Seymour Fromer, the museum co-founder and director emeritus, wrote in 1987: "The availability of the museum collections and the interaction with our curatorial and archival staff enable the artist, scholar, and public to utilize the museum in an ongoing effort to better understand the meaning of the Jewish heritage."

Twenty years later, as the Magnes prepares for an expansion and relocation to a new facility in downtown Berkeley at 2222 Harold Way, the planning of collection storage and presentation becomes critically important.  For nearly forty years the museum provided access to its collection through an extensive program of publications.  Today's electronic technology allows unprecedented ways of providing visual and documentary information that augments the viewing experience.

The new facility is envisioned as a space that combines display and research, looking and learning, contemplation and discussion.  In the spirit of the museum's founders, yet with new technological possibilities, the Magnes will continue to offer public access to unique resources that let every generation find their own story in the texts, images, and sounds of the Jewish past and present.

Select a collection to view a slideshow of images and read more.

The Western Jewish History Center
The Bay Area is home to the third largest Jewish community in the United States.  Jews settled in Northern California since the Gold Rush and played a very significant role in the economic and cultural development of the West.  Western Jewish History Center is the world's largest repository of materials documenting the contribution of Jews to the life, experience, and history of the American West up to the present.

Ceremonial and Decorative Art
The Magnes holds over 8,000 examples of ceremonial and decorative art, including metalwork, textiles, costumes, and jewelry.  It is considered to be the third largest collection of this kind in the United States.  The extraordinary range of the collection allows museum audiences to explore the ceremonies, traditions, and folk culture of the Jewish people throughout its diaspora.  The collection has been widely exhibited; Magnes pieces have been loaned to such major exhibitions as Judische Lebenswelten (Berlin Jewish Museum, 1991), and The Sephardic Journey (Yeshiva University, New York, 1992). Groundbreaking publications on Jewish ceremonial art include three catalogues by former curator Ruth Eis of the museum's Hanukkah lamps, Torah binders, and Talit and Tefilin bags.

Modern and Contemporary Art
The collection illustrates Jewish integration into modern secular life since the mid-nineteenth century and documents the ongoing debate about the definitions of Jewish identity in the modern world.  Particularly, the collection provides a record of the museum's own role in fostering a generation of California Jewish artists since the 1960s, encouraging them to articulate their Jewish identity, however complex.

Library
In Northern California, renowned for Jewish scholarship and university libraries, the Magnes library offers to curators, scholars and researchers unique resources for study of Jewish visual and musical expression and cultural history.  In 1987 the Harry and Dorothy Blumenthal Rare Book Room was dedicated to provide climate control environment for storage and a research area.