The Met Celebrates 400 Years of Religious Diversity With “Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven” This Fall

September 26, 2016–January 8, 2017

Exhibition Location: The Tisch Galleries, Gallery 899

Beginning around the year 1000, Jerusalem attained unprecedented significance as a location, destination, and symbol to people of diverse faiths from Iceland to India. Multiple competitive and complementary religious traditions, fueled by an almost universal preoccupation with the city, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history.

Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 26, the landmark exhibition Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven will demonstrate the key role that the Holy City, sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths, played in shaping the art of this period. In these centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions, and languages than ever before. Through times of peace as well as war, Jerusalem remained a constant source of inspiration that resulted in art of great beauty and fascinating complexity.

Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven is the first exhibition to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city. The exhibition will feature some 200 works of art from 60 lenders worldwide. More than four dozen key loans come from Jerusalem’s diverse religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls.

The Virgin and Apostle Capital, Early 1170s, Limestone a. 24 7/16 × 28 3/8 × 13 3/8 in. (62 × 72 × 34 cm) b. 16 9/16 × 21 1/4 × 18 1/2 in., 355 lb. (42 × 54 × 47 cm, 161 kg) Terra Sancta Museum, Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth. Image: © Marie-Armelle Beaulieu /Custodia Terræ Sanctæ

The exhibition represents a collaborative partnership between Barbara Drake Boehm, the Paul and Jill Ruddock Senior Curator for The Met Cloisters, and Melanie Holcomb, Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters and will examine six specific factors that made medieval Jerusalem an exceptional source of artistic inspiration:

The Pulse of Trade and Tourism: Often understood as the crossroads of the known world, Jerusalem was a thriving urban center, teeming with locals and tourists, new arrivals and long-timers, merchants and artists, soldiers and scholars. The exhibition will evoke the many wares of the marketplace, including ceramics produced locally and imported from as far away as China. Textiles on view will reconstruct the fashion sensibilities of Jerusalem’s residents, including, surprisingly perhaps, their predilection for printed cottons from the Indian subcontinent. The shared taste of the region’s wealthy inhabitants confounds efforts to distinguish the owners’ identities, let alone their ethnic or religious heritage. Jewels that are recognizably Islamic in technique correspond to contemporary descriptions of the trousseaux of Jewish brides. A remarkable gathering of Cross reliquaries speak to the links between Jerusalem and Europe.

Chasse of Ambazac, From the Treasury of Grandmont, Limoges, ca. 1180 – 90; Gilded copper, champlevé enamel, rock crystal, semiprecious stones, faience, and glass H. 23⅛ in. (58.6 cm), W. 31⅛ in. (79 cm), D. 10¼ in. (26.2 cm) Mairie d ’Ambazac. Image: © Region Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes, Service de l’Inventaire et du Patrimoine Culturel (photograph by Philippe Rivière, 1993)

The Diversity of Peoples: Dozens of denominations and communities contributed to the artistic and spiritual richness of the city. The historical record surrounding medieval Jerusalem—a “city of foreigners”— includes both harmonious and dissonant voices from many lands: Persians, Turks, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Ethiopians, Indians, and Europeans from each of the Abrahamic faith traditions passed in the narrow streets of the city—not much larger than midtown Manhattan. Visitors will be astonished, for example, by the numerous distinct alphabets and different languages of prayer. Exemplifying this will be Christian Gospel books in Arabic, Greek, Armenian, and Syriac, a Samaritan Bible in a distinctive Hebrew script, and the biblical book of Kings in Ge’ez, the language of Ethiopia, given by that land’s king to his community in Jerusalem.

Make Every Meal Count This September: Dine Out For No Kid Hungry

Choose From Nearly 15,000 Restaurants Helping To End Childhood Hunger In America

When We All Work Together, We Can Make Sure Kids Get The Healthy Food They Need.

No Kid Hungry Is A Campaign Of National Anti-Hunger Organization Share Our Strength.

No child should go hungry in America, but 1 in 5 kids will face hunger this year. Using proven, practical solutions, No Kid Hungry is ending childhood hunger today by ensuring that kids start the day with a nutritious breakfast and families learn the skills they need to shop and cook on a budget.

No Kid Hungry, Share Our Strength Logo. (PRNewsFoto/Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign)

This September, people can make every meal count for kids simply by dining out. Nearly 15,000 restaurants across the country are offering customers major deals in exchange for simple donations to No Kid Hungry.

With thousands of eating options on the menu–from family diners and fast food empires, to fine dining and neighborhood joints–there’s a meal to match all tastes and budgets. And for every $1 donated, No Kid Hungry can feed a child 10 meals through on-the-ground programs and partnerships that connect kids with healthy food where they live, learn and play.

Dine Out for No Kid Hungry is the largest restaurant-led initiative to help end childhood hunger in America. Since its launch in 2008, restaurants have raised $37 million in support of No Kid Hungry to help ensure every kid gets a healthy meal, every day. It is nationally sponsored by Founding Partner National Restaurant Association, as well as ARYZTA (La Brea Bakery & Otis Spunkmeyer), Citi, Ecolab, OpenTable, and Smithfield.

National Restaurant Association Logo. (PRNewsFoto/National Restaurant Association)

“If there’s one thing chefs understand, it’s connecting people with food,” says Andrew Zimmern, creator and host of the Bizarre Foods franchise on Travel Channel and chef ambassador for the Dine Out for No Kid Hungry initiative. “More importantly to me, as a father, I understand very well that hungry kids can’t learn, and kids who can’t learn can’t reach their best and brightest potential. I won’t stand by and see kids fall short on their futures when there is a solution at hand.”

The fundraising effort comes at a particularly important time for kids struggling with hunger: BACK TO SCHOOL. As children begin the 2016 school year, far too many are opening their textbooks on an empty stomach; only about half of kids who qualify for a free school lunch are also receiving breakfast–a critical meal for academic success. Research shows that when kids eat breakfast at school, attendance rates improve an average of 1.5 days more per school year, math test scores rise by 17.5 percent and kids are 20 percent more likely to graduate.

No Kid Hungry is working with a growing number of leaders in school districts, cities and states across the country to make breakfast part of the regular school day, which leads to increased participation, so all kids start their school day ready to learn.

“This is ‘family style’ dining at its best,” said Billy Shore, founder and CEO of Share Our Strength, the national nonprofit behind No Kid Hungry. “When people dine out at partnering restaurants during September, they are sharing their table with the 16 million children who can’t count on their next meal.“

To find participating restaurants by zip code or state, visit NoKidHungry.org. Get social about your dine out experience by following @NoKidHungry on Facebook and Twitter, and share your story of how you made every meal count with #nokidhungry.