COLLECTIONS
Yeshiva
University Museum's diverse collection of more than 8,000 artifacts reflects its
interdisciplinary approach; it includes fine and folk art, ethnographic and
archaeological artifacts, clothing and textiles, Jewish ceremonial objects,
documents, books and manauscripts. The collection's breadth and diversity
represents over 2,000 years of the aesthetic sensibilities of Jews living
throughout the world, co-existing in multicultural societies.
Highlights
of the Museum's collection includes:
-
archaeological artifacts dating from the
Bronze Age to the Late Antique Period
- Historic illuminated manuscripts such as one from 1478
recording the Simon of Trent blood libel trial
- Thomas
Jefferson’s handwritten letter of 1818 affirming religious
freedom and denouncing anti-Semitism
- the Torah scroll and Tefillin of the Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760), founder of
the Hassidic movement.
- ceremonial objects used for ritual at home and in
the synagogue from the eighteenth century to the present, including a Rococo Torah tas (shield)
and rimmonin (finials) from Augsburg, and the Mina Avrech Memorial Collection of
contemporary Judaica
- ceremonial and domestic textiles,
including wimpels (Torah wrappers) dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth
centuries
- clothing, and accessories from around
the world, such as a gold embroidered Ottoman bindalli wedding dress, a Moroccan keswa el kbira
(grand costume), and a kroj, a Czechoslovakian national costume made for a child in
1932/3
-
architectural models
of historic synagogues, spanning the third to the nineteenth centuries, C.E.,
commissioned to mark the Museum’s opening in 1973
-
paintings, graphics and sculpture including including Robert Indiana's Dutch
Masters in the Rose Room, Reuven Rubin’s New Colony, Robert Indiana’s Ahava (LOVE in Hebrew),
Luis Camnitzer’s installation, Leftovers
- printed books, including a Bible
(Basel, l665) and a collection of 19th-20th century children’s books
- political and advertising posters with texts in languages reflecting the
Jewish diaspora