[4][5] The Jewish Museum was founded by Viola and Aron Neuman in 1987, in an old rug warehouse in Frihamnen.

[6] In 1992, the museum moved from Frihamnen to Vasastan,[6] where it was housed in a building at Hälsingegatan 2 that had been designed by Ragnar Östberg as a girls' school.

[7] In 2016 the museum moved once again, to new premises at Själagårdsgatan 19 in Gamla stan (Stockholm's "Old Town"), at the location of an 18th-century synagogue.

Because most German-inspired synagogue art was destroyed by Nazis during the Second World War, the Stockholm murals are an important cultural resource.

[6] After another closure, for coronavirus, it reopened in 2021 with a new exhibition of portraits, showing people who attended the Gamla Stan synagogue.