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The Contemporary Jewish Museum Celebrates Authors Big and Small on April 9 with Free Admission For SF Public Library Card Holders and Lots of Family Friendly Activities

(San Francisco, CA, February 23, 2017) The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM) celebrates bookmakers big and small this April with a special Family Day presented in partnership with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), San Francisco SPCA’s Puppy Dog Tales, and the San Francisco Center for the Book. SFPL cardholders receive free admission for themselves and one guest.

The event on April 9, 2017 from 11am–3pm features a whole host of family friendly activities that encourage a love of books and reading. The Green Bookmobile will be parked in front of The Museum throughout the event so families can sign up for new library cards, check out books, and more. Also available throughout is a special Book Arts activity with the San Francisco Center for the Book in the Art Studio. Families can work together to design and make their very own book art.

At 11am, enjoy a free performance of Kate and the Beanstalk by Acrolele—part acrobatics, part storytelling, part ukulele, and all fun. Then at 12:30pm and again at 1:30pm, settle in for storytimes with Puppy Dog Tales. Listen to a variety of children’s books and meet the lovable canines from the SPCA’s Puppy Dog Tales program.

From 11am­–1pm, The Museum encourages all young stand up comedians ages 5–18 to come with their best joke for a chance to be included in the first ever Museum Kid Comics video, which will be screened in the Zim Zoom Family Room through the run of the upcoming exhibition Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs. Register at families@thecjm.org.

From 11am­–2pm, view the enchanting collection of books created by San Francisco public school students as part of the Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Competition. For the fifth year in a row, The Museum has teamed up with the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, SFPL, and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to promote the art and craft of original bookmaking in the classroom through the Bookmaking Competition.

The CJM began working with the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and local partners to offer an annual west coast version of the Bookmaking Competition, named after beloved children’s book author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats, in 2012, after presenting an exhibition of Keats’ work entitled The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats. The Foundation has been offering a similar competition in New York City for over 25 years. In 2015, The CJM’s program was recognized for Excellence in Museum Education by the California Association of Museums. Last year, over ninety entries from twenty-two K–12 SFUSD schools were received. This year, The Museum was able to offer free bookmaking kits to 15 underserved SFUSD schools thanks to a generous in kind donation from Blick Art Materials.

“The Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Competition is a fruitful and enduring collaboration with our local public schools,” says Janine Okmin, Associate Director of Education, The CJM. “The project touches hundreds of teachers in the SFUSD through professional development workshops, and gives budding authors and illustrators a sense of pride and accomplishment. We are grateful to the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation for the ongoing support of this project and for inspiring us to begin a west coast bookmaking initiative.”

About The Contemporary Jewish Museum

With the opening of its new building on June 8, 2008, The Contemporary Jewish Museum ushered in a new chapter in its twenty-plus year history of engaging audiences and artists in exploring contemporary perspectives on Jewish culture, history, art, and ideas. The facility, designed by internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, is a lively center where people of all ages and backgrounds can gather to experience art, share diverse perspectives, and engage in hands-on activities. Inspired by the Hebrew phrase L’Chaim (To Life), the building is a physical embodiment of The CJM’s mission to bring together tradition and innovation in an exploration of the Jewish experience in the twenty-first century.

Major support for The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibitions and Jewish Peoplehood Programs comes from the Koret Foundation.

The Museum also thanks the Jim Joseph Foundation for its major support of innovative strategies for educating and engaging audiences in Jewish learning. Additional major support is provided by an Anonymous donor; Alyse and Nathan Mason Brill; Carbon Five; Gaia Fund; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund; Walter and Elise Haas Fund; the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties; Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; Millennium Partners, the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund; Osterweis Capital Management; The Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund; RayKo; Dorothy R. Saxe; Seiger Family Foundation; and Wendy and Richard Yanowitch.

For more information about The Contemporary Jewish Museum, visit The Museum’s website at thecjm.org.

General Information

The Museum is open daily (except Wednesday) 11am–5pm and Thursday, 11am–8pm. Museum admission is $12 for adults, $10 for students and senior citizens with a valid ID, and $5 on Thursdays after 5pm. Youth 18 and under always get in free. For general information on The Contemporary Jewish Museum, the public may visit The Museum’s website at thecjm.org or call 415.655.7800. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is located at 736 Mission Street (between Third & Fourth streets), San Francisco.