Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection at Hebrew Home at Riverdale

As a member of the American Alliance of Museums, the Hebrew Home at Riverdale by RiverSpring Living is committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus, including the Derfner Judaica Museum and a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection provides educational and cultural programming for residents of the Hebrew Home, their families and the general public from throughout New York City, its surrounding suburbs and visitors from elsewhere. RiverSpring Living is a nonprofit, non-sectarian geriatric organization serving more than 18,000 older adults in greater New York through its resources and community service programs.

The Art Collection and Sculpture Garden

The Art Collection is comprised of more than 4,500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, prints and works on paper by such artists as Salvador Dali, Alex Katz, Joan Mitchell and Andy Warhol. These works are exhibited throughout the main public spaces of the Hebrew Home and elucidated by text panels and labels. 

Derfner Judaica Museum

The Judaica Museum was founded in 1982 when Riverdale residents Ralph and Leuba Baum donated their collection of Jewish ceremonial art to the Hebrew Home. A refugee from Nazi persecution, Ralph and his wife, Leuba, had an intense desire to preserve and pass on to future generations the memory embodied in the objects they collected, the majority of which were used by European Jews before the Holocaust. In 2008 The Judaica Museum was named in honor of the late Helen and Harold Derfner. It opened in a newly furnished space in June 2009 with a permanent exhibition of the collection entitled, Tradition and Remembrance: Treasures of the Derfner Judaica Museum, that explores the intersections of Jewish history and memory. The Museum also features a rotating gallery space for modern art relating to Jewish life and culture.