FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Elliott Felson to serve as Chair, Board of Trustees of The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco
San Francisco, CA, October 30, 2017 — The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM) announces the election of Elliott Felson as Chair of the Board of Trustees. Felson began his new role in July 2017. He has served on the Board of The CJM since 2010 and has acted as Co-Chair of the Committee on Trustees.
“It is an exciting time for The CJM as we get ready to celebrate our tenth anniversary in our Daniel Libeskind-designed home in the heart of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena arts district,” says Felson. “It is an opportunity to reflect on our past successes and advance our vision for the future—building on our growing reputation for innovative contemporary art exhibitions that explore Jewish culture, history, art and, ideas; engaging new audiences through our family, school, teen, adult, and access programs; and growing a robust and loyal membership. I look forward to working with The Museum’s talented Board and staff as we launch into the next decade of our institutional life with a remarkable repertoire of exhibitions and public programs over the next two years including a landmark retrospective of inventor and cartoonist Rube Goldberg’s work; an original exhibition of the work of sixteen California Jewish visual artists inspired by the machine and developed in partnership with San Francisco State University; the only West Coast showing of Veiled Meanings: Fashioning Jewish Dress from the collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and much more.”
Felson is Principal and Partner of Felson Companies, a real estate development and investment firm, located in Hayward, California. Felson is active in the community, also serving on the board of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation where he is also Board Chair, the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation Endowment Fund since 2014, and on the Board of The Brandeis School of San Francisco since 2016. Since 2009, Felson has served on Jewish Family and Children’s Services’ Holocaust Survivors Assistance Fund Program Committee and the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation Holocaust Education Fund Committee since 2008. Previously, he served on the Board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of Northern California (2008–10), the San Francisco Jewish Community Center (1997–2000), and the San Francisco Jewish Federation Board of Governors (2010–11).
Felson is a member of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. He and his wife Suzanne have three children: Sophia, Olivia, and Jake.
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; the Helen Diller Family Foundation; Suzanne and Elliott Felson; 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; Wendy Kesser ; Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; Nellie and Max Levchin; Millennium Partners, the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund; The Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund; RayKo; Dorothy R. Saxe; Seiger Family Foundation; Taube Philanthropies for Jewish Life and Culture; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
