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The Jewish Museum will kick off a new exhibition series, “The Television Project,” with a show featuring works from the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting (NJAB), the country’s largest and most extensive collection of broadcast materials from 20th-century Jewish media culture. Running from September 25 through February 14, 2016, the first “Television Project” show, titled “Picturing a People,” will include clips from The Ed Sullivan Show, Northern Exposure, The Twilight Zone, The Goldbergs, The Simpsons, My Name is Barbra, and the Eichmann Trial Coverage, as well as works of art and other miscellaneous items that represent the best writing, directing, acting, and production throughout the history of American television.
Established in 1981 with a mission to “collect, preserve, and exhibit television programs related to the Jewish experience,” NJAB has amassed more than 4,000 works exemplifying Jewish media representation from the 1930s to the present day. Centered on themes of anti-Semitism, Jews and comedy, Jews and the advertising revolution, and the depictions of Jewish masculinity and femininity in television, “The Television Project” will encompass six exhibitions throughout 2015 to 2018.
Additionally, each show will be accompanied by a compilation video—or “culture story”—by Maurice Berger, a curator and Whitney Biennial alumnus who has been creating compilations of historic American film and television clips exploring Jewish identity since the mid-1990s.