Dr. Ofra Keinan – Creator and Leader of the E-mymuseum Enterprise

Dr. Ofra Keinan is the founder and leader of the E-mymuseum.com enterprise. The aim of this enterprise is to create virtual museums for organizations, institutions and individuals.

Museum work in recent years:

 Consultation services on Virtual Museum domain to Visual Factory Ltd.
2. Research, analysis and creation of virtual museums. Today Dr. Keinan is working on establishing a new portal F.L.M Family Legacy Museum. In addition, she is in advanced negotiations with institutions, to build virtual museums for them.

3. Planning and establishing the “Our Alumot” virtual museum. At present the museum is being built through LIVE CITY and as a regular site. However, the program, content and thinking underpinning the site are those of a virtual museum. www.e-mymuseum-alumot.com

4. Rewriting the collections program of Chaim Sturman Institute museum for retain its Ministry of Education certificate as a recognized museum.

5.  Writing a memorandum to the courts in Haifa, and testifying about the activity of the First Aliya Museum in Zichron Yaacov. This memorandum was intended to defend museum management methods, which were based on curator directives that served as a guide for those who established and directed the museum.

6. Consultation: Yad Rishonim Museum in Pardess Hana. Consulted with the museum about building a course for museum patrons, and an educational program for youngsters.

Academic activity

Dr. Ofra Keinan has extensive academic background in Cultural Geography and in Heritage preservation, in museums in general and especially in Virtual Museums.

She has written scientific articles that have been published: (Selected List):

 2009 – Ofra Keinan, "FROM PYRAMID TO CIRCLE: The change in status of curator and visitor in virtual museums", Electronic Interdisciplinary Journal of the Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society. Linguistics Abstracts: http://www.linguisticsabstracts.com (Hebrew).

  2007 - Ofra Keinan & Amos Ron, "From A Community-Museum to a Community of Museums: A Model for Setting up a Virtual Community of Museums for the First Aliyah Museums". Accepted to be published in: Berlovitz Y. Editor, The First Aliya as the Establisher of Eretz-Israeli' Culture and Locality, Bar Ilan University. (Hebrew).

  2007 - Gelbman, Alon; Keinan, Ofra – "National and transnational borderlanders‘ attitudes towards the security fence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority".
 Geojournal, Volume 68, Number 4, April 2007 pp. 279-291(13). (English)

 2004–Ofra Keinan, “The Kibbutzim and Moshavim movements and mass immigration to Israel during the First Decade of the State”, Cathedra: for the history of Eretz Israel and its Yishuv (112), Yad Ben-Zvi Jerusalem, 113-136. (Hebrew).

 2004 –Ofra Keinan, “Rural Development in Israel: lessons from the planning of the Ta’anach region”, Horizons in Geography: Series in memory of Amiasaf Hochman, Department of Geography Haifa University, 95-105. (Hebrew).

 2004- Amos Ron and Ofra Keinan, “Anniversary Celebrations at Kibbutz Degania Aleph as a Symbol of the changing Status and Roles of the Kibbutz Movement”, J. O. Maos, M. Inbar and D.F. Shmueli (eds.), Contemporary Israeli Geography (Special Issue of Horizons in Geography, vol. 60-61), 109-117. (English)

 1997- Ofra Keinan, Scientific consultation for education plan, BeTa'anch al may Megido: The settlers of Ta'anch region". Published by Yad Tabenkin & Education Ministry of Israel & Beit Sturman (Hebrew).

 1991- Ofra Kynan, "The museum contribution to immigrants absorption", Icom Ceca Conference, Jerusalem, pp.146-147. (English)

Dr. Keinan lectures and conducts seminars on virtual museums, and teaches courses on museums as a tourist and educational tool, and museums around the world as a tool for preserving cultural heritage. She has specialized in the theoretical and practical aspects of
Virtual museums, she has analyzed the essence of various virtual museums in Israel and abroad, and with her students has created the infrastructure for several virtual museums.

Museum curatorship and management

For about a decade, Dr. Keinan was director and head curator of Chaim Sturman Institute & Museum.  In this position she was curator of the museum’s main permanent exhibition, called “The Story of Atara,” and of many temporary exhibitions, among them “The Culture of Religion – from the World of Former USSR Jews,” and “Exodus from Ethiopia 1990.” These and many other of her exhibitions were highly successful and served as an important cultural tool for the absorption of these communities in Israel.

During her tenure as director of Sturman Institute & Museum, more than 20 exhibitions were held that drew a relatively large number of visitors, several educational programs were built and the museum became a center for study and research. 

Dr. Ofra Keinan,
 E-mymuseum.com
972-3-6201205; 054-5535444
ofra@e-mymuseum.com
www.e-mymuseum-alumot.com