“We’re a museum about a living community,” says Abigail Morris, the chief executive of the Jewish Museum in London’s Camden, which tells the story of Jews in Britain from 1066 up to the present day. Its permanent exhibitions include a gallery exploring Judaism as a living religious tradition and there is also a space that looks at the Holocaust through the story of one British-born survivor of Auschwitz.
Morris is aware that the museum’s title could discourage some visitors. “It could be that they think: ‘I’m not Jewish, so why would that museum be for me,” or they might think: ‘I’m Jewish, so what do I need to go to a Jewish museum for?’”
Judaism has a strong intellectual culture, she says, encompassing humour, debate and different opinions.
“My job is partly making the museum represent that in a fun way, so that energy, that Jewish drive, that intellectual curiosity, the questioning that goes on within Jewish communities, is part of the museum experience.”
Morris is keen that the exhibition programme is of such high quality and so engaging that it gets people over the barrier of the museum’s title. An exhibition she thinks will achieve this is Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, which opens on 16 March. The Camden-based singer modelled her beehive hair on her grandmother, a Jewish immigrant, and Winehouse had a strong sense of her Jewish roots and heritage.
Morris, Jewish herself, became the chief executive of the museum in 2012, the year of the London Olympics. She asked what the museum was doing for the event but was told there were no exhibitions planned related to it. So Morris leapt at the chance to initiate something.
“I knew that the guy who started the Paralympics, Ludwig Guttmann, was a German Jewish refugee, a neurosurgeon who came over in the late thirties,” says Morris.
Morris tells how Guttmann saved lots of people by taking some of the victims of Kristallnacht, a wave of Nazi-led anti-Jewish pogroms in 1938, to his hospital where he made up false case histories so they could avoid further oppression. The doctor later escaped to Britain and was sent to set up a new spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville, where many war casualties ended up.
“He saw the clientele were mostly fit young men,” says Morris. “Maybe they’d lost the use of their lower limbs, but they actually had a lot of energy, so he set up sporting activities, which led to the first Paralympic Games in 1948, which Guttmann organised.”
Morris’s proposal of a show about Guttmann was met with reluctance – “you don’t understand, it takes a long time to put on an exhibition” – but the museum staff were persuaded, as long as the exhibition was small.
“It wasn’t the most beautiful show ever, but it told Guttmann’s story, and it got 400 bits of press worldwide,” Morris says.
Diverse approach
One of Morris’s key approaches is to develop responsive shows for the museum’s programme. She says that she likes to inject energy into places.
Morris has managed to convert this energy into rising visitor figures, something she also achieved in her previous role as the artistic director and chief executive of London’s Soho Theatre from 1992 to 2005. “I think audience is the common denominator between museums and theatres,” she says.
Recent big-hitters at the Jewish Museum include the exhibition Blood: Uniting and Dividing, which ran from November 2015 to February 2016. But the show’s topic wasn’t the only source of debate – Morris set up an unusual partnership.
“We used the museum as a blood donation bank, because the NHS is really short of blood donors at the moment,” says Morris, who has an activist streak in her. “We were part of a drive that the NHS ran so that people would donate blood. It was the first time a museum had ever been used like that.”
She maintains that it is often the simple things that count, that you don’t always have to spend big to effect change. She points to her introduction of fiver-Mondays at the Soho Theatre, which helped to attract a far younger audience than usual. And while she was the chief executive of Jewish Women’s Aid she instigated a simple yet effective campaign to increase awareness of domestic violence in Jewish society.
Whether it’s audiences, subject matter or problem solving, Morris says that everything is about identity.
“I think that we all have questions about our own identity and I think that our museum is a good lens to view it through,” she says.
Broadening perceptions
Morris also points to the complexities of communicating a huge subject such as Jewish history and culture.
“It’s really important that we show the many different types of Jews in the museum,” says Morris. “It’s shocking to see that whenever there’s something in the press about Jews they show a picture of a very Orthodox Jewish man, which does not represent the broader Jewish culture at all.”
Later this year, the museum is putting on Sephardi Voices: Jews from North Africa, the Middle East and Iran (8 June–10 September 2017), an exhibition that aims to break down misconceptions about where Jewish people are from.
Morris says: “People often think about Jewish culture as being from Poland, Russia and Germany, but actually there’s a big community in the UK that originates from Arab countries, Spain, Portugal, and lots from Iran.”
Morris is enthusiastic about diversity and says that 75% of the museum’s audience is non-Jewish, but among the children that visit the figure goes up to 96% non-Jewish. There are even a few young Muslim women in the museum’s team of volunteers.
Interesting times ahead
Most of the museum’s support comes from private funders, but Morris and her team are applying to be an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation this year to help inject a bit more funding into the Jewish Museum.
“We’ve got some fantastic supporters, but it’s always difficult for us independent museums having to compete against the big guys who have amazing collections and don’t charge entry,” Morris says. “We do great things here and have a fantastically diverse audience, so I hope we will get funding from the arts council, but obviously there is lots of competition.”
She’d like the extra funding in part for her plans to open up the entrance to the museum to make it more accessible and welcoming, with a longer term scheme to redo the Judaism: A Living Faith gallery. She also wants to incorporate a conservation area, so that visitors can see objects being conserved in action. “I want people to learn and interact with a conservator, be part of the process,” she says. “It’s about embracing people more so that they engage more.”
But getting people through the door is the first obstacle. When Morris arrived at the museum she gradually cut the security from two down to one guard, but since the 2014 attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, which resulted in four deaths, there are now three security guards at the museum in London. Morris wishes she didn’t have to take this precaution.
“I talked to the director of Brussels after it happened, and many of the staff there have had nervous breakdowns. It’s horrific.”
Brexit has brought its own set of challenges, too. In an increasingly divided society, Morris has seen prejudice around Judaism increase in the past year.
“We sell these things called ‘schlep’ bags – it’s a Yiddish word – written in English, and also in Hebrew. A woman with one of these bags got abused after leaving the museum,” Morris says. “She blogged about it and there was a flurry of press coverage.”
She says the learning team have noticed an increased number of Jewish-intolerant comments too.
“On every level we’re building bridges and combatting prejudice, obviously with a focus on the Jewish community, but the fact that we’re making those bridges is important because migration is such a common story in most peoples’ backgrounds.”
Ever the optimist, Morris says: “It just means our work is even more important.”
She studied social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge, where she also set up a women’s theatre company.
This led to her becoming the artistic director and chief executive of London’s Soho Theatre from 1992 to 2005, where she led the construction of the theatre’s current home on Dean Street. She grew the theatre’s turnover from £200,000 to £2m.
Before joining the Jewish Museum she was the chief executive of Jewish Women’s Aid, and director of ResponseAbility, a cross-communal Jewish thinktank.
As the chief executive of the Jewish Museum she works with the Association of European Jewish Museums and the Council of American Jewish Museums.
In 1995 the museum was amalgamated with the London Museum of Jewish Life (founded in 1983 as the Museum of the Jewish East End).
Between 1995 and 2007 the combined Jewish Museum ran on two sites.
The new museum opened in Camden in 2010 after a £10m development, £4.2m of which came from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The museum has about 30 staff and about 200 volunteers. The annual turnover is around £2.1m.
In 2015 the Jewish Museum partnered with the Jewish Military Museum.
Morris is aware that the museum’s title could discourage some visitors. “It could be that they think: ‘I’m not Jewish, so why would that museum be for me,” or they might think: ‘I’m Jewish, so what do I need to go to a Jewish museum for?’”
Judaism has a strong intellectual culture, she says, encompassing humour, debate and different opinions.
“My job is partly making the museum represent that in a fun way, so that energy, that Jewish drive, that intellectual curiosity, the questioning that goes on within Jewish communities, is part of the museum experience.”
Morris is keen that the exhibition programme is of such high quality and so engaging that it gets people over the barrier of the museum’s title. An exhibition she thinks will achieve this is Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, which opens on 16 March. The Camden-based singer modelled her beehive hair on her grandmother, a Jewish immigrant, and Winehouse had a strong sense of her Jewish roots and heritage.
Morris, Jewish herself, became the chief executive of the museum in 2012, the year of the London Olympics. She asked what the museum was doing for the event but was told there were no exhibitions planned related to it. So Morris leapt at the chance to initiate something.
“I knew that the guy who started the Paralympics, Ludwig Guttmann, was a German Jewish refugee, a neurosurgeon who came over in the late thirties,” says Morris.
Morris tells how Guttmann saved lots of people by taking some of the victims of Kristallnacht, a wave of Nazi-led anti-Jewish pogroms in 1938, to his hospital where he made up false case histories so they could avoid further oppression. The doctor later escaped to Britain and was sent to set up a new spinal unit at Stoke Mandeville, where many war casualties ended up.
“He saw the clientele were mostly fit young men,” says Morris. “Maybe they’d lost the use of their lower limbs, but they actually had a lot of energy, so he set up sporting activities, which led to the first Paralympic Games in 1948, which Guttmann organised.”
Morris’s proposal of a show about Guttmann was met with reluctance – “you don’t understand, it takes a long time to put on an exhibition” – but the museum staff were persuaded, as long as the exhibition was small.
“It wasn’t the most beautiful show ever, but it told Guttmann’s story, and it got 400 bits of press worldwide,” Morris says.
Diverse approach
One of Morris’s key approaches is to develop responsive shows for the museum’s programme. She says that she likes to inject energy into places.
Morris has managed to convert this energy into rising visitor figures, something she also achieved in her previous role as the artistic director and chief executive of London’s Soho Theatre from 1992 to 2005. “I think audience is the common denominator between museums and theatres,” she says.
Recent big-hitters at the Jewish Museum include the exhibition Blood: Uniting and Dividing, which ran from November 2015 to February 2016. But the show’s topic wasn’t the only source of debate – Morris set up an unusual partnership.
“We used the museum as a blood donation bank, because the NHS is really short of blood donors at the moment,” says Morris, who has an activist streak in her. “We were part of a drive that the NHS ran so that people would donate blood. It was the first time a museum had ever been used like that.”
She maintains that it is often the simple things that count, that you don’t always have to spend big to effect change. She points to her introduction of fiver-Mondays at the Soho Theatre, which helped to attract a far younger audience than usual. And while she was the chief executive of Jewish Women’s Aid she instigated a simple yet effective campaign to increase awareness of domestic violence in Jewish society.
Whether it’s audiences, subject matter or problem solving, Morris says that everything is about identity.
“I think that we all have questions about our own identity and I think that our museum is a good lens to view it through,” she says.
Broadening perceptions
Morris also points to the complexities of communicating a huge subject such as Jewish history and culture.
“It’s really important that we show the many different types of Jews in the museum,” says Morris. “It’s shocking to see that whenever there’s something in the press about Jews they show a picture of a very Orthodox Jewish man, which does not represent the broader Jewish culture at all.”
Later this year, the museum is putting on Sephardi Voices: Jews from North Africa, the Middle East and Iran (8 June–10 September 2017), an exhibition that aims to break down misconceptions about where Jewish people are from.
Morris says: “People often think about Jewish culture as being from Poland, Russia and Germany, but actually there’s a big community in the UK that originates from Arab countries, Spain, Portugal, and lots from Iran.”
Morris is enthusiastic about diversity and says that 75% of the museum’s audience is non-Jewish, but among the children that visit the figure goes up to 96% non-Jewish. There are even a few young Muslim women in the museum’s team of volunteers.
Interesting times ahead
Most of the museum’s support comes from private funders, but Morris and her team are applying to be an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation this year to help inject a bit more funding into the Jewish Museum.
“We’ve got some fantastic supporters, but it’s always difficult for us independent museums having to compete against the big guys who have amazing collections and don’t charge entry,” Morris says. “We do great things here and have a fantastically diverse audience, so I hope we will get funding from the arts council, but obviously there is lots of competition.”
She’d like the extra funding in part for her plans to open up the entrance to the museum to make it more accessible and welcoming, with a longer term scheme to redo the Judaism: A Living Faith gallery. She also wants to incorporate a conservation area, so that visitors can see objects being conserved in action. “I want people to learn and interact with a conservator, be part of the process,” she says. “It’s about embracing people more so that they engage more.”
But getting people through the door is the first obstacle. When Morris arrived at the museum she gradually cut the security from two down to one guard, but since the 2014 attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, which resulted in four deaths, there are now three security guards at the museum in London. Morris wishes she didn’t have to take this precaution.
“I talked to the director of Brussels after it happened, and many of the staff there have had nervous breakdowns. It’s horrific.”
Brexit has brought its own set of challenges, too. In an increasingly divided society, Morris has seen prejudice around Judaism increase in the past year.
“We sell these things called ‘schlep’ bags – it’s a Yiddish word – written in English, and also in Hebrew. A woman with one of these bags got abused after leaving the museum,” Morris says. “She blogged about it and there was a flurry of press coverage.”
She says the learning team have noticed an increased number of Jewish-intolerant comments too.
“On every level we’re building bridges and combatting prejudice, obviously with a focus on the Jewish community, but the fact that we’re making those bridges is important because migration is such a common story in most peoples’ backgrounds.”
Ever the optimist, Morris says: “It just means our work is even more important.”
Abigail Morris at a glance
Abigail Morris became the chief executive of the Jewish Museum in London in 2012. She studied social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge, where she also set up a women’s theatre company.
This led to her becoming the artistic director and chief executive of London’s Soho Theatre from 1992 to 2005, where she led the construction of the theatre’s current home on Dean Street. She grew the theatre’s turnover from £200,000 to £2m.
Before joining the Jewish Museum she was the chief executive of Jewish Women’s Aid, and director of ResponseAbility, a cross-communal Jewish thinktank.
As the chief executive of the Jewish Museum she works with the Association of European Jewish Museums and the Council of American Jewish Museums.
The Jewish Museum at a glance
London’s Jewish Museum was founded in 1932 and was originally in Bloomsbury, moving to Camden Town in 1994. In 1995 the museum was amalgamated with the London Museum of Jewish Life (founded in 1983 as the Museum of the Jewish East End).
Between 1995 and 2007 the combined Jewish Museum ran on two sites.
The new museum opened in Camden in 2010 after a £10m development, £4.2m of which came from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The museum has about 30 staff and about 200 volunteers. The annual turnover is around £2.1m.
In 2015 the Jewish Museum partnered with the Jewish Military Museum.