Ups and downs of Anu Museum’s ‘Jewish Resilience Project’ usher us through trying times
New programming developed after Oct. 7 focuses on an ‘oscillating narrative’ that stresses how Jewish history is filled with highs and lows – a combination that fosters endurance
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
In the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led onslaught on southern Israel, the staff at the Anu Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv immediately knew they had to come up with new programming to address the event and its traumatic effects on Jews in Israel and around the world.
“We had to adapt quickly,” said Naama Klar, education director at Anu, speaking to The Times of Israel by phone. With much of the museum staff called up for reserve IDF service in the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, “those left behind thought, ‘How can the Jewish story give us strength in this time?’” she said.
The resulting programming, the Jewish Resilience Project, is “the best answer we came up with so far,” Klar said.
The Anu Museum of the Jewish People, an independent institution located on the campus of Tel Aviv University, opened in 1978 as Beit Hatfutsot, a museum dedicated to the Jewish Diaspora experience. A $100 million 2021 rebrand as Anu, meaning “we” in Hebrew, expanded the museum’s mandate to encompass both Israeli and diasporic Jewish communities.
This rebrand integrated the modern idea of “Jewish Peoplehood” — an update of the “Nation of Israel” concept — that has become popular in the Jewish education community. Klar, in her capacity as Anu education director, oversees the Koret International School for Jewish Peoplehood, which aims to connect “Jewish people to their roots and strengthen their personal and collective Jewish identity,” according to the Anu website.
In creating the Jewish Resilience Project, the staff realized that resilience — Klar used the Hebrew word hosen, which has become a common slogan in Israel post-October 7 — was being misunderstood.
Resilience is associated only with “recovery from trauma,” Klar said, “but it really means to endure, to take a blow, to live through a crisis… while not losing identity and values.”
“We need to find resilience in our hearts. We are in a bad situation, it might get worse… The coming years will be very challenging and we have to be prepared,” she said, speaking of both the situation in Israel and the increased antisemitism abroad.
The museum’s methodology is inspired by project adviser Prof. Marshall Duke, an Emory University psychologist who worked with narratives around family and individual resilience in the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks.
In his research, Duke “discovered that a narrative of resilience oscillates between good times and bad times,” Klar said. The idea is to “maximize the good times and live through the bad times. When we are up we know there is a down, and when we are down there will be an up.”
In contrast to this, “less resilient narratives” stress a more binary view, she said. One example, which she called the “Tel Aviv narrative,” is an “ascending narrative. We had nothing and then we grew, from nothing to everything.”
“Then there is the descending story. We used to have everything, and now we have nothing, alone. A bit like the Palestinian narrative,” Klar said.
An “oscillating narrative” for the Jewish people stresses “the good times, bad times and the movement between them… This whole philosophy means we have to help Jews remember what it means to be Jewish before we create contemporary, limited stories” based on current trauma that doesn’t include a broader perspective, she said.
Practically, Anu’s Jewish Resilience Project consists of several components: a specialized lecture/presentation about October 7, a group workshop focusing on Duke’s resilience ideas as applied to the current situation, a tour of the museum that includes an exhibit on October 7, and a training program aimed at Jewish professionals.
There is also a portable version of the program that can be presented to audiences abroad, as Klar did recently at a conference of Jewish educators in Argentina. Because of the sensitive nature of some of the materials, parts of the programming are restricted to those aged 16 and up. Some components, especially those touching directly on the events of October 7 — when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists butchered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 251 to the Gaza Strip — are presented differently to Israeli audiences, who are closer to the trauma, Klar noted.
The museum tour includes The Codex Sassoon, a 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible purchased for $38 million last year and donated to Anu for permanent display. The codex arrived at the museum on October 5, but the celebratory opening event was canceled because of October 7, Klar said.
The Codex Sassoon, with its “oscillating stories and history,” perfectly illustrates the ideas of the Jewish Resilience Project, she said, adding that it’s “very meaningful having this artifact back in Israel and with the Jewish people.”
“There is a lot of science about how trauma is transferred intergenerationally. I firmly believe that resilience is intergenerational as well,” Klar said, something that she stressed isn’t always understood in Israeli society.
“In Israel, we negate the Diaspora, we misunderstand it completely. But everything good and strong we inherited from them,” she said.
“We have to amend this story, we have to understand ourselves as part of this intergenerational chain of resilience. Once we understand that, we have this huge advantage… and can translate this into usable tools that people can use now to connect to hope, and see the day after,” Klar said.
