YU Museum Set to Move Off-Campus

For years considered a perennial uptown campus staple, the Yeshiva University Museum is set to move downtown this coming February. The Museum will become one of five institutions to occupy the new Center for Jewish History, a facility devoted to Jewish scholarship, located at 5th Avenue and 16th Street.

The Museum, which currently occupies space on the first, third, and fourth floors in the Yeshiva University Library, will remain in uptown operation only on its first floor premises, but will be moving its offices and fourth floor exhibits to the new area. There, it will share space with the American Jewish Historical Society, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the American Sephardi Federation.

The advantages of a new location represent the prime motivation behind the move: "Uptown, we don't attract the kinds of audiences we should. We get school groups because they come on buses, but few individuals want to make the trek to Washington Heights where there is little else to do and parking is limited," explained Mrs. Sylvia Herskowitz, Museum Director. It is the walk-in crowd that she believes can transform the museum into an important facet of New York's already rich cultural atmosphere.

The museum has already become an integral player in the educational system, as it currently runs community education programs designed to teach Jewish day schools and area public schools about art and aesthetics, an endeavor that has earned the museum a three year grant from New York State. Many of those programs will remain in operation on the first floor premises, but will be extended to larger audiences along with the many other facets of the museum, including the organization of interdisciplinary exhibitions on Jewish art and history, in the museum's new home.

In addition to increasing the museum's reach, administrators hope the move will serve two other functions. Firstly, the new location will enable the establishment of a program where art majors at Stern College would be afforded the opportunity of interning at the facility, gaining invaluable hands-on experience in the everyday operation of a cultural facility. Secondly, the University will now have access to a new comfortable and spacious facility in a crucial location. The facility, along with its location was "an opportunity that [the University] couldn't refuse," explained Director Herskowitz. Its proximity to YU's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law only enhances prospects of continual University use of the facility. This coming Tuesday night, November 23, the museum will host an event on its new premises designed to introduce sponsors and contributors to the new area. In addition, the museum plans to outline its opening exhibits, including "David the King: Paintings by Ivan Schwebel," "From Tent to Temple: Daily Life in Ancient Israel," and a number of other exhibits which will adorn the walls of the Center for Jewish History in just a couple of months.

Regarding Library plans for the vacated space, Dean Burger, Dean of Libraries, would not confirm that specific plans had been outlined, but did anticipate that the crowded book collections, particularly those in the Judaica section of the library, will now find much needed breathing room. Such prospects were received well by students, who for the most part seemed relatively sad to see the museum leave. "While I'll miss the almost surreal tinge that the museum added to our uptown campus," explained one YC junior, "the move seems to be in everyone's best interests."