Just a few weeks before she passed away in September of 2017 at age 94, Elaine K. Winik said to her son–in-law, Kenneth I. Helphand, “I wish I could keep the collection together,” recalls Margot Helphand, Winik’s daughter and Kenneth ‘s wife.
Kenneth Helphand took Winik’s words to heart and began the fastidious research culminating in the traveling exhibit, “Upon Thy Gates: The Elaine K. and Norman Winik Mezuzah Collection.”
Featured are 73 of the 167 mezuzot gifted by the Winiks to the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in Portland.
“I wish I had researched that when she was alive because she would have loved it,” said Helphand, who is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Landscape Architecture Emeritus at the University of Oregon and a frequent visiting professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
This Sunday, Nov. 16, from 1 to 3 p.m., the Jewish Museum of Maryland will officially celebrate the opening of “Upon Thy Gates” with a reception and launch gathering.
The exhibition — which opened at the JMM last Sunday, Nov. 9, — will be displayed at the museum, at 15 Lloyd Street in East Baltimore, through Apr. 12, 2026.
A mezuzah case holds a scroll inscribed with the Shema prayer traditionally placed on the doorpost of a Jewish home. The design and placement can reflect the culture, traditions and iconography of the Jewish communities from which they came.
The Winiks’ collection represents artistry from Jewish communities in Holland, Israel, Denmark, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Yemen, Morocco, Germany, the United States and other countries, with pieces ranging from the late 18th to the early 21st centuries.
Sol Davis, the JMM’s executive director, said he was interested in hosting the exhibition because it invokes an “ancestral inheritance.”
“The mezuzah serves as a visual marker of Jewish identity … and I love the idea they kind of create a protective force field around our dwellings,” he said. “And they’re artful. It’s a collection from around the world. I think it shows a kind of global Judaism”
Davis added that “Upon Thy Gates” — the exhibition’s title referring to the text in the Shema, “And thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house and upon thy gates” — is a perfect complement to the JMM’s recently renovated and redesigned exhibition space.
Visitors are invited to record personal stories inspired by the mezuzot. The culmination will be a collection, made in collaboration with The Stoop Storytelling, called “Marking Passages: Mezuzah Inspired Stories.”
“Thinking about the specificity of the mezuzah,” Davis said, “but also the way that you move through a space and you see the mezuzah. Maybe you touch it and think about the way that we mark passages more expansively. So, it’s a point of departure for all kinds of storytelling and sharing.”
“Upon Thy Gates” includes mezuzot made from such materials as ceramic, glass, metals and wood, and are traditional and contemporary designs.
In the process of researching the exhibition, Helphand said he “became a mezuzah expert.”
“The collection is really mezuzah cases, because the parchment inside is actually the mezuzah,” he noted.
Helphand said a handful of the mezuzot in the exhibition particularly stand out for him.
“[One] was signed by a woman named Edith Simon,” Helphand said. “So I did look up Edith Simon. There were three Edith Simons who at one point were in Theresienstadt [concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia]. None of them survived.”
Elaine Winik, who displayed her entire mezuzah collection on the walls of her New York apartment — and later in her Florida residence– cherished the mezuzot and the stories they represented about the Jewish people.
Besides being a mezuzah collector, she was a major player in Jewish organizational life as a supporter of Israel during its early years and as the first woman president of United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York, from 1982 to 1984.
Helphand said he hopes visitors take note of the craftsmanship and iconography of the mezuzot in the exhibition.
“We tend not to think of Jews as … artisans, as artists,” he said. “We’re the people of the book, you know, not the people who illustrated the book.
“[But] if you want one single artifact that virtually every Jewish household has, irrespective of their level of belief, they have a mezuzah. … It’s a proud marker. You walk by and you see them and you know, oh, that’s who lives there or used to live there.”
Sol Davis said he hopes the exhibition will serve as a jumping-off point for visitors.
“You could imagine going to an exhibition of mezuzot and just looking,” he said. “But we’re trying to activate memory, activate a sense of identity, think about the protective force of the mezuzah and share those stories.”
On Sunday, Nov. 16, at 1 p.m., the JMM will host an afternoon reception celebrating the opening of “Upon Thy Gates,” along with a selection of mezuzot from the JMM’s own collections. Kosher refreshments will be served. For information, visit jewishmuseummd.org/event/upon-thy-gates-opening-marking-passages-launch/.
Melissa Gerr is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.
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