Collections

Through our collections, the Maltz Museum documents, preserves and shares the stories of the Cleveland Jewish community and their descendants. The Museum acquires objects and documents that tell these stories. Additionally, the Maltz Museum partners with the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Mishkan Or Museum of Jewish Cultures to collaboratively share and display historic artifacts that tell local stories as well as Judaica that spans 500 years of Jewish culture from all over the world.

Treasured and irreplaceable family photographs; the Alsbacher Document, an 1839 booklet that marks the beginning of the Jewish community of Cleveland; a pair of gold salt cellars returned to the Gold family after the Holocaust—these are some of the many Museum objects that illustrate Jewish life, reveal Jewish self-reliance in Cleveland, and express the pain of extreme loss in the Shoah.

While only a small portion of collaborative collections are on view at a time, all objects contribute in crucial ways to understanding the material culture of the Cleveland Jewish Community.