Seventeen docents have resigned en masse from the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley to protest recent staff cuts and register their alarm over the fate of the troubled institution.
The departure of the volunteer guides was prompted by last month’s axing of the museum’s former executive director, two curators and a receptionist in a budget-slashing move.
“This hurts us,” said Charna Schakow, who has been escorting school groups and adults through the museum for almost 19 years. “It’s a sign of frustration, extreme frustration.”
In a letter to museum officials, the docents said they wanted to express “solidarity” for the laid-off staff members and voice fears about the museum’s ultimate survival.
Connie Wolf, head of the institution created in January by merging two Jewish museums in Berkeley and San Francisco, described the resignations as “very unfortunate.”
But she said the loss of the volunteers would have “absolutely no impact on the institution.”
Attendance at the Berkeley museum “is pretty minimal,” noted Wolf. “On a typical Sunday, there may be only 15 people who show up.”
Wolf said she would make arrangements to continue tours guided by “existing staff and others.” She said that eight docents did not join in the protest resignation.
The departing guides said that collectively they had served the Jewish museum for more than 230 years.
Lottie Kornfeld, a docent for 15 years, said she began asking fellow guides to quit after being “horrified” by what she considered callous treatment of the employees who lost their jobs.
“We are really concerned about the future of the museum and what this will do to the community,” said Kornfeld, a retired microbiologist from Walnut Creek.
But Wolf, who as chief executive officer of the combined museums, laid off eight employees in Berkeley and San Francisco in the recent $2 million budget cut, said this wasn’t the first time the docents have been displeased.
While thanking the docents for their help, she asserted: “We inherited docents who were not happy about certain operations of the museum.
“I think it’s very unfortunate that in their unhappiness, they’ve decided to punish the visitors of the museum.”
Seymour Fromer, founder and director emeritus of the Berkeley museum, said the trained docents, many of whom have volunteered at the site for 20 years or more, play a vital role in the museum’s operation.
“The docent experience is very important,” he said. “It’s a give and take between the public and the museum.”
Of the departures, Fromer said, “I think it’s very regrettable that the situation has reached such a point. This is sort of the only way they could register their protest.”
The museum’s current exhibits, which include a 19th-century time capsule from San Francisco’s Bush Street Synagogue, run through February. After that, Wolf has talked of alternating twice-yearly shows at the San Francisco and Berkeley sites.
“We don’t have the funds to support two ongoing exhibitions simultaneously,” said Wolf.
She said she hopes to open a permanent exhibit of material from the Western Jewish History Center, now housed in Berkeley, at the Steuart Street offices of the Jewish Community Federation. That’s the space currently used by the San Francisco museum.
“We want to make our collections more accessible,” she said. Of the history center’s collection of photos, oral histories and memorabilia, she added, “Most people in the Bay Area don’t even know it exists.”
Located in a historic brick building on a residential street just west of the Claremont Hotel, the 40-year-old Magnes in Berkeley is home to the country’s third-largest collection of Judaica.
Originally, museum officials had hoped by next year to open a new site in downtown Berkeley to replace the smaller and less accessible Russell Street building. But a $140 million campaign to finance that project and a massive new San Francisco museum across from Yerba Buena Gardens has faltered.
Warren Hellman, chairman of the museum’s board, could not be reached for comment. A board meeting, which Wolf said is closed to the public, is scheduled for Wednesday.
Wolf acknowledged that during the hectic period of combining two operations, “there were challenges and difficulties. I do recognize the docents felt left out.
“We thank them enormously for their efforts and dedication over the years,” she said.
She said the resignations, however, would not trigger any reversal of the layoffs.
“We have made a financial decision for the institution, and we stand by the decision,” she said.
“Mergers are about change,” Wolf added. “There are people who embrace change and welcome change, and people who will fight for things just the way they were.”
Schakow, a Hebrew-school teacher at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, said the resignations were a sign of desperation by volunteers who want to save a museum they love and value.
“It’s the last chance,” said Schakow, an Albany resident who described the staff cuts as “a stab in the back to the museum.
“This is a final way to let the community know how we’re willing to leave until the curators are rehired.”
As a docent, she has ushered groups of up to 70 people through exhibits over the years, sometimes making strong connections with visitors.
About five years ago, she got “a chill” up her spine during a visit by a group of mostly Latino students from Salinas. A couple of students began playing with a dreidel on display, and one of the youngsters said, “We play it in our homes.”
When Schakow explained the tradition of hidden Jews, one of the students said, “Could that be why every Friday night we pull the drapes and my mother lights two candles?”
“It was such a sharing of culture,” Schakow said of the exchange.
Fellow docent Rose Levine said the mass resignation would not affect an outreach program that she coordinates.
That program brings docents to 60 to 70 groups a year throughout Northern California. They give talks on such topics as Sephardic Jews and Jews of the Gold Rush, and show slides of museum artifacts like a Torah ark from India and 15th-century Chanukah lamp from Spain.
“We intend to go around with our programs and tell our audiences how we feel,” said Levine, one of those resigning as a museum guide. “The resignation from the museum is really a protest against the fact that curators and staff were summarily dismissed.”
She and others also complained that they received little or no information about developments since the January merger.
In fact, Schakow said she showed up last spring for a docent shift only to find the doors locked and the hours changed. “I was there, knocking at the door,” she recalled. “Finally, someone answered and said, ‘Didn’t anyone tell you?'”