Traveling Exhibitions

We offer over 20 traveling exhibitions, originally presented at our Museum or curated on specific themes from our permanent collection, which feature contemporary and 20th-century artists and include 30 to 50 works of various sizes, wall texts, and labels.

collage of images from holy sparks
Traveling Exhibitions

Our Exhibitions at Your Venue

Loans of these traveling exhibitions are contracted with a $600 registrar’s fee and require that the borrowing venue cover the costs of round-trip shipping and insurance, and acknowledge in all digital, print, and publicity materials that the exhibition comes from the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York.

Please contact Nancy Mantell, Curator for Traveling Exhibitions, at 212-824-2218 or nmantell@huc.edu.

Newest Offerings

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One Nation

Contemporary artists illuminate the diverse and vibrant identities comprising American society and express their aspirations for equity, inclusion, and justice.

Tzedek Boxes

Contemporary artists offer their vision for the Tzedek box, a new Jewish ceremonial object for a new ritual aimed at encouraging us to answer the Jewish call for justice. When we complete a meaningful act of social justice, we write a diary entry about the experience and insert it into a Tzedek Box. This ritual regularly prompts us to reflect on what we have learned -- and what we still need to do -- as we seek to build a more just world. Once a year on Yom HaTzedek, we open the box and review its contents as a form of sacred accountability.

Holy Sparks: Celebrating Fifty years of Women in the Rabbinate

Illuminating the creativity, commitment, and vision of 24 women rabbis who were “firsts” in their time in portraits by 24 leading contemporary Jewish women artists.

Magical Thinking: Superstitions and Other Persistent Notions

Black cats, horseshoes, wishbones, and mirrors are among the symbols chosen for exploration by over 50 contemporary artists.

Additional Traveling Exhibits

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Besa - Albanian Muslim Rescuers During the Holocaust: Photographs by Normal Gershman

The exhibit is comprised of powerful photographs and personal stories of Albanian Muslim families who sheltered and saved Jews during the Second World War. The concept of BESA, meaning honor, inspired the Albanians to put themselves at risk to save fleeing strangers.

CINEMA JUDAICA: The Epic Cycle, 1949-1971

Original movie theater posters and lobby advertisements depict post-World War II Jewish-themed films that helped counteract Holocaust imagery of mass Jewish victimization.

CINEMA JUDAICA: The War Years, 1939-1949

These original, iconic Hollywood film posters illustrate the motion picture industry’s role in countering American isolationism, advocating the war against the Nazis, and influencing post-war perceptions of the Jewish people and the founding of the State of Israel.

Isaac Bashevis Singer and His Artists

A total of 17 different artists created Illustrations for 39 works of Nobel Prize Winner, I.B. Singer. Their styles range from whimsical, charming children’s stories to poignant, sophisticated, and sexy adult books. Among the featured artists are Larry Rivers, Ira Moskowitz, Maurice Sendak, Antonio Frasconi and Raphael Soyer.

Israel: A Light on the Land

Israel: A Light on the Land

Views of the Israeli landscape and life by internationally renowned 20th century artists and photographers including Ari Bar Lev, Avner Moriah, Chanan Getraide, Joyce Kozloff, Louis Lozowick, and Abel Pann, amongst others, ignite our passion for Israel.

Joelle Dautricourt: The Book of Happy Writing

Graphic art and calligraphy express the mystical, symbolic, and divine forces within the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and evokes Holocaust memory and joyful freedom.

Basic Judaism

Basic Judaism

20th century artists and photographers illuminate basic concepts in Judaism and reflect on traditional and modern Jewish practices and rituals.

Paint by Numbers

This exhibit, including work by more than 30 artists, explores the power of numbers as a source of inspiration and meaning. The artists contributing to this exhibit represent a diversity of age, gender, nationality, and cultural heritage. The use of numbers in Jewish rituals, daily life, and belief goes back to Biblical times. Think of the seven days of creation, the 631 mitzvot, the 40 days of the Flood, and animals going two by two. Dates of disaster and success are also prominent as in 1492 for the Expulsion from Spain and 1948 for the Founding of the State of Israel. Numbers provide the underlying principles in physics and math, and in life itself.

Promised Land: Photographs by Chanan Getraide

A series of eighteen large format, full-color photographs in an impressionist style of the majesty of contemporary Israeli vistas by renowned Israeli poet/photographer.

Rebirth After the Holocaust: The Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, 1945-1950

This photo-documentary exhibition depicts the unknown story of the return to life after the liberation of survivors of the Holocaust, whose families and communities had been destroyed and who were stateless and homeless.

The Art of Aging

35 artists explore the ways in which aging is a process and lifelong journey affecting the dynamics of human relationships, creativity, memory, continuity, and growth.

The Bronfman Haggadah

The Bronfman Haggadah is a collaboration between philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman and artist Jan Aronson that connects the Passover Seder and the world of contemporary Jewish fine art. Using both ancient scripture and contemporary poetry, this Haggadah is “at once a radical reimagining of the Passover text and a sublime full-color art book.” The exhibition consists of 40 original page-sized water colors.

New York in the Depression Era

Leading artists of the Depression Era depicted New York City at a time of crisis and resilience, and offer historical precedents for the revival of this city in the wake of Covid today.

Nathan Hilu’s Journal: Word, Image, Memory

Nathan Hilu’s imaginative works evoke memories of his long, multi-faceted life.

Waldsee-1944

An exhibition in memory of the annihilation of Hungarian Jewry during the summer of 1944, when Jews deported to their deaths at Auschwitz were required to write deceptive postcards from the nonexistent “Waldsee” to their families, reassuring them that all was well.

Joyce Ellen Weinstein - Ruth, Linoleum Block Print and Glitter

Women of the Bible

Contemporary artists chose biblical women as subjects for works of art in an effort to creatively interpret the varied aspects of these iconic figures. They challenge the biblical tradition that has dominated Western civilization in an effort to examine the core meaning of the text. Through art, they depict images beyond the imagined or expected.