University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Communication ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-1-2010 JEWISH LANDSCAPES ROOTED, EMBEDDED, ENSHRINED, AND TRANSCENDENT: METAPHOR AS COMMUNICATED IN JEWISH MUSEUMS IN NEW YORK, JERUSALEM, AND SAN FRANCISCO Judith Stauber Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cj_etds Recommended Citation Stauber, Judith. "JEWISH LANDSCAPES ROOTED, EMBEDDED, ENSHRINED, AND TRANSCENDENT: METAPHOR AS COMMUNICATED IN JEWISH MUSEUMS IN NEW YORK, JERUSALEM, AND SAN FRANCISCO." (2010). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cj_etds/20 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JEWISH LANDSCAPES ROOTED, EMBEDDED, ENSHRINED, AND TRANSCENDENT: METAPHOR AS COMMUNICATED IN JEWISH MUSEUMS IN NEW YORK, JERUSALEM, AND SAN FRANCISCO BY JUDITH F. STAUBER B.S., Communication, Ithaca College, 1989 M.A., Women‘s Studies, The Ohio State University, 1993 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Communication The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico December, 2010 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am incredibly grateful and fortunate to have had the enormous support and encouragement of colleagues, family, and friends who have listened and laughed in ways that helped bring this project to fruition. Each member of my committee understood and supported my desire to contribute a Jewishly meaningful document to the field of Communication. Very special thanks to Karen Foss and Jack Condon who have on numerous occasions invited me into their homes and spent many hours talking with me about ideas and goals. Thank you to Miguel Gandert and Joyce Szabo for their time, creativity, openness, and to all of my committee for their interest in knowing me as a person beyond my academic pursuits. Thanks to the museum professionals who have extended great generosity to me especially; Yehudit Inbar, Lou Levine, Noman Kleeblatt, Anne Scher, and Connie Wolf. Toda raba [thank you] for site access, providing resources, permission to photograph, and welcoming me into your workspaces for thoughtful and enjoyable conversations. Sincere appreciation and love to my mother and father, Shirley and Martin Stauber in this their 58th year of marriage, for instilling a deep sense of Jewishness, supporting my wanderlust and individuality from an early age, and expressing pride in my accomplishments. May this work bring you both naches [joy]. Albuquerque, New Mexico April, 2010 / 5770 iii JEWISH LANDSCAPES ROOTED, EMBEDDED, ENSHRINED, AND TRANSCENDENT: METAPHOR AS COMMUNICATED IN JEWISH MUSEUMS IN NEW YORK, JERUSALEM, AND SAN FRANCISCO BY JUDITH F. STAUBER ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Communication The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico December, 2010 JEWISH LANDSCAPES ROOTED, EMBEDDED, ENSHRINED, AND TRANSCENDENT: METAPHOR AS COMMUNICATED IN JEWISH MUSEUMS IN NEW YORK, JERUSALEM, AND SAN FRANCISCO BY JUDITH F. STAUBER B.S., Communication, Ithaca College, 1989 M.A., Women‘s Studies, The Ohio State University, 1993 Ph.D., Communication, The University of New Mexico, 2010 ABSTRACT As public places, museums negotiate authenticity and re-presentation, fact and ideology, memory and the present confronting a basic question for museums directors, curators, and visitors alike: what is the truth here? In this dissertation, the content and form of four Jewish museums are examined rhetorically: The Jewish Museum, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, both in New York City; the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Four metaphors—rootedness, embeddedness, enshrinement, and transcendence— capture the ways each of these museums conceptualizes and presents Jewish culture. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... ix Chapter One: Introduction ....................................................................................................1 Chapter Two: Literature Review ........................................................................................16 Museum Studies Scholarship: An Overview ...............................................................16 Function of the Museum ..................................................................................16 An Interpretive Turn ........................................................................................18 Museum Communication .............................................................................................22 Cultural Geography: Museum Space and Place...............................................24 The Field of Communication and the Study of Museums ...........................................26 Communication Scholarship on the Jewish Museum ..................................................30 Narrative and the Rhetoric of Museums ......................................................................32 Visual Culture and Rhetoric .............................................................................33 Chapter Three: Methodology ..............................................................................................36 Data Collection ............................................................................................................37 Data Analysis ...............................................................................................................40 Chapter Four: Data Analysis ...............................................................................................43 The Jewish Museum New York, New York ................................................................43 Rootedness ...................................................................................................................43 Organization and Self-Presentation .............................................................................44 Architecture, Landscape, and Place .............................................................................49 Entrance Experience ....................................................................................................55 Exhibition Practices .....................................................................................................60 vi Chapter Five: Data Analysis ................................................................................................66 The Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem Jerusalem, Israel.............................66 Embeddedness..............................................................................................................66 Organization and Self-Presentation .............................................................................67 Architecture, Landscape, and Place .............................................................................69 Entrance Experience ....................................................................................................78 Exhibition Practices .....................................................................................................86 Exit Experience ............................................................................................................94 Chapter Six: Data Analysis ..................................................................................................97 The Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust New York, New York .........................................................................................................97 Enshrinement ...............................................................................................................97 Organization and Self-Presentation .............................................................................98 Architecture, Landscape, and Place .............................................................................98 Entrance Experience ..................................................................................................103 Exhibition Practices ...................................................................................................107 Exit Experience ..........................................................................................................117 Chapter Seven: Data Analysis ...........................................................................................122 Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco, California ........................................122 Transcendence............................................................................................................122 Organization and Self-Presentation ...........................................................................122 Architecture, Landscape, and Place ...........................................................................125 Entrance Experience ..................................................................................................138 vii Exhibition Practices ...................................................................................................141 Exit Experience ..........................................................................................................152