In March 2024, I walked into a small art studio on Berdichevsky Street in Tel Aviv expecting to learn about art and history. Instead, I found family.
That studio belonged to Joseph Bau — artist, forger, Holocaust survivor, and the man Israelis called their Walt Disney. His daughters, Clila and Hadasa, noticed my last name the moment I introduced myself. Their mother, Rebecca, was born a Tennenbaum. That small coincidence turned into two and a half years of friendship and volunteer work on behalf of their museum.
In March, I wrote in eJewishPhilanthropy about Joseph and Rebecca’s love story and the Hollywood film that brought it to audiences around the world. Today I get to share something even closer to home: Joseph Bau’s art has come to Atlanta. And in November, his daughters are coming, too.
Now open: Bau Traveling Art Exhibition at the Marcus JCC
The Joseph Bau Museum’s Traveling Art Exhibition is now on view in the Katz Family Main Street Gallery at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, through December 2026. It is free and open to the public during regular MJCCA hours.
The exhibition brings together more than 40 signed works — oil paintings, lithographs, and prints, many playing with the shapes and meanings of Hebrew letters. Alongside the art, storyboards trace Bau’s life from prewar Kraków through the Plaszów camp, his postwar career as Israel’s first animator, and the founding of the museum his daughters run today.
If you know Bau only from Schindler’s List, this is your chance to meet the rest of him. In Plaszów, his skill with lettering kept him alive, and he used it in secret to forge papers that helped others escape. Rebecca, his wife, arranged to have his name put on Schindler’s list in place of her own — something he didn’t learn until 50 years later. After the war, he forged documents for the Mossad that supported the capture of Adolf Eichmann. And through all of it, he kept drawing, joking, and creating.
Stand in front of these pieces and you’ll feel what I felt in his studio: this was a man who believed joy itself is an act of resistance.
The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Morris Family Foundation.
Where: Katz Family Main Street Gallery, Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, GA 30338
When: Now through December 2026, during regular MJCCA hours
Cost: Free
Sunday, November 8: spend the day with the Bau family
Clila and Hadasa Bau are traveling from Tel Aviv to Atlanta for the 35th Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA. It is a rare chance to hear their parents’ story from the two people who know it best.
10:00 a.m. — Free film screening. Watch Paramount’s Bau, Artist at War, directed by Sean McNamara and starring Emile Hirsch and Inbar Lavi as Joseph and Rebecca. The screening is free, but please RSVP: reserve your free seat.
1:30 p.m. — Author talk and Q&A. Clila and Hadasa will talk about their father’s memoir, Bau: Artist at War (Blackstone Publishing), and answer your questions. Tickets are $15 for MJCCA members and $20 for the community: get tickets.
All day — Book signing and gallery tours. Bau’s daughters will sign copies of the memoir, available from A Cappella Books, and personally walk visitors through their father’s exhibition.
In their words: “Every time we get to share our parents’ story in a new city, it feels like inviting people into our father’s studio all over again.”
Clila and Hadasa arrive November 6 and are available during their stay to speak with high schools and community groups. If your school, synagogue, or organization would like a visit, reach out to me at josephbaumuseum@gmail.com.
Full details: the Book Festival’s Bau, Artist at War event page
Five ways to bring the Bau story home
One afternoon at the MJCCA is a wonderful start. Here’s how to keep the story going with your family.
- Visit the Traveling Art Exhibition. Stop by the Katz Family Main
Street Gallery any time before the end of December. Bring your kids or grandkids — Bau’s playful Hebrew lettering and cartoon style make it easy for young visitors to connect. - Come on November 8. See the film for free at 10:00 a.m. (RSVP here), then stay to meet Clila and Hadasa and have your book signed (author talk tickets).
- Stream the film and read the memoir at home. Bau, Artist at War is streaming on Amazon Video, Fandango at Home, and other platforms, so you can watch it together as a family. Traveling soon? It’s also available on American, United, and Delta flights. Then pick up Joseph Bau ‘s republished memoir, Bau: Artist at War (Blackstone Publishing), with forewords by Clila and Hadasa. It’s a book that belongs on the family shelf and in the conversation around the dinner table.
- Take the virtual tour. Walk through Bau’s original studio from your living room at josephbau.org/3Dvista — his drawing tables, his homemade animation equipment, and the rooms where he worked for decades.
- Visit the studio in Tel Aviv. On your next trip to Israel, go see it in person at 9 Berdichevsky Street. It’s one of more than 180 heritage sites in Israel and ranked #1 of 308 things to do in Tel Aviv on Tripadvisor, and there is nothing like hearing the story from Clila and Hadasa in the room where it all happened. Visits are by reservation only, so email josephbaumuseum@gmail.com before your trip.
Help the studio find its next home
There is urgency behind all this joy. The building that houses Joseph Bau’s studio has been sold, and the museum must relocate. Clila and Hadasa are raising funds now so they can plan the move and keep their father’s work together for the next generation.
If the Bau story moves you, please consider a gift to the museum’s campaign on CauseMatch.
With gratitude
My heartfelt thanks to Pam Morton, Director of Arts & Authors at the Marcus JCC, for hosting both the Traveling Art Exhibition and the November 8 book event as part of the 35th Edition of the Book Festival of the MJCCA. Thank you to the Morris Family Foundation for making the exhibition possible, to El Al for helping bring Clila and Hadasa to Atlanta, and to everyone working behind the scenes to welcome the Baus from Tel Aviv.
When I first met Clila and Hadasa, I never imagined I’d one day welcome them to my own community. On November 8, I hope you’ll help me do exactly that. Come see the art, watch the film, meet the family, and let Joseph and Rebecca’s story become part of yours.
Joseph and Rebecca chose to create, to laugh, and to love in the darkest years imaginable. The least we can do is show up.
Lee Tanenbaum is a Marietta-based writer and communications consultant who has volunteered with the Joseph Bau Museum since April 2024. She can be reached at josephbaumuseum@gmail.com. Learn more about the museum at josephbau.com and linktr.ee/Josephbauhouse. To learn about bringing the Traveling Art Exhibition to your community, visit josephbautravelingxhibition.my.canva.site/josephbau.
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