Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

For denizens of Los Angeles’ high-culture scene, the benefit lunch April 7 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire was a familiar affair. Shortly before noon, 380 people--all well-dressed and mostly female--pulled into the posh hotel’s stone-paved driveway, entrusted their cars to valets and entered the lobby. The guests picked up name cards with their table assignments, greeted the hosts and chatted with their friends while sipping white wine, mineral water or iced tea.

Then the guests filed into the dining room, found their designated places and watched a video presentation on the museum they had come to support. After a meal of veggies en crou^te, followed by sorbet, fresh fruit and gooey white cake, the museum director thanked patrons of the $175-a-ticket event.

“It takes my breath away to see so much support for a museum that’s 10,000 miles away,” the director, James Snyder, said.

Ten thousand miles away?

Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of what might have been a rather ordinary fund-raiser is that the beneficiary is not located in Los Angeles or even in the United States. It’s the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Founded in 1965 as Israel’s national museum, it has an encyclopedic collection of art, antiquities and Judaica displayed in 400,000 square feet of galleries and a five-acre sculpture garden.

The luncheon’s keynote speaker, Paris-based journalist Hector Feliciano, surely helped entice the crowd to this year’s event. Author of “The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World’s Greatest Works of Art,” he is a celebrated activist in the international effort to return artworks stolen during World War II to families of the victims. In his lecture, “Whose Art Is It Anyway?,” Feliciano addressed current issues of repatriation, a hot topic in the Jewish community and international museum circles.

But attendance at the annual lunches--sponsored by the West Coast branch of the New York-based American Friends of the Israel Museum--has grown steadily during the past eight years, regardless of the featured speaker. The first benefit lunch, in 1985, drew 70 people and netted $15,000; this year’s event netted $170,000. And that’s a mere fraction of the $1 million raised in L.A. each year for the Israel Museum. Nationwide, the museum’s American Friends contribute about $10 million annually to the institution, which operates on an annual budget of about $25 million.

Why do people give so much money to a museum that’s halfway around the globe from their homes?

“People who have an affinity for history like to feel connected, especially to places,” says Catherine Benkaim, who established the West Coast chapter of AFIM 15 years ago. Although relationships with institutions are often formed through personal associations, “people like to ally themselves with something they like,” she says.

The American Friends of the Israel Museum is not unique. Several nationally funded museums in other countries have American support groups that raise money across the United States.

London’s British Museum--which derives about two-thirds of its $100-million annual operating budget from the British government--established a New York-based American fund-raising arm in 1989. Last year the American Friends of the British Museum donated about $3.5 million to the venerable institution. The group made a big splash in Southern California in 1996 with a dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel in honor of Princess Margaret, as part of a $165-million museum development program. Publishing magnate and philanthropist Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore, who had launched the campaign with a $9.2-million gift, underwrote the dinner.

Other museums that attract large numbers of American tourists--including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg--have American support groups. “The Invisible Made Visible: Angels From the Vatican,” a traveling exhibition that opened in February at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum and opens May 9 at the St. Louis Art Museum, is part of an effort to attract new members to the 13 American chapters of Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums.

Taking a different approach, the Friends of French Art raises money for the conservation of France’s cultural heritage at large, rather than devoting itself to a single museum. Founded in 1978 by Elin Vanderlip of Portuguese Bend, who continues to lead the organization, the Southern California group raises about $250,000 a year--matched by the French Department of Historic Monuments--to restore historic buildings and artworks in France.

Still, the Israel Museum is a special case, and by far the most successful of all the American “friends” groups.

“There’s a large group of Jewish people in America who want to help Israel be superior. The museum gives them a chance to play a role in that,” Benkaim says.

Furthermore, she says, before the 1980s, Jews were not accepted on the boards of trustees of many American cultural institutions. The Israel Museum not only welcomed them--and their money--it allowed American patrons to feel the pride of belonging that they had been deprived of at home.

The Los Angeles branch of AFIM provides an even closer sense of community. About 500 families belong to the local organization, including a few major donors and many people who simply attend the annual lunch as a pleasant way to support a good cause. But there’s also a core group of about 50 people who regularly attend other local programs sponsored by the Friends throughout the year, take part in discussion groups and travel together. “It’s very much a family group,” Benkaim says.

An art historian with a PhD in East Indian sculpture and painting, Benkaim was a curator of Indian and Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1970-80 and a visiting lecturer in Indian art at UCLA in 1982. She became the first West Coast executive director of the American Friends of the Israel Museum in 1983, with the mission of creating the group she was to lead.

Benkaim agreed to work for $25,000 a year and $5,000 of expenses. If she couldn’t raise enough money to cover her salary and expenses in the first year, she would not continue. After nine months, she thought, “We should cut our losses; this is not happening.” But then a $10,000 gift came in and by the year’s end, she had reached her goal.

Recalling her early days with the organization, Benkaim says she called everyone she knew and presented slides about the museum at friends’ and associates’ houses. Her tactics wouldn’t be condoned by any business school, she says. “It’s far too time-consuming, but I felt it was important for people to see that the museum is a special place. I knew how to teach, but I had never raised funds. It seemed to me the only way this effort could be successful was if people felt good about the group.”

As the years passed, she discovered an entrepreneurial streak she didn’t know she had. She also began to think of herself as a matchmaker, putting potential donors together with projects that appealed to them and opened their checkbooks.

At the same time, she made a place for AFIM on L.A.’s art schedule. Galleries that customarily host curators’ or artists’ talks for the support groups of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art now routinely host programs for the American Friends of the Israel Museum as well. “We’re on the circuit,” she says.

Benkaim recently announced her resignation, effective in July. She has no definite plans; it’s just time to move on, she says. “I’ve had two great careers, at LACMA and here. I’m 51 1/2 years old, so I figure that I have time for one more before I hit the rocking chair.”

Looking back over the rise of AFIM in Los Angeles, she says the frustration of fund-raising is that “no matter how much money you raise, it’s never enough.” But she’s pleased with her achievement. “To be part of something so successful is enormously satisfying,” she says.

NEW MAN AT SOTHEBY’S: August Uribe, former assistant vice president and director of Sotheby’s Latin American art department in New York, has joined the auction house’s Beverly Hills office. As managing director of fine art for Sotheby’s West Coast operations, Uribe will be the primary liaison between art experts in New York and collectors and dealers in Los Angeles.

AUCTION, AUCTION: Friends of the Junior Arts Center in Barnsdall Art Park will host a benefit art auction May 9, 7 p.m., at artist Frank Romero’s studio, 1625 Blake Ave. Proceeds from the $25-ticket event will support the center’s arts education programs. Information: (213) 660-3362.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has scheduled its biennial fund-raising event--a $250-ticket art auction and dinner--June 13 in the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Air Center. Works offered for sale can be previewed June 6-12, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Doors will open for silent bidding June 13, 6 p.m. The live auction, to be conducted by Tobias Meyer of Sotheby’s, will begin at 7:30 p.m. The dinner will follow. Information and invitations: (213) 621-1772. *