New beginnings

In 1996 The Skirball Museum in Los Angeles opens its doors to a new era. Now the central component of the recently completed Skirball Cultural Center, the museum is home to one of the most significant Judaica art collections in the Western Hemisphere, which encompasses four thousand years of Jewish historical experience. Full-color illustrations showing objects from each of the museum's collection categories are accompanied by essays explaining the significance of the art. The museum's long-term inaugural exhibition, Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America, and the ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology exhibits of the Discovery Center are also documented in this comprehensive book. The museum preserves more than 25,000 objects that reveal much about daily life, beliefs, customs, worship, human yearnings, and artistic achievement from biblical to contemporary times. They reflect Jewish life in virtually every corner of the globe as well as the museum's commitment to exploring American Jewish life in the context of American society as a whole. Over the years the Skirball Museum has continually expanded its meaning and purpose in a changing world. The reshaping and reopening of this valuable repository of Jewish cultural history in the Skirball Cultural Center is a signal event for art historians and Judaica scholars, and it also offers rich learning opportunities for anyone seeking to understand the human spirit through art.