On 1 December the Museum of Jewish History made a presentation to the specialist and museum community of its album of the most outstanding items in the collection

The museum’s album consists of two volumes, corresponding to the two halves of its collection: ethnographic material or ‘Traditional Culture’, and historical material under the rubric of ‘Jews in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union’. The first volume, which presents the traditional culture of Russian Jewry, includes: works of Jewish folk art and handicrafts that served to adorn the interior of the home and the synagogue, objects of everyday life for both weekday and holiday use, and various documents and materials produced by community institutions.

The items showcased in the second volume serve as evidence of social and legal changes, economic transformations, cultural pursuits, political experiments, and the processes of modernization in which the Jews of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union were involved over the course of their history.

The catalogue is illustrated solely with representations of carefully selected objects sourced from the museum’s collections, 658 in number. The thematic sections of the catalogue are accompanied by explanatory texts and scholarly but accessible articles. These both help to orient the reader amidst the multitude of visual material and represent the results of the museum staff’s own research.

The album has been published in a limited edition. Currently it is still available for purchase at the museum.