Key Figures at the Museum

Vera Bryce Salomons (1888-1969)

Salomons was heiress to a noble Jewish family from England and the granddaughter of Sir David Salomons’ brother. Sir David was Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament. She worked on behalf of the Land of Israel, and the state of Israel, all her life. She built homes for senior citizens and housing for immigrants, and donated to universities and various welfare institutions, regardless of nations or ethnic groups.

The centerpiece of her public work was the nurturing and strengthening of relations between Jews and Arabs. By presenting Islamic cultures Salomons aimed to reduce hostility between the two peoples.

Salomons was a student of Prof. Mayer, in the Department of Islamic Art and Archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Later she became his trusted friend. After he died she decided to create a museum to commemorate him, and to showcase the research topic that was close to her heart. She dedicated one hall in the museum to the memory of her family, which housed the rare collection of timepieces of her father, Sir David Lionel Salomons.

Prof. Leo Aryeh Mayer (1895-1959)

Prof. Mayer came from a long line of rabbis from southeast Galicia. In 1913 he went to Vienna in order to study Semitic languages and art history. He later completed his education in Berlin. In 1921 he moved to pre-state Palestine and realized his dream: to study the archeology and art of the Middle East.

In 1925 the Institute of Eastern Sciences was established at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Mayer served as a lecturer in Middle Eastern art and archeology. Between 1933 and 1945 he held the post of rector of the university.

Prof. Mayer researched archeological finds from excavations undertaken in and around Jerusalem. They included inscriptions from Jewish graves and other epigraphic remains. Together with Prof. Eliezer Lipa Sukenik he discovered the remains of the third wall of Jerusalem. He was posthumously awarded the Israel Prize in 1959. The jurors praised his contribution to the research of material Islamic culture.

Prof. Richard Ettinghausen (1906-1979)

Prof. Ettinghausen was one of the greatest researchers of Islam at the Institute of Fine Art at New York University. He was also responsible for acquiring Islamic art collections for the museum. Ettinghausen was a Frankfurt-born Jew. Following the rise of the Nazis to power he first escaped to Great Britain, and subsequently moved to the United States. He initially took up a researcher post at the Institute of Fine Art at New York University, after which he taught at the University of New York and at Princeton. Prof. Ettinghausen was known for his well-developed sense of precious objects. In the early 1960s he was appointed chief curator of the renowned Freer Gallery of Art, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC., and he made the gallery’s collection one of the most important in the world. He left the post after five years and resumed teaching, and was also appointed consultant of the Islamic Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He died of cancer in 1979.

Architect, Dr. Alexander Friedman (1905-1987)

Dr. Friedman lived and worked in Jerusalem. He was a highly active architect and was responsible for planning many of the city’s beautiful buildings predominantly designed in the International style. His range of projects included education and community institutions, synagogues and private houses.

Dr. Friedman was born in Hungary and studied architecture at the University of Padova, Italy. He moved to pre-state Palestine in 1933 and settled in Jerusalem. Up to the early 1960s he was a partner of architect Meir Rubin, after which he was worked independently. The buildings he designed together with Rubin include the Museum for Islamic Art, Maalot House (a large residential building in the city center), the Great Synagogue next to Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem, Hechal Shlomo, Yeshurun Central Synagogue and the Kings Hotel. His collaboration with architect Yitzhak Ballat produced, among numerous projects, the Israel Bar Association head offices and Misgav Ladach Maternity Hospital. Dr. Friedman also built the Mercaz HaRav Yeshivah and many other buildings.