The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum (GCJM), is both an artist-run institution and an artwork in itself. We center contemporary Jewish identity and education, cultural production, and artistic research through the lens and practice of social engagement and the lived Southern Jewish experience. Our programs, artists, and community collaborators aim to deepen and expand the practice of Judaism today. Our work converges at the nexus of contemporary art practice and Southern Jewish life leaving everything open for interpretation, experimentation and exploration with the goal of personalizing, through art and social practice, the meaning of “Jew”ish in today’s Diasporic world while exploring what can serve as an emerging model of a 21st century contemporary Jewish museum in the United States.

Established as a result of an artist residency with the University of North Carolina Greensboro Jewish Studies Department, the GCJM has maintained a conceptual framework since its inception by approaching the establishment, development and operation of the Museum as a creative act. This emerges from boldly asking and responding to questions such as; What can serve as an emerging model of a contemporary Jewish museum in the United States today? How can small Jewish communities through the Southern United States claim the same cultural agency to create a Jewish museum as that of their more metropolitan counterparts in San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles? What would be housed in this museum? Who among the Jewish people would be represented? What would that representation look like through material and other cultural production? What could this museum offer to the discourse on contemporary Jewish life?

We are honored to have collaborated with the following: Elsewhere Museum, the Women of the Shoah Foundation, Greensboro Project Space, Greensboro Jewish Federation, B'nai Shalom Jewish Day School of Greensboro, Scuppernong Books, UNCG University Archives and multiple UNCG departments, Hazon Inc., The Greensboro History Museum, The Museum of Southern Jewish Experience, local and regional artists and academics among others. The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum is proud to be recognized amongst established Jewish museums through the Weizman Museum of American Jewish History and as participating members of the Council of American Jewish Museums.

The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum is generously funded and supported by:

The Herman and Zelda Bernard Distinguished Professorship in Jewish Studies, the Henry Samuel Levinson Program Endowment for Jewish Studies, the Barbara Colchamiro Endowment, the Judish Rosenstock Hyman Jewish Studies Program Endowment, the Milstein Foundation, the Greensboro Jewish Federation, Elsewhere Museum and the Covenant Foundation.