Melissa Martens Yaverbaum to head Council of American Jewish Museums

Veteran in the field will become new executive director of organization representing 80 institutions

By JTA 11 September 2014, 6:22 am

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Interior of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: CC-BY-SA AgnosticPreachersKid, Wikimedia Commons)

The Council of American Jewish Museums, which represents 80 institutions, has named Melissa Martens Yaverbaum as its executive director.

Yaverbaum, who has worked in the museum field for 24 years, currently serves as the director of collections and exhibitions at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City.

“This is a critical time in the Jewish museum field, a time to assess how we can better respond to communities, new potential audiences, and new topics of import,” Yaverbaum said in a statement this week announcing her appointment.

As a board member of the Council of American Jewish Museums for a decade, she launched a fellowship program for emerging professionals in the field.

Yaverbaum in her statement called the council “the key convener, advocate, and representative for the Jewish museum field.”