The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, announced a $12-million gift from Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel through the Mandel Supporting Foundations. This gift marks the completion of the museum’s $100-million capital campaign to support the comprehensive transformation of its 20-acre campus.
The Mandel gift supports the reconstruction, reinstallation, and endowment of the Museum’s Jewish Art and Life Wing, housing the world’s preeminent collection of Judaica and Jewish Ethnography, the Israel Museum said. The Wing will be named the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life.
"A central goal of our campus renewal project is the complete reworking of all of our collection galleries, so as to enable our visitors to navigate intuitively through the history of world culture, from prehistory to contemporary times," said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. "Our newly reconstructed Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life presents objects from secular and religious traditions in an integrated display, offering a comprehensive view of the practices of Jewish communities from around the world. We are tremendously grateful to the Mandel family for its support for this endeavor."
The reconfigured and reinstalled Mandel Wing, which will utilize about $7 million of the donation, will explore the aesthetic value of the objects as well as their religious, social, and historical contexts.
The additional $5 million from the Mandel Foundations is being dedicated to endow and support the wing’s future programming, operations, and acquisitions. 