Jewish Cultural Institutions Reeling as Trump Defunds Arts and Humanities

By Asaf Elia-Shalev April 8, 2025

The shuttering of federal agencies that support museums and arts organizations could cause a ripple effect in lost funding, Jewish arts administrators say.

A museum holding one of the most important photography collections of pre-Holocaust Jewish life wanted to scan thousands of images and make them accessible to the public online. 

As part of the fundraising to digitize the archive of the renowned Russian Jewish photographer Roman Vishniac, the museum, known as the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, applied in November for a $250,000 grant from a federal agency called the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

But last week the agency was effectively shuttered by the Trump administration, which called it “unnecessary” in an executive order signed by the president in March. The agency’s staff are on leave and its $290 million budget, most of which goes out as grants to museums and libraries throughout the country, is frozen.

The most significant consequence of the cuts is not the loss of any single grant opportunity: The Magnes, which is part of the University of California, Berkeley, is expecting to make up the difference through additional fundraising from private donors, according to executive director Hannah Weisman. 

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