After more than 18 months of extensive renovations, the Jewish Museum of Maryland will reopen its doors to the public on Sunday, Feb. 2.
The JMM — located at 15 Lloyd Street in East Baltimore’s Jonestown community and flanked by the historic Lloyd Street Synagogue and B’nai Israel Congregation — is an agency of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore.
The museum will feature a reimagined facility, a new website and a refreshed brand identity. The updates reflect the JMM’s commitment to being a participatory museum and creating an immersive, engaging space for learning, dialogue and discovery.
“This transformative project ensures that the museum’s architecture and technologies align with evolving practices in the field,” said Sol Davis, the JMM’s executive director since 2021. “The project represents a substantial investment in historic Jonestown, and it creates the setting for the next generation of Jewish life and culture to flourish in Baltimore City.”
At the heart of the museum’s transformation is the David M. Rubenstein Exhibition Arcade. The arcade offers an immersive space in which to engage with Jewish stories in dynamic and interactive ways. The arcade is lined with custom-designed display cases combining collections materials with interactive technologies.
Other highlights include a new state-of-the-art audio/visual production studio; additional rotating gallery space to present exhibitions, serve as a black box theater and multi-purpose program space ensuring visitors always have something new to discover; and an immersive video display array that will support the presentation of a wide variety of video content with multiple display configurations.
The JMM designed the space to grow with its needs, ensuring that the building remains a vibrant and adaptable home for years to come.
The museum will present two original exhibitions when opening on Feb. 2:
- “Next Generations” adapts and reinterprets content from Generations, a JMM magazine published between 1978 and 2012. Three curators reimagine material drawn from the publication’s major themes of nostalgia, migration and food.
- “To Say I Was Here” is the inaugural exhibition to be presented in the new R.C. Long Gallery. The exhibition is a collaboration with Baltimore-based record label Canary Records and will present music and ephemera related to 15 early 20th century Arabic, Greek, Judeo-Spanish and Turkish-speaking Jewish immigrant artists.
“The re-envisioned Jewish Museum of Maryland brings to life the stories, culture and history of our fabulous Jewish community in fresh new ways,” said Andrew Cushnir, president and CEO of The Associated. “The museum is central to The Associated’s mission of celebrating Maryland’s Jewish heritage and providing a welcoming space to explore Jewish identity. We believe that the reimagined museum will be a great place for members of Jewish Baltimore to explore their history and an important bridge-builder to share our story with other communities that call Maryland home.”
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