Exhibits
Next Generations: Turning the Page
Opening February 2, 2025
The Jewish Museum of Maryland’s Generations magazine, published from 1978 to 2012, offered 30 issues of insightful stories from more than 180 contributors, amateur and professional writers alike. Covering a wide range of topics, it became a cornerstone for sharing Maryland’s Jewish history and culture. More than a decade after its final issue, we are excited to reopen our renovated museum with an exhibit that reactivates Generations. This reimagined presentation will reinterpret select articles through contemporary lenses and share these stories in fresh, engaging formats, welcoming audiences ranging from longtime supporters (and even former contributors) to those discovering our institution for the first time.
Beyond honoring this treasured publication, the exhibit explores some of its primary themes—migration, nostalgia, and food—through the perspectives of multiple curators. Each theme will be brought to life with innovative storytelling that highlights both the enduring and evolving significance of these topics.
To Say I Was Here: Arabic, Greek, Ladino, and Turkish-Speaking Immigrant Musicians Recorded in the U.S., 1916–1966
February 2, 2025 – June 1, 2025
This multimedia exhibit delves into the lives and legacies of several immigrant musicians—both celebrated and little-known—who shaped the rich tapestry of American music in the early to mid-20th century. During this era of rapid expansion in the U.S. sound recording industry, countless immigrant artists recorded songs from their homelands, preserving and transforming cultural traditions. Among them were Jewish musicians from Aleppo, Baghdad, Istanbul, Ioannina, Izmir, and beyond, who performed not only for their Jewish communities but also within Armenian, Greek, and Arab circles, united by shared languages and cultural bonds.
Curated by Baltimore-based music historian and record producer Ian Nagoski, this exhibit brings nearly two decades of research on Near Eastern music in 20th-century America to life, offering visitors an intimate exploration of music as a bridge between worlds.
Picturing Past + Present
Opening February 2, 2025
This community-sourced exhibit presents the breadth and diversity of Maryland’s Jewish communities through the lens of personal family photographs. Featuring a dynamic and evolving collection, Picturing Past + Present invites visitors to explore the stories of Jewish Marylanders, told through images spanning generations—from the earliest days of family history to contemporary life.
The exhibit includes two interconnected displays: a rotating presentation of selected photographs, showcasing the wide-ranging experiences of Jewish Marylanders, and an interactive terminal where visitors can search names, keywords, and stories to make personal connections and dive deeper into the collection. Designed as a growing collection, the exhibit will continue to evolve as new submissions are added, ensuring that it remains a vibrant and inclusive reflection of Maryland’s Jewish heritage.
Through this ongoing project, the Jewish Museum of Maryland aims to create a space where Jewish Marylanders can see themselves and their community represented, fostering a shared sense of belonging and connection.
If you’d like to see your family’s story included, we encourage you to participate.
Psychedelicatessen: A Powerful Dose of Art by Steve Marcus
On View June 22 – October 19, 2025
Take a long, strange trip into NYC artist, Steve Marcus’ cartoon universe of kosher folk art with a new series of works of Jewish pop art inspired by a fusion the psychedelic hippie culture of the 1960s, Judaism and Jewish Culture. Marcus’ hand drawn works on paper and handmade objects are colorful and comical flashbacks that take the viewer on a mystical tour on the magic bus down an irreverent, fun and insightful road that reveal his quirky sense of humor and his passion for his own roots and culture. Marcus’ new project seamlessly marries his Jewish spirituality with his past involvement in the counterculture and the cannabis reform movement, putting a modern spin on Jewish subjects and life that form alternative culture classics for new generations of modern Jews. Turn on, tune in, drop in and enjoy, laugh, and space out on Steve Marcus’ kabbalistic Jewish artwork inspired by underground comics, Hasidism and the psychedelic art of the free love era. Shalom and Ahava.
Born in the month of August in 1969, also known as the Summer of Love, Steve Marcus takes the viewer out of this world with the artwork he creates in his studio on the Lower East Side, one of New York City’s most important and historic Jewish neighborhoods which was once the stronghold of the Yiddish Theatre, the Fillmore East and other popular and unpopular cultural and religious touchstones.
Modernisms, Curated by Susan Isaacs
August 10, 2025 – February 15, 2026
This Jewish Museum of Maryland presents the work of Florence H. Austrian; Jacob Glushakow, Gladys Goldstein, Mervin Jules, Reuben Kramer, Perna Krick, Herman Maril, Karl Metzler, Selma L. Oppenheimer, Amalie Rothschild, Aaron Sopher, Edward Rosenfeld, and Peter Scholleck, largely from the museum’s collection. These artists responded to modernist ideas with a broad range of approaches. Their views were largely shaped by the new prevailing theories that initially emerged in Europe: Post Impressionism, Fauvism, German Expressionism, Cubism, Art Deco, Surrealism, and Bauhaus. By the end of the Second World War, this group of Baltimore artists were fully committed to a modern approach to art making. Some of the artists in this exhibition travelled to NYC and beyond; others stayed closer to home, but each found a unique voice that expressed a contemporary approach to their art practice.
Susan Isaacs is retired from teaching art history and museum studies at Towson University where she also curated many exhibitions for the Department of Art + Design, Art History, and Art Education Galleries. She has curated as well for numerous institutions across the United States and abroad. She writes and publishes on modern and contemporary art. Isaacs holds a four-year certificate of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in painting and B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in art history from the University of Delaware and an M.F.A. from Towson University. She has over the years shown her own artwork in venues on the East Coast. Trained in both academic and modern art, she is an interdisciplinary artist working in printmaking, books, painting, and fabric sculptures. Employing organic abstract forms, she creates joyful worlds with intense colors and exuberant compositions.