State of the Arts: A Best Practices Guide for U.S. Museums

About this guide

Art museums are among the most trusted institutions in public life, occupying a privileged position as arbiters of cultural value and historical significance and shaping what audiences understand about who belongs in a country’s cultural story. ADL’s role in that work is not only to evaluate institutions and hold them accountable — it is to support them and equip the people doing the work with practical means to create lasting change.

ADL evaluated 40 major American art museums across ten criteria spanning institutional policy, representation in collections and exhibitions and partnership with Jewish communities. What we found is a field with real strengths to build on and real opportunities ahead. This guide sets out what excellence looks like on each criterion and highlights the museums already doing that work — with links, examples and model language any institution can adapt and adopt.

Much of what follows is achievable within an existing budget and calendar year. A curator’s selection published for Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM), a loan conversation with a local Jewish museum, a policy paragraph that names antisemitism among the forms of discrimination an institution prohibits — these are achievable changes, not major organizational overhauls.

ADL wants to be a partner in this work, not only an evaluator of it. Our team is available to museums seeking guidance on policy language, staff training, community partnerships, programming and more — and we welcome the chance to learn about work already underway that this guide may not have captured. Write to us at [email protected].

How to use this guide. Each of the ten sections opens with The Standard — the three markers ADL looks for on that criterion — followed by institutions demonstrating them in practice, with links to the underlying evidence. Each section is also marked with a strategic timeframe.

Sequencing this work

Museums plan on different clocks. An exhibition is scheduled years ahead; policy changes can begin immediately. Nothing in this guide requires waiting for the next strategic plan, and a museum that wants to begin can begin immediately.

Immediate — weeks, not quarters. Policy language, reporting infrastructure and Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) recognition are governed by decisions an institution already has the authority to make. They require drafting and publishing, not budgeting.

This year. Staff and docent training, educational programming, partnership outreach and publishing provenance research already underway all fit inside a single program calendar.

Multi-year. Acquisitions and exhibitions run on the longest clock, and the museums featured here largely programmed collections they already held rather than acquiring anything new. The horizon is long; the starting point usually is not.

Part One: Policy, Reporting and Internal Standards

Planning horizon: Immediate

A clearly identifiable reporting channel. Visitors should be able to locate a dedicated, visitor-facing mechanism for reporting discrimination, harassment or bias without having to search through a general contact page, information inbox or customer-service form. The reporting option should be prominently linked from the museum’s website and written in plain, accessible language.

Clear statement of protected categories. The reporting mechanism should explicitly identify the forms of discrimination it covers – including religion, ethnicity and national origin and other protected characteristics – under the institution’s policies. Visitors should not have to infer whether antisemitism or other forms of discrimination fall within its scope before deciding whether to report an incident.

A transparent reporting process. The reporting page should explain, in straightforward language, how reports are handled. At a minimum, it should identify who receives reports, whether anonymous reporting is permitted, what confidentiality protections apply, what information reporters should expect to provide, how reports are assessed, whether the reporter will receive acknowledgment or follow-up and what steps the institution may take in response. Even if outcomes vary by circumstance, the process itself should not be opaque.

Accessibility and accountability. The reporting mechanism should be easy to access from both desktop and mobile devices, usable by people with disabilities and monitored by staff with clear responsibility for reviewing and responding to submissions. Contact information should be kept current, and institutions should periodically review the process to ensure it remains functional and visible.

An institution cannot address what it does not know. Museums serve thousands of visitors a week across galleries, lobbies, ticket lines, education programs and public events — and the overwhelming majority of what happens in those spaces never reaches leadership. A visitor harassed at a coat check, a school group that encounters a slur in a gallery, a docent told something disturbing by a guest: absent a mechanism to capture it, none of that becomes information the institution can act on. It becomes a private experience the museum never learns about, and results in a visitor who does not come back.

This is why reporting infrastructure is the foundational criterion in this guide rather than a procedural footnote. Every other commitment a museum makes — to training, to policy, to community relationships — depends on knowing what is actually happening in its building. The first step in addressing a problem is being able to see it. A reporting channel is what allows leadership to recognize a pattern, brief a board, reassure a community and demonstrate good faith to a funder or a state or federal agency.

It also matters well beyond addressing the issue of antisemitism. A reporting mechanism built for one community serves every community that walks through the door — visitors of every faith and background, people with disabilities, staff and volunteers. Museums that build this are not creating a Jewish-specific process. They are building the basic civil rights infrastructure any public institution serving a diverse public should have.

The DIA publishes a dedicated contact address for its Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access team on its diversity page, rather than routing visitor concerns through a general information line. A visitor knows who is on the other end and that the office exists for exactly this purpose. It is a meaningful advance on field practice and the right foundation to build a full process.

Universities have been building this infrastructure for a decade under sustained public scrutiny, and museums can adopt what already works. NYU — which earned an A in ADL’s 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card — operates a Bias Response Line through its Office of Equal Opportunity, with three ways to make a report: a phone line, a dedicated email address, and an online form. A staff member follows up within 48 hours of the next business day. Reports are handled under the university’s non-discrimination policy, with explicit confidentiality provisions and explicit protection against retaliation for the person reporting. Two design choices are especially worth borrowing. NYU states plainly that conduct does not have to rise to the legal definition of a hate crime before the institution will act under its own policies, which invites the reports that would otherwise go unmade. And the line is clearly separated from emergency channels, so visitors are directed to safety services when the situation calls for it and to the reporting process when it does not. The parallel is direct: a university is a large institution with a transient daily population, multiple points of contact, and obligations under Title VI. So is a museum.

https://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-guidelines-compliance/equal-opportunity/bias-response.html

A note for university-affiliated museums. Several major art museums sit within universities that already operate full bias-reporting infrastructure, but most museum websites do not link to that infrastructure. A visitor to the museum has no way to reach a mechanism that already exists to serve them. Adding that link is a practical and efficient solution.

Planning horizon: This year

Training that reaches the people visitors actually encounter. Anti-discrimination training – including training about antisemitism – should extend beyond annual compliance sessions for salaried employees. It should include the staff and volunteers who interact most directly with the public – including visitor services, security personnel, gallery attendants, docents, volunteers, and contracted front-of-house staff. These individuals are often the first to witness or respond to incidents and should be equipped to recognize, de-escalate and appropriately report them.

Explicit coverage of antisemitism. Antisemitism should be addressed by name as a distinct form of discrimination rather than subsumed within a general diversity or harassment statement. Training should help participants recognize contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and understand how antisemitism may present in visitor interactions, staff conduct, exhibitions, public programs or online engagement. Participants should leave with a shared vocabulary and concrete examples rather than abstract principles alone.

Delivered by qualified subject matter experts. Training should be developed or delivered by organizations with recognized expertise in antisemitism education, Jewish communal life and civil rights. Qualified partners may include Jewish communal organizations (including ADL), Holocaust education centers and academic experts. The objective is not simply to satisfy a training requirement, but to ensure that the content reflects current scholarship, lived experience and established best practices.

Practical and repeatable. Training should include realistic scenarios relevant to museum settings, opportunities to practice appropriate responses and clear guidance on institutional policies and reporting procedures. It should be incorporated into onboarding for new staff and volunteers and refreshed periodically so that knowledge remains current and institutional expectations are consistently reinforced.

Ahead of “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945,” Mia asked the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas to deliver professional training on Jewish civilization to roughly 150 staff and volunteers and continued the relationship through public tours and educational programming across the exhibition’s run. Three things make this a model worth following. The museum initiated the request rather than responding to a complaint. It went to a Jewish communal partner for the content instead of writing it in-house. And it trained volunteers and docents, not only employees — the people who actually enjoy the galleries.

Sample language for a training commitment: “All public-facing staff, docents and volunteers complete annual training on identifying and responding to discriminatory conduct, including antisemitism, delivered in partnership with [organization]. Staff who exhibit, interpret or program content engaging Jewish history or Israeli subject matter receive additional subject-specific preparation.”

Planning horizon: Immediate

A public-facing policy that clearly identifies protected characteristics. The institution should maintain a publicly accessible code of conduct or non-discrimination policy that explicitly identifies the protected characteristics it covers, including religion, ethnicity, and national origin, rather than relying on broad statements that prohibit discrimination in the abstract. Clear enumeration helps visitors, staff and volunteers understand both the institution’s commitments and the protections afforded them.

Explicit recognition of antisemitism. The policy should identify antisemitism by name among the forms of prohibited discriminatory conduct. Jewish visitors and employees should be able to see that the institution has considered antisemitism as a distinct issue, rather than having to infer that it is covered under a broader reference to religion or ethnicity. Naming antisemitism signals that complaints will be recognized, evaluated and addressed within an established institutional framework.

A clear, operational definition. The policy should be accompanied by a definition or interpretive standard that explains what the institution means by antisemitism. The purpose is not to create an exhaustive catalogue of prohibited behavior, but to provide a common framework that promotes consistent application. Without a shared definition, policies are more difficult to enforce and staff are left to make case-by-case judgments without clear guidance. A defined standard helps ensure that similar incidents are evaluated consistently while preserving room for context and professional judgment.

The most developed models for this work come from higher education, where sustained federal attention and Title VI enforcement have pushed institutions to write specific policy language. Museums face the same obligations when they accept federal funds, and can adapt what universities have already tested rather than drafting from scratch.

Under its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying policies, Harvard adopted a definition of antisemitism and published a public FAQ explaining how the policy is applied. The adoption followed settlement agreements, but the structure is instructive regardless of what produced it: the policy names the conduct, defines it, and explains its application in one publicly reachable place.

ADL’s published best practices for colleges and universities recommend integrating a definition of antisemitism into codes of conduct and related policies. The recommendation translates directly to cultural institutions, which face the same Title VI obligations when they receive federal funds.

BAMPFA, part of UC Berkeley, adopts the University of California’s systemwide anti-discrimination policy, which explicitly addresses antisemitism — and, importantly, it links that policy directly from the museum’s own homepage. For a university-affiliated museum this is the model: the institution need not draft its own code from scratch when a policy that names antisemitism already governs it, but a policy a visitor cannot find does no work. Adopting the university standard and surfacing it where the public actually looks — the museum’s front page — is what turns coverage on paper into coverage in practice.

Sample language: “The Museum prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or veteran status. Prohibited conduct includes antisemitism, defined as [definition adopted by the institution], and the Museum applies this standard equally to conduct directed at any protected group.”

Planning horizon: Immediate

A public policy that addresses both solicitation and demonstrations. The institution should maintain a written, visitor-facing policy governing solicitation and demonstrations on museum property. Because these activities raise distinct operational and legal considerations, the policy should address each explicitly rather than assuming one encompasses the other. It should be easy for visitors to locate before arriving and written in clear, accessible language that communicates the institution’s expectations.

Specific, observable standards of conduct. The policy should identify the behaviors that are and are not permitted rather than relying on broad appeals to civility or respectful behavior. Clear standards – such as where demonstrations may occur, whether amplified sound is permitted, restrictions on obstructing entrances or galleries, or rules governing distribution of materials—give visitors notice of the rules and provide staff with objective criteria for consistent enforcement.

Content-neutral application. The policy should regulate conduct, not viewpoint. Its provisions should apply equally regardless of the cause, message or political position being expressed, and they should be enforced consistently across all groups and events. A content-neutral approach protects the institution’s credibility, reduces the appearance of selective enforcement and helps ensure that operational decisions are based on behavior rather than the substance of speech.

Some museums have written clear, workable policies in this area, and the language below shows what that looks like on the page. What these examples share is specificity — they name behaviors rather than gesturing at decorum, which is what makes a policy enforceable rather than aspirational.

The Guggenheim’s visitor policy prohibits “charitable solicitations, leafleting, signature gathering, picketing, and press conferences.” It is a single provision that covers both solicitation and demonstration, it names the specific behaviors rather than gesturing at decorum, and it is content-neutral on its face — a staff member does not have to evaluate the message before applying the rule.

The NGA does what most policies do not: it defines what it means by demonstration, enumerating “demonstrations, picketing, speechmaking, marching, holding vigils.” Defining the term converts a policy from a statement of values into an operational standard a staff member can apply without having to interpret it on their own.

BAMPFA aligns with UC Berkeley’s policy governing the time, place and manner of expressive activity, and links it from the museum’s site. Time-place-manner rules regulate conduct rather than message, which makes them content-neutral by design, and — as with its anti-discrimination policy — BAMPFA’s contribution is to make the governing rule easy for a visitor to find rather than leaving it buried in university administration. For the many art museums that sit inside universities, deferring to a clear, content-neutral campus policy and linking it publicly is a legitimate and efficient way to meet this standard.

The DMA pairs its visitor rules with a clear internal standard for its own staff. Employees may not wear clothing with political messages on the job; the museum’s name may not be used to conduct political activity or to portray the institution as sponsoring a political cause; and under the DMA Code of Ethics staff may not trade on their museum affiliation to support political or social causes. Employees who speak on political or social issues are asked to make clear that they do so personally and not for the museum. Visitor-facing conduct rules govern what happens in the building; a staff-neutrality policy governs how the institution’s own voice is used, and the two together are what keep enforcement credible.

Part Two: Representation in Collections and Exhibitions

Planning horizon: Multi-year

Collection depth made visible. Museums with significant Judaica or Jewish-themed holdings should ensure that these collections are visible to the public through permanent galleries, rotating installations or other recurring displays. Collection stewardship extends beyond preservation; it includes making holdings accessible and interpretable. Material that remains indefinitely in storage or is discoverable only through an online collections database does little to communicate that Jewish history and culture are part of the institution’s ongoing public narrative.

Regular exhibitions centered on Jewish subjects. Over the course of a decade, museums should present at least one exhibition in which Jewish history, ritual life, artistic traditions or Jewish identity is the central organizing theme. Jewish representation should not depend solely on the inclusion of individual Jewish artists within broader thematic or chronological exhibitions. Dedicated exhibitions demonstrate that Jewish experience is recognized as a subject worthy of sustained scholarly and curatorial attention in its own right.

A portrayal of Jewish life across time. Museums should present both the historical and the contemporary dimensions of Jewish life. Exhibitions should pair ritual objects, historical artifacts and archival material with the work of living Jewish artists and contemporary cultural expression. Presenting only historical material risks portraying Jewish identity as something belonging primarily to the past; integrating contemporary voices reflects the continuity, diversity and ongoing vitality of Jewish life.

The most common shortfall in this area is not an empty collection. It is a deep collection that never becomes an exhibition. Museums that clear this bar have generally not acquired anything new — they have programmed what they already own.

Mia mounted “Celebrating Passover in an Enlightened Age” (2018–19), “The Sabbath Now” (2019–20), and “Envisioning Evil: The Nazi Drawings by Mauricio Lasansky” (2021–22) within a four-year window — ritual life, contemporary practice, and Holocaust memory. The lesson is that these are three different subjects, and a museum serious about Jewish representation programs across all of them rather than treating any one as sufficient.

The MFA pairs an ongoing Judaica gallery, “Intentional Beauty: Jewish Ritual Art,” with a run of dedicated exhibitions: “Memory Unearthed” on the Lodz Ghetto (2017), Hyman Bloom (2019–20) framed explicitly around the artist’s Jewish faith, and “Rembrandt and the Jews” (2025–26). The permanent gallery is what makes the exhibitions read as commitment rather than occasion.

Cleveland installed “Adorning Ritual: Jewish Ceremonial Art from the Jewish Museum, New York” across six permanent-collection galleries, then renewed it for a second installation after the first. A museum without deep Judaica holdings of its own can do exactly this: the material exists, and Jewish museums lend.

Every recommendation in this section that begins “a museum can borrow” depends on a lender, and the Jewish Museum, New York is the field’s most active one. Its loan program places Judaica and works by Jewish artists in general art museums across the country: the Cleveland Museum of Art’s two installations of “Adorning Ritual” were drawn from it, the Detroit Institute of Arts’ current “Guests of Honor: Art and Faith” is built on it, and the Dallas Museum of Art has both borrowed from and lent to its collection. For an institution without deep Judaica holdings of its own, this is the shortest path to putting Jewish ceremonial art and Jewish stories on the walls — the works, the scholarship and the curatorial partnership already exist, and the Jewish Museum lends all three. ADL commends the Jewish Museum, New York for sustaining a loan program that has quietly made much of the best practice in this guide possible.

The DIA is establishing a new collecting area dedicated to Jewish ceremonial objects and art illustrating Jewish life — and, unusually, it is pairing that collection with designated permanent gallery space and an endowed curatorial position. Most of the examples in this section are exhibitions programmed from existing holdings; the DIA is building the holdings, the room to show them and the staff line to steward them at once. An endowed curatorial position in particular converts Jewish representation from a project that depends on any one director’s priorities into a permanent institutional function.

Planning horizon: Multi-year

Visible representation of Jewish and Israeli artists. Museums that collect the work of Jewish and Israeli artists should identify those artists consistently in public-facing labels, catalog records and other materials, just as they do artists from other national or cultural backgrounds when such information is relevant. Representation is not simply a matter of acquisition; it requires that visitors be able to recognize Israeli artists as part of the institution’s public narrative rather than only through internal documentation.

Exhibition as well as acquisition. Acquiring works by Israeli and Jewish artists is an important first step, but meaningful representation requires public display. Over the course of a decade, museums should present at least one dedicated exhibition, focused installation or solo presentation featuring an Israeli/Jewish artist or artists. Works that enter the collection but remain indefinitely in storage or appear only sporadically in group exhibitions contribute little to public visibility or cultural engagement.

Curatorial engagement on equal terms. Israeli artists should be engaged as artists, not simply as representatives of a geopolitical context. Museums should demonstrate the same level of curatorial investment they would for other artists they regard as significant through thoughtful interpretation, scholarly catalogues, commissions, public programs, artist talks or other forms of sustained engagement. The goal is not exceptional treatment, but parity: Israeli artists should receive the same depth of curatorial attention afforded to comparable artists elsewhere in the collection or exhibition program.

This criterion has the lowest entry cost of anything in this guide. A single commissioned work or one focused presentation clears the bar. The museums below did not undertake anything institutionally exotic; they gave an Israeli artist a show.

“Chicago Works: Assaf Evron” (2019–20) was the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, presented within an existing series the museum already ran for local artists. The exhibition was supported through the Artis grant program, which is a practical answer to the resource objection: dedicated funding exists for exactly this work.

BAMPFA presented the first United States solo exhibition of Israeli artist Rina Kimche (2023), drawn substantially from works given to its own collection, and programmed a companion lecture on Israeli modernism co-presented with the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. The exhibition and the intellectual framing arrived together.

Planning horizon: This year

— A dedicated, publicly reachable provenance page that names the Nazi era explicitly — 1933 to 1945 — rather than describing provenance research in general terms.

— Published object lists, so researchers and heirs can search which works have ownership gaps in that period without filing a request.

— Institutional capacity and a documented record: staff assigned to the work, and restitution outcomes disclosed rather than quietly settled.

A dedicated provenance research policy. Museums should maintain a publicly accessible provenance research page that explicitly addresses the Nazi era (1933–1945) rather than describing provenance research only in general terms. The page should explain the institution’s approach to researching ownership histories, identifying works with gaps in provenance, responding to potential claims and applying recognized professional standards. Clear, public guidance signals that Nazi-era provenance research is an ongoing institutional responsibility rather than an occasional project.

Publicly available object lists. Museums should publish searchable lists of works whose ownership history during the 1933–1945 period is incomplete or under active investigation. Making these records publicly available allows researchers, potential heirs and other interested parties to identify relevant objects without having to submit individual inquiries and demonstrates the institution’s commitment to transparency in provenance research.

Institutional commitment and transparency. Provenance research should be supported by identifiable institutional capacity, whether through dedicated staff, clearly assigned responsibilities or sustained partnerships with qualified researchers. Museums should also make the outcomes of provenance investigations and restitution claims publicly available whenever possible. Transparency about claims, resolutions and restitutions builds public confidence, contributes to the broader scholarly record and demonstrates that provenance research is an active, accountable institutional function rather than one conducted behind closed doors.

This is the area where American museums have built the most mature practice of any criterion in this guide, and it is worth naming why: sustained external attention, professional standards through AAM and AAMD, and in several states a legal mandate. It is a proof of concept. Where the field has been given a clear standard and a reason to meet it, the field has met it.

CMA maintains a dedicated Nazi-era provenance page disclosing hundreds of European paintings and sculptures with ownership gaps in the period and documents its restitution history rather than leaving settlements unmentioned.

https://www.clevelandart.org/about-collection/nazi-era-provenance

VMFA publishes its Nazi-era provenance research, documents four resolved claims including three restitutions, and in 2025 appointed a Senior Manager of Provenance Research. A named position converts provenance from a project that ends into a function that continues.

https://www.vmfa.museum/collection/provenance-research

The Met has treated Nazi-era provenance as a permanent institutional function for more than two decades. It helped draft the 1998 AAM and AAMD spoliation guidelines; in 2000 it launched a Provenance Research Project that published online the ownership history and images of every European painting with changed or unknown ownership in continental Europe between 1933 and 1945, and it contributes that list to the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal, the central U.S. registry. It has restituted or settled ten works and documents them publicly, and — under New York’s 2022 law — flags with a gallery label the roughly seventy works displaced by persecution and later recovered. In 2023 it went further, launching a Cultural Property Initiative that built the largest provenance research team of any museum — eleven researchers led by a dedicated specialist — repatriated objects to multiple countries, and expanded published ownership histories for more than 2,500 works. This is what the mature end of this criterion looks like: not a page, but a standing, staffed, continuously published program.

https://www.metmuseum.org/research-centers/provenance-research

The DMA publishes its provenance research and states a clear restitution commitment: it follows the AAMD guidelines on Nazi-era spoliation (1933–1945), researches works to avoid accessioning objects with unresolved provenance gaps, and commits to returning any such object to its rightful owners or their descendants — handling competing claims “openly, seriously, responsively, and with respect for the dignity of all parties involved.” Publishing the commitment, not only the research, is what tells a potential heir how the museum will actually respond.

https://dma.org/art/research/provenance

Part Three: Partnership, Programming and Community

Planning horizon: This year

An active institutional partnership. Museums should cultivate sustained working relationships with Jewish museums, archives, cultural organizations or other Jewish communal institutions that extend beyond informal contact or inclusion on a mailing list. Meaningful partnerships may include co-curated exhibitions, reciprocal loans, jointly organized public programs, collaborative research, shared acquisitions or other projects that require ongoing institutional engagement and shared responsibility.

Sustained rather than episodic engagement. Partnerships should be measured over time rather than by isolated events. A single lecture, exhibition or collaboration from years past does not, on its own, demonstrate an enduring institutional relationship. Museums should seek repeated collaborations with multiple Jewish organizations over the course of several years, reflecting a commitment to ongoing engagement rather than occasional outreach.

Institutional initiative. Strong partnerships are characterized by proactive institutional leadership. Museums should not rely solely on responding to proposals brought by external organizations but should themselves identify opportunities for collaboration and invite Jewish partners into the planning and development of exhibitions, programs, collections and research. Partnerships initiated by the museum demonstrate that engagement with Jewish institutions is an integrated part of its curatorial and public mission rather than an ad hoc response to outside requests.

In 2023 the MFA and the Jewish Museum, New York jointly acquired a pair of 1729 Torah finials by Abraham Lopes de Oliveyra, the earliest known Jewish silversmith to work in England, with the object alternating between the two institutions on a shared display schedule. The MFA also runs an annual Hanukkah celebration with the Vilna Shul and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and has co-presented film programming with the Boston Jewish Film Festival and the Jewish Women’s Archive. Joint acquisition is the highest form this practice takes: two institutions permanently bound to a shared object.

https://www.mfa.org/press-release/torah-finials

MAM’s relationship with Jewish Museum Milwaukee runs in both directions and across years: MAM lent its collection for JMM’s exhibition of Wisconsin Jewish artists, JMM’s curator delivered a gallery talk at MAM (2023), and the two co-presented the Milwaukee premiere of “Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life” with the Milwaukee Jewish Film Festival and the Stahl Center for Jewish Studies (2024). This is the most replicable model in the guide — nearly every city with a major art museum also has a Jewish museum, historical society, or federation.

OCMA served as a display venue for Violins of Hope Orange County (June 2025), the countywide Holocaust-instrument project mounted alongside the Merage JCC and University Synagogue, and hosted the Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County’s annual Endowment Book of Life celebration in its galleries. Neither required a curatorial department or a Judaica collection. A museum can become a civic home for Jewish community life by opening its building, and that relationship tends to lead somewhere.

https://jcfoc.org/ebl2025/

The DIA’s Jewish partnerships run in several directions simultaneously: a current exhibition, “Guests of Honor: Art and Faith,” developed with the Jewish Museum, New York and with Jewish cultural advisors; a working relationship with the Zekelman Holocaust Center that includes docent training and shared education-department practice; and membership in the Council of American Jewish Museums. Alongside these it hosts recurring programming such as the Detroit Jewish Book Fair and the Jewish Ensemble Theatre’s staging of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The breadth is the point — the museum is not relying on a single marquee collaboration but has built relationships with a Jewish art museum, a Holocaust center and a national museum association at the same time.

https://dia.org/events/exhibitions/guests-honor-art-faith-jewish-museum-new-york

The DMA’s partnerships take the concrete forms the Standard describes. In 2023 it co-acquired a Doug Aitken video work jointly with the Israel Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, and it has both lent to and borrowed from the Jewish Museum, New York — most recently lending to the Jewish Museum’s Joan Semmel exhibition. Locally it works with Temple Emanu-El, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum and the National Council of Jewish Women’s Greater Dallas section. A shared acquisition and reciprocal loans are the difference between a museum that occasionally shows Jewish art and one with standing institutional relationships.

The Saint Louis Art Museum partners with ADL on No Place for Hate, ADL’s anti-bias and anti-hate education framework, and offers it through the museum’s student programs. Bringing a structured anti-hate program into museum education — rather than treating inclusion as a one-time message — reaches school groups where the museum already has their attention, and does so with a civil-rights partner that brings subject-matter expertise. It is a replicable move for any museum with a school-visit program: the framework already exists, and adopting it makes a museum visit part of a student’s anti-bias education.

https://www.slam.org/teachers-students/student-programs/no-place-for-hate/

Planning horizon: This year

— Recurring rather than singular — a series, an annual observance, or a sustained program, not one lecture that closed the file.

— Substantive Jewish content: history, ritual, artistic tradition, or contemporary Jewish life treated as a subject in its own right.

— Multiple audiences — school groups, adults, members, families — because a program that reaches only one constituency reaches a fraction of the museum’s public.

Sustained programming rather than one-time events. Museums should demonstrate an ongoing commitment to public programming on Jewish topics through recurring lecture series, annual observances, educational initiatives or other sustained offerings. A single event, however successful, is not equivalent to a continuing program. Regular programming signals that Jewish history, culture, and artistic expression are part of the museum’s enduring public mission rather than an occasional area of interest.

Substantive engagement with Jewish subjects. Programs should treat Jewish history, ritual life, artistic traditions, contemporary Jewish culture or related topics as subjects worthy of sustained exploration in their own right. Jewish perspectives should not appear only incidentally within broader discussions. Programming should provide audiences with meaningful opportunities to engage with Jewish ideas, experiences, and artistic contributions through scholarship, dialogue, and creative practice.

Programming for diverse audiences. Museums should offer Jewish-focused programming across multiple audience groups, including school programs, adult education, family programming, member events and public lectures or performances. Reaching a broad cross-section of visitors helps integrate Jewish content into the institution’s overall educational mission rather than confining it to a single audience or specialized constituency. A robust program reflects the understanding that Jewish history and culture are relevant to the museum’s public as a whole, not only to those already seeking them out.

Around The Evidence Room, its installation reconstructing the architecture of Auschwitz, the Hirshhorn presented “In Conversation: Origins of The Evidence Room” — explicitly framed as the first in a series of discussions on memory, history and representation, with architectural historian Robert Jan van Pelt. Announcing a program as the opening of a series rather than a standalone event changes what the museum has committed to and how audiences plan around it.

https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/the-evidence-room/

The Met partnered with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research on a seminar course, “It’s Time We Met: Ashkenazi Heritage at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” and includes Hanukkah in its annual Holidays at The Met programming with free guided tours. The seminar model is worth noting: the museum did not acquire anything for it. It interpreted holdings it already had, with a scholarly partner supplying the expertise.

For its Maurice Sendak exhibition, Denver produced “Sendak Stories: Beyond Wild Things,” a five-part museum-produced podcast series opening with Tony Kushner on Sendak’s Jewish material. A podcast costs a fraction of an exhibition, reaches an audience far beyond the building, and remains available after the show closes.

https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/wild-things-exhibition-guide

Planning horizon: Immediate

Institutional recognition through the museum’s own platforms. Museums should recognize JAHM through their own public channels, including their website, social media accounts, newsletters and other institutional communications. Recognition should come in the museum’s own voice and under its own name, demonstrating that the observance is part of the institution’s public calendar.

Recognition paired with meaningful programming. Public acknowledgment should be accompanied by substantive content that invites audiences to engage more deeply with Jewish art, history and culture. This may include a curator’s selection of works from the collection, gallery tours, public lectures, artist conversations, educational resources or special exhibitions. A commemorative graphic or statement is an appropriate starting point, but programming demonstrates that the institution is investing in interpretation and public engagement rather than symbolic recognition alone.

Consistency across heritage observances. Museums should approach JAHM with the same level of institutional attention they devote to other heritage months and cultural observances. While programming will naturally differ according to collections, mission and audience, the overall level of visibility, institutional support and public engagement should reflect a consistent standard. Marked disparities in recognition are readily apparent to visitors and community partners and may undermine the institution’s commitment to equitable representation.

Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) falls in May.

In 2026, the MFA recognized Jewish American Heritage Month on its own channels — the current-cycle marker this Standard asks for, and one that few museums in the field are currently meeting. What makes the MFA’s recognition more than a commemorative graphic is that it has the holdings and programming to stand behind it: an ongoing Judaica gallery and a record of dedicated exhibitions and partnerships mean JAHM can be paired with real objects, tours or a curator’s selection rather than a statement alone. Recognition in the museum’s own voice, tied to what is actually on the walls, is the model this section describes.

The road ahead

The museums in this guide demonstrate that every standard described here is achievable. None of them required a capital campaign or an institutional overhaul. They required a curator who asked a question, a director who took a meeting, a policy paragraph someone sat down and wrote.

The field as a whole has meaningful distance to travel. Representation of Jewish and Israeli artists remains uneven across American museums. Partnerships with Jewish institutions are strong in some cities and absent in others. And in three areas — reporting infrastructure, staff training, and policy language that names antisemitism — the field is still early, which means the museums that act now will be establishing the standard their peers follow rather than catching up to one.

That is an opportunity, and we mean it as one. Museums are not being asked to solve antisemitism. They are being asked to do what they already do well — collect, interpret, program, convene, and set institutional policy — with Jewish life and Jewish artists fully in view.

Working with ADL

ADL wants to be a partner in this work. We are prepared to meet with any institution in the field, whether the conversation is about a policy question, a training need, a programming idea or a difficult situation already underway. There is no cost, no prerequisite and no requirement that a museum be doing well already. We want to hear from any institution interested in strengthening their efforts in this space.

— Reviewing and drafting conduct and non-discrimination policy language, including definitions of antisemitism suited to a cultural institution.

— Delivering antisemitism, Title VI and Title VII training for staff, docents and volunteers, free of charge, through ADL’s education programs and our regional offices.

— Connecting museums to Jewish institutions, scholars and artists in their own communities. The partnerships mentioned in this guide all began with an introduction.

— Advising on incident response, security concerns and community communication when something goes wrong.

To start a conversation, write to [email protected]. We welcome the chance to learn about work already underway that this guide may not have captured.

[CALLOUT BOX — Creative Studio: set apart from body text; this section addresses the public rather than museum professionals]

Most museums do not yet offer a way to report discrimination or harassment on site. Until they do, ADL is a place those experiencing an incident can go. If you have encountered antisemitism or other bias at a museum, theater, concert hall, library, or other cultural institution — as a visitor, an artist, a staff member, or a volunteer — you can report it to ADL at adl.org/report-incident.

Reports help us understand what is happening across the cultural sector, support the people affected, and work with institutions to respond.

Contact ADL’s Legal Action Network

The ADL Legal Action Network, powered by Gibson Dunn and supported by leading law firms nationwide, connects people who have experienced antisemitic discrimination, intimidation, harassment, vandalism or violence with potential legal support. Individuals can submit an incident to ADL for review, and participating legal teams will evaluate whether free legal assistance may be available through the Network.

[1] Disclaimer: Contemporary museums are assessed under a different provenance framework, as the overwhelming majority of their collections consist of post–World War II works, which generally carry fewer historical provenance risks than older collections.