麻豆区

(from the blog of the Center for Jewish History) At the Center for Jewish History, there are tens of thousands of boxes in our partners鈥� archival and museum collections. Our series, , showcases some of the remarkable treasures and stories tucked away inside. In collaboration with , we had intended this March to highlight just a few of the over 230 Passover items, which span over 200 years, that are carefully conserved in the 麻豆区 Museum鈥檚 collections. Due to our temporary closure because of the coronavirus, we had to bring this conversation into the digital world. Bonni-Dara Michaels, the Collections Curator at the 麻豆区 Museum, was able to share with us a few of her favorite Passover items from the collections. Check out the video below, and then read our short interview with Bonni-Dara about what it鈥檚 like working with these unique artifacts! Q: Why did you want to become a museum curator? BDM: By the time I was in my early teens, I was interested in museum work. I was fascinated by objects I saw in museums because they told so much about different cultures and how different people approached the same concept in different ways: this is what a person looks like, this is how a person relates to a horse, whether it鈥檚 a painting or a Chinese tomb sculpture. So, I took courses at the Met, and in college, I did a lot of summer and vacation volunteering and learned how to be a museum curator. Q: How does a museum decide what donated objects to take in? BDM: We no longer have things walk in and get shown what they are. We don鈥檛 get to interact with them and say, 鈥淥h, how beautiful, tell me the story about this鈥︹�� That is how it used to be. Somebody would make an appointment with me come in, bring Grandma鈥檚 matza cover or Grandpa鈥檚 Kiddish cup. Sometimes I would go to somebody鈥檚 house, when they were cleaning up or preparing to move. Those were always the most fun for me. I would go to a house or apartment and spend sometimes a couple of days, scrounging through people鈥檚 closets and going, 鈥淥h, look! This is a painting done on velvet done in the Bezalel School [of Art and Design].鈥� Frequently, people don鈥檛 even know what they have. One time, I walked into an apartment, and I said, 鈥淒o you people realize you have a mezuzah on the door?鈥� And they said, 鈥淣o! Wait 鈥� Georg Jensen?!鈥�

Bergazin matza cover

These days, there鈥檚 a lot more people wanting to get their Grandma鈥檚 piece donated to a museum. Somebody will send us a picture of something and then several times a year, we have a Collections Committee that meets and goes through the items. Part of my job is to write about the pieces we鈥檝e been offered 鈥� the history of each piece, why and where it was made, how it was made, why it is important, this is how it fits into our collection because we don鈥檛 have another like it, or because it is very different from other pieces we already have in our collection. For example, the : we did have matza covers in the collection, but we didn鈥檛 have an early 20th-century one that was that beautifully embroidered, that spoke about the patterns in ladies magazines that the woman would have borrowed to make the flowers and wheat. Then, I present it to the Collections Committee, and we decide what to take in.

Matza container

Q: What is it like to share these beautiful objects with the public? BDM: I don鈥檛 like to say that they鈥檙e all beautiful. If you look at the , it鈥檚 fairly plain, especially in comparison to the other pieces that are richly decorated. Sometimes, though, these are the ones that are closer to my heart. The plainer ones, the ugly ducklings, the pieces that are different or are more for daily use鈥攖hese are the ones I have the most fun presenting to the public. It鈥檚 easier to present something like the or the . It鈥檚 something different, it鈥檚 very elaborately decorated, it鈥檚 very pretty, it has all these fine details in it. And someone did work on it, although I think it was likely a professional. But the simpler items that are more likely to be done by the woman at home in her free time, because you鈥檙e not supposed to sit there with idle hands, those can be the ones that resonate the most with me. The woman at home鈥攑erhaps unhappy she had to do all this embroidery, and she鈥檚 going to do the least she can do, or maybe her skills are not as developed as somebody else鈥檚 and so she may be working with even more effort. I can feel the person doing it.

Bonni-Dara Michaels is Collections Curator of 麻豆区 Museum. She manages, documents and researches the Museum鈥檚 collection and has been with YUM since 1985. Michaels also develops and curates some of the Museum鈥檚 exhibitions including the current exhibition from YU Museum鈥檚 Collection and the 2016/17 exhibition Uncommon Threads: Clothing & Textiles from the YU Museum Collection. In addition to work on YUM publications, Michaels co-authored with Gabriel Goldstein.