The Jewish Museum of Australia

The Jewish Museum of Australia is a community museum, which aims to explore and share the Jewish experience in Australia and benefit Australia’s diverse society.

The Jewish Museum of Australia is committed to being a respected and innovative cultural centre, recognised nationally for its excellence in exhibitions, education programs and collection management.

NEWS

Mar-09 Sydney: Professor Yehuda Bauer at the museum

Joint function involving Australian Friends of the Hebrew University, the Sydney Jewish Museum and Mandelbaum House.Historian Bauer will speak on “World War II as the context to the Holocaust

Sydney Jewish Museum

148 Darlinghurst Rd

$10

6:30 p.m.

Melbourne’s Jewish Museum comic book art exhibition from Paris

Superheroes & Schlemiels   -   Jews & Comic Art

An exhibition created by the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (Paris)
In cooperation with the Joods Historisch Museum (Amsterdam)

3 May 2009 – 30 August 2009  click here to see examples of the works

The story of comics is inextricably connected to its Jewish creators. This upcoming exhibition offers the visitor a behind the scenes insight into the history and genius of comic artists who, across the years, have captured the imaginations of children and adults alike.

In 1938 Siegel and Shuster launched the iconic superhero Superman, their response to the catastrophe of that time – Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, a world heading into war and the Great Depression.

The launch on 3 May 2009 of Superheroes and Schlemiels: Jews and Comic Art, an exhibition created by the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (Paris), licensed exclusively for exhibit to the Jewish Museum of Australia, takes a close look at the creators of the comic genre that still fires our imagination.

Superheroes & Schlemiels features reproduction and original works by: Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel (Superman), Jack Kirby and Stan Lee (Fantastic Four and X-Men), Will Eisner (The Spirit and A Contract With God), Harvey Kurtzman (MAD) and Art Spiegelman (Maus).

Also included are original never before seen works by local Australian Jewish comic artists: Nicki Greenberg, Bernard Caleo, Andrew Weldon, David Blumenstein and John Kron.

The exhibition traces comic-strip figures from 1910 to the present day. The first comic strips appeared in Yiddish and English-language newspapers. They make clear the ordeals faced by Jewish immigrants in their attempts to integrate within American society.

In the following period, around 1940, we see the emergence of the phenomenon of the American superhero in comic strips. The integration of Jews was by now well under way and various comic-strip writers focussed on the creation of superheroes with a national character.

“An important part of the exhibition is devoted to the more recent work of Will Eisner,” claims Jewish Museum temporary exhibitions curator Jess Rynderman. “With A Contract with God, Eisner was the first artist to translate his memories of Jewish history into a graphic novel. He was concerned primarily with the culture and way of life of Jewish immigrants in American society.”

The Holocaust plays an important role in the work of those Jewish comic-strip authors who became well known after Will Eisner. Maus by Art Spiegelman is now a model for graphic novels dealing with this subject matter.

So come and re-live the era of comics, of action, of fantasy. Enter another world.

Superhero:
A fictional character of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to acts of bravery in the public interest.

Schlemiel: Yiddish, pronunciation: shla-meel
Habitual bungler; a dolt, clumsy person.

Until Mar 14 Melbourne: Women in the Bible – Tricksters, Victors and (M)others

At the Jewish Museum of Australia.

Curated by Rebecca Forgasz, this fascinating exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Australia juxtaposes old artworks (incl. Chagall, Rembrandt) with new works by a range of female artists (incl. Julie Dowling, Anne Zahalka), and in so doing examines representations of women in the Bible. 26 Alma Rd, St Kilda

Feb-28 Melbourne: Preview screening of Amoz Oz film

The Jewish Museum of Australia presents “The Nature of Dreams”.

Preview screening of ‘The Nature of Dreams’

The Jewish Museum of Australia will present a preview screening of this much anticipated portrait of renowned Israeli author Amos Oz following his memoir, “A Tale of Love and Darkness” and his political struggle for peace in the Middle East for the last two years.

Bookings essential: 8534 3600

Cost: $25 / $20

Venue: Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton