The Newly Renovated Jewish Museum of Maryland is Ready for its Close-Up

It’s a cold day in January as Sol Davis, director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, walks through the newly renovated building just days before it reopens to the public. Sunshine pours into the renovated lobby. Printed signs are taped to the walls. The new podcast studio is stuffed with boxes waiting to be unpacked. One of the galleries hums with construction as sawdust fills the air.

Davis is unhurried—he knows everything will get finished and he’s eager for the empty spaces to be filled with community again: “There’s been a lot of anticipation.”

For centuries, Baltimore has been home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the United States, and to this day, it remains incredibly diverse and active. The museum, the successor to the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, which was established in 1960, is nestled between two historic synagogues—Lloyd Street, housed in a Greek Revival-style building and the third-oldest synagogue in the United States, and the nearly-as-old B’nai Israel, with its more Gothic look—in historic Jonestown.

The first iteration of the museum came about in the 1980s, when the society opened the Jewish Heritage Center, which officially became a museum in the late ’90s. Over the past two decades, it has hosted countless exhibits, programming for families, and a bris or two, but the building has stayed the same. Meaning this newest makeover—one that finally brings it into the 21st century—is long overdue.

“We’ve been talking about the project as really a big step in our evolution into the museum field,” says Davis, who was director of the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center in Arizona before coming to Baltimore in 2021. “And also, a once-in-a-generation kind of capital investment in Jewish culture in Baltimore City.”

The space, once dark and dated, now feels fresh and modern. Every inch has been reconfigured and reconstructed—down to the gallery floors, which have transformed into a comfortable terrazzo to encourage lingering. And all throughout, there is an emphasis on participation and engagement, moving away from the model where visitors are passive observers who strictly read placards next to photographs.

“What participatory means to us is really an invitation to Jewish Marylanders to co-narrate the story of the Jewish Maryland experience together,” says Davis.

That will be done through changing exhibits and even a new campaign to collect photographs from Jewish Marylanders of their generational families. And the centerpiece? A state-of-the-art production studio to record as many Jewish oral histories as possible.

“The charge we gave to the architects was, how can we move out of a spectator paradigm and really [offer this space] as an experience and as a partnership between the museum and the community,” says Davis.

For him, that also includes opening the door to those who aren’t part of the Jewish community—especially their neighbors from Jonestown, a predominantly African-American community.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us to think about Jewish and African-American relations historically and how we can nourish those relationships in the present.”

The renovations have been helped along by Baltimore Orioles owner David M. Rubenstein, who announced a gift of $1.5 million to the museum last September. The lobby—now named the David M. Rubenstein Exhibition Arcade—is very orange, something Davis says is mere coincidence.

Its design is inspired by 19th-century Parisian arcades, aka passageways, featuring an arched ceiling lined with skylights. There are display cases for artifacts from the museum’s archives, interactive stations, and a large video screen. The museum refers to them as portals.

Which all goes back to one simple purpose, says Davis: “We want to connect Jewish Marylanders with their roots.”