Not All Who Wander Israel
for Art are Lost
MATT SILVER | JE STAFF
Robert Weisman sold, donated or loaned 25 pieces by Nathan Hilu that became part of the Temple Judea Museum’s exhibition “Hilu through the
Eyes of a Collector.”
Photos courtesy of Rita Poley
“O h my God,” Judith Weisman said, partly with mild
irritation but mostly good-humored resignation. “Th ere
is no more room in this house for any more art.”
She knows her husband of 50 years well enough to know that
any moratorium on art acquisitions won’t last long. And as an
amateur artist herself — specializing in mosaics — she doesn’t
really mind. But in quarantine, one tends to notice the walls
getting closer.

“She’d be fi ne if I were to sell some ... and not overwhelm the
house,” said Robert Weisman, a former Macy’s executive who
hasn’t hung any paintings on the ceiling ... yet. “I literally have
paintings in closets right now.”
Weisman has experience selling valuable inventory in bulk.

“At one point, I was in charge of (Macy’s) fur division — you
know, the one the animal rights people don’t like,” he joked.

“When (the division) fi led for bankruptcy, I was in charge of
taking it out of business and selling off the entire fur inventory.”
Th ough he loved the 25 years he spent working for Macy’s,
those furs were just merchandise. Th ere is much more meaning
to be derived from his collection of Jewish art, which comprises
10 MAY 14, 2020
some 60-or-so paintings by Jewish artists both well-known and
not and several hundred objets d’art, including a vast collection
of Judaica paperweights that Weisman suspects to be among the
largest anywhere.

Not conventionally observant, Weisman doesn’t daven oft en;
over the past 50 years, he’s been to Israel on art-hunting expe-
ditions more regularly than he’s been to his neighborhood shul
— though both his daughters became b’not mitzvah at Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, and one was
confi rmed there.

“Th e last time I walked into the synagogue, our friend, the
assistant rabbi, was standing there,” Weisman said of the rabbi
at KI who’d offi ciated his daughters’ baby namings and bat
mitzvahs. “He was so shocked to see me there, he looked around
and said ‘the pillars are going to come crumbling down.’”
Weisman’s connection to Judaism manifests itself diff erently;
it’s a connection he feels most acutely when he’s wandering. In
Israel. By himself.

“I always go myself,” he said; his wife’s joined him just once in
50 years. “I love to wander, and I’ve wandered in and out of art
THE GOOD LIFE
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