Museum History

Since its founding in 1984, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, housed here at the Jewish Community Federation, has presented more then 80 exhibitions and hundreds of programs exploring the Jewish spirit and imagination. As early as 1990, The Contemporary Jewish Museum recognized the urgency for a more expansive facility to meet the needs and interests of the communities we serve. And we could not have hoped for a better building opportunity, both physically and conceptually, than when the city of San Francisco agreed to allow The Contemporary Jewish Museum to develop the historic Jessie Street Substation, a 1907 landmark designed by Willis Polk.

The new Contemporary Jewish Museum has been envisioned as a dynamic and welcoming space where people of all backgrounds can come together to engage in the extraordinarily diverse dialogues of Jewish expression. It has been planned to be a place to experience art, music, film, literature, debate, and — most importantly — other people. Daniel Libeskind's design for The Contemporary Jewish Museum does not simply house this programmatic vision; it enables and inspires it. After contemplating our program and studying the historic site and its surrounding area, Libeskind laid before himself a challenge: How does one capture that which is firmly rooted in history and carry it into the future? His solution was to give the historic building life, literally. The structural addition is based on the physical form of the Hebrew word and symbol for life, the chai. Emerging from behind the walls and roof of the former substation, the new chai addition transforms the industrial spaces of the early twentieth-century edifice into a new forum for the exchange of historical and contemporary ideas. Click here to learn more about the building project.

The new Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to open in Spring 2008. Until then, the museum will continue to present exhibitions and programs in its current space at 121 Steuart Street in San Francisco.