The Precious Legacy

The Precious Legacy: Judaic Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections was one of the names for a travelling exhibition of Czech Jewish art and ritual objects that opened at The Whitworth in Manchester, in 1980. It subsequently toured the United States and Canada from 1983 to 1986. In 1990, part of the show was brought to Israel for a joint exhibition with the permanent collection of the Israel Museum. The travelling exhibition was relaunched in 1998 for a two-year tour of Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.

The objects, dating from the early 17th to mid-20th centuries, included silverwork, pottery, textiles, paintings, drawings, and ritual and household items. The exhibition was noted for being a mixture of fine art, folk art, and anthropological study; for the irony by which fascists and communists had preserved the merits of the culture; and for showing a continuity of culture across multiple social upheavals.

It was the first major exhibition of Judaica to be displayed in North America or Australia, with items rarely shown outside of synagogues. The international exhibit also served as a vehicle for publicizing the existence and history of the Jewish Museum in Prague.^[1] During its U.S. tour, the exhibit drew more than 550,000 visitors, with a record-breaking attendance of over 110,000 in its seven-week run at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.