friday night services for 50 Jewish soldiers that was broadcast on NBC radio. The enormity of his singing the first Friday evening prayers to be held in Germany since the beginning of the war was a very emotional event. Question: How do you think Max Fuchs and the 50 Jewish soldiers felt conducting prayers in Nazi Germany? How about the people that heard them on the radio? What effect do you think it had on non-Jewish Americans who heard it on the radio? Next, we see a Hanukkiah or Menorah by the artist Manfred Anson, an immigrant to the United States from Germany. Each arm is a Statue of Liberty which has a central event listed below it, such as the Exodus, Babylonian Exile, Herzl and the establishment of the State of Israel. The twin of this Hanukkiah is in the White House and was lit by President Barack Obama. Question: What other important events in Jewish history do you think are on this Hanukkiah? As this is a highlights tour, we must jump through history yet again. The 1930’s and 1940’s had a massive impact on the global Jewish story. The Holocaust claimed the lives of six million Jews. Three years after the Holocaust, in 1948, the State of Israel was established. Immediately following, nearly a million Jews from Arab countries and Iran were violently expelled from their homes. Many found refuge in the new State of Israel, alongside Holocaust survivors and later Jews from the Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. In this corner of the second floor we look at statistics of Israel with a twist. Let's talk about some more of the statistics of the State of Israel. On the 15th of May 1948, after 2,000 years of exile and after the Holocaust, where two thirds of European Jews perished, the Jewish people have an independent state to call their own. In the first year of the state's existence about 1% of the population of 650,000 people is lost to war. In the first year of the state's existence 1 in 6 people lived in Jerusalem, today it is 1 in 16. From 1948 until 1960 about one million immigrants arrived. Most were housed in one of 129 transit camps or in one of the 207 Kibbutzim. Here we see some more quick statistics: In Israel, 1 of every 225 is a taxi driver; in the US, it's 1 of every 142.1 of every 325 Israelis is a doctor; in the US 1 of every 333. In Israel 1 of every 125 people are farmers; in the US it's 1 of every 167. In Israel 1 of every 57 people are teachers; in the US 1 of every 100. And my favorite: The first flight of ElAl airlines took 24 passengers from Israel to France. In 2019 there were more than 9,200,000 trips abroad taken by Israelis. Now that we’ve seen the Jewish community of Israel, we want to see more communities from around the world! At the end of our second floor, we see the Com.unity board, a live active board in which Jewish communities from around the globe are uploaded and featured for visitors to explore. Com.unity is also a part of the ANU databases, which are some of the largest Jewish databases in the world. If you would like your community to join Com.unity, check it out on the ANU website to upload information and photos. I’ll make sure your leaders have the links so that you can load up your information. First Floor: The Foundations Now we are going to continue our tour to the first floor; The foundations. From here we can see all three floors of the museum that we have walked through as well as many modern art pieces depicting the rituals and life events of Judaism and the cycle of life and holidays and shabbat. We also talk about the Bible in world culture and we have several interactives that allow you to learn about the different bible stories, biblical names and many other interesting facts. We can see several modern art pieces which represent the various life cycle events such as marriage, bar and bat mitzvah, the mourning prayers for the dead, the Kaddish, and Shabbat. We also see the Bible in World cultures. We have several interactives that allow you to look for your name in the Bible, and to learn about many other interesting facts about Bible stories. We also have on display Bibles in various languages from around the world, even in Braille. We hope you enjoyed your virtual highlight tour. We hope to see you at ANU here in Israel soon. I’ll be waiting for you here in Tel Aviv to give you a tour in person! Let's end our tour with a film that was made especially for our museum by a well known Israeli hip-hop artist, Sha’anan Street from the group, Hadag Nahash. While you are watching the film, think about and answer this question in the chat: Question: What object would you place in our museum to represent your own family’s history? Luminaries (Shaanan Street) film | Timings of the tour: Mosaic Floor 0:00:42 Rachel Freier 0:01:21 Rabbi Sharon 0:02:41 Lawrence Dryfus 0:04:04 Hannah NW London 0:05:04 Streams of Judaism 0:06:13 Cinema 0:07:22 Music 0:12:53 Ofra Haza 0:14:08 Folklore 0:15:03 Kiddush To Go 0:15:16 Luminaries -RBG 0:15:47 Second Floor 0:16:38 Jewish Voyages 0:16:53 50 Communities 0:17:13 Transparent Dresses -Carol Hamoy 0:25:33 Antiquities 00:26:05 Incantations Bowl 0:27:12 Middel Ages 0:28:05 Belmonte 0:28:52 Early Modern P,L, Otto 0:29:48 Donna Gracia 0:30:06 Faith and thought 0:32:30 Gateway 0:33:15 Islamic countries 0:34:41 Film on Fatima 0:35:17 Great Migration 0:36:26 Sandy Koufax 0:37:03 Mo Berg 0:37:54 Max Fuchs 0:38:04 Menorah 0:38:08 Statistics of Israel 0:38:21 89% Happiness 0:39:20 Community interactive 0:39:35 First floor Foundations 0:39:53 Bible 0:40:56 Halleluja 0:42:17 Final shot of ANU 0:42:47 Hadag Nahash 0:43:08 |