The Jewish Museum in London, an almost century-old institution that closed in 2023 amid ongoing financial and organizational challenges, is reopening on June 17. The temporary exhibition space is called Two Rooms and it will take up a pair of gallery spaces at JW3, a Jewish community center and cultural venue in Hampstead, North London, that was founded by Nick Viner, the museum’s board chair. The museum plans to open a new permanent museum by 2030.
Charles Ross, the museum’s chief executive, told Ocula that “never has there been, probably, a more important moment for a Jewish museum.” Ross joined the museum last fall; previously he was managing director of ART SG, an art fair in Singapore that launched in 2023. According to the Jewish Museum’s Annual Report, Ross was chosen for his “expertise in sales, sponsorship, marketing, team leadership and budgetary management.”
One of the inaugural exhibitions at Two Rooms will focus on the Jewish family that founded the once-ubiquitous tea shop and bakery chain J. Lyons & Co in London in 1984. The company, which at one point operated some 200 cafes and expanded into other food service endeavors, was founded by Joseph Lyons (after whom the company was named) and his brothers-in-law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. The show is part of a planned series of exhibitions about the German-Jewish Lyons family’s influence on food and manufacturing in Britain.
The other exhibition, “Tree of Life: Stories from Jewish Museum London’s Collection” will draw on the museum’s 35,000-object collection of Judaica, photographs, artifacts, and other materials to document the history of Jewish life in Britain. The earliest object in the show is from the 1650s, with the most recent from 2023, the year the museum closed. Both shows are on view through October 18.
Viner, the board chair, said in a statement that the Two Rooms exhibitions are “an important step towards creating a new museum that reflects and celebrates the richness, complexity and continuing contribution of Jewish life in Britain.”
