JCC Manhattan To Receive $20 Million Gift and Jenny Holzer Artwork
Image by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP/Getty Images
According to a report in the New York Times, JCC Manhattan has announced that it has received a gift of $20 million from the Meyerson Family Foundation, which also commissioned a site-specific artwork for the center. In honored of the donation, JCC Manhattan will be renamed the Marlene Meyerson JCC, starting in February 2018.
The gift is believed to be one of the largest ever contributions to a Jewish Community Center in the United States.
The Meyerson family was an early supporter of Holzer’s work. The American neo-conceptual artist is known for her critical approach to media and work with language, prominently exhibiting texts so as to intervene in and comment upon the public sphere.
Holzer’s installation for the JCC will respond to the question, “What does community mean?” Over the next several months, the center will put that question to its members, and a selection of their answers will be chiseled onto marble benches and stone plaques through its headquarters on the Upper West Side. The piece will also have a digital component, including other responses in a virtual map of the building, as well as an augmented reality smartphone app.
Daniel Witkin is the Forward’s Culture Intern. Reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @dzwitkin
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
