A Brief Overview of the Capital Campaign

The National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH) has embarked on a national campaign to raise $150 million to create what will be the preeminent national educational and cultural institution preserving, exploring and celebrating American Jewish history. The target date for opening is Fall 2010, serving as an important milestone in the ongoing renaissance on Independence Mall that is already drawing millions of visitors to Philadelphia every year. Our neighbors on Independence Mall, the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall, present the history of this country’s two most important documents and the freedoms they ensure. Ninety paces from the Liberty Bell, the NMAJH will present the story of an immigrant group’s opportunities realized and challenges faced while living with those freedoms in America.

History of the NMAJH: On July 4th, 1976, our nation’s Bicentennial, the National Museum of American Jewish History opened its doors on Independence Mall and quickly became known as “the Jewish window on Independence Mall.” The NMAJH has displayed more than one hundred exhibitions in its first quarter century. During the course of its thirty two year history, the NMAJH has attracted a broad audience to its public programs, exploring American Jewish identity through lectures, panel discussions, authors’ talks, films, children’s activities, theater, and music. In addition to winning many awards, the NMAJH has the distinct honor of being one of only 145 Smithsonian Affiliates to be nationally selected as a partner museum, which is recognized by the Smithsonian Institution to shares its collections and resources.

Exhibition: The core exhibition under development for the Museum’s new building will reflect the diversity of the American Jewish experience. Wedded neither to one region, one group, one period, or one ideology, this landmark exhibition will use three floors and 20,000 square feet to tell the dynamic story of Jews’ migration and adaptation to America. Both the architecture and the exhibitions will engage the Museum’s audiences through their creative design and state-of-the-art technology. Mindful that technology changes so rapidly, the Museum’s planning team is implementing flexible infrastructure that will allow the ways people interact with the building and its multimedia exhibitions to evolve with new technological innovations.

The presence of the Liberty Bell serves as a reminder while the NMAJH is an institution about Jews, it is not just for Jews. Therefore, the NMAJH’s team of historians, curators, and designers is creating a core exhibition that will educate visitors about American Jewish history and, at the same time, make the Jewish experience relevant to the broadest audience. In addition to the core exhibition, the Museum will have 5,000 square feet reserved for special changing exhibitions and an additional 2,500 square feet devoted to the Only in America Gallery® Hall of Fame. Supported through a generous leadership gift from The Ed Snider Foundation, the Only in America Gallery® Hall of Fame will be a permanent and growing multimedia exhibition profiling historically extraordinary American Jews.

Education: Reflecting the themes of the core exhibition and the mission of the organization, the Museum is coordinating its educational programs under the Institute for American Jewish History Education. The Institute for American Jewish History Education will provide the first and only comprehensive learning center devoted to American Jewish history. The Museum has always focused on Philadelphia-area school children while providing public programs for children and their families. The Museum also ensures that children and young adults from inner city communities and schools as well as from suburban communities and schools throughout the Philadelphia region have expanded access to the Museum and its resources.  The Institute will include the state-of-the-art, Dell Theater, two spacious classrooms and a resource center, and it will also provide educators and school children with a vast array of online resources enabling people to virtually visit the Museum from anywhere in the world. The NMAJH will utilize the internet to provide an array of distance learning opportunities and educational programs for students and teachers across the globe.

Location: The new Museum will be located on Independence Mall between and in full view of the National Constitution Center, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center on the premier corner of 5th and Market Streets.

Audience: The new landmark building on Independence Mall in Philadelphia will serve a diverse audience projected at more than 250,000 visitors each year. The Museum has undertaken extensive audience research during the past several years in preparation for the building, programming and exhibition design. This research has included a multi-pronged approach with an emphasis on young and non-Jewish audiences, and indeed, the Museum already conducts significant outreach and programming within the Latino, Asian and African-American communities of Philadelphia. Each year, over 2 million people visit the Liberty Bell, located just 90 paces from the Museum’s front door. The Museum will attract a significant portion of these visitors as well as serve as a specific destination for many other tourists from around the world. The Museum’s website (www.nmajh.org) attracts 5.1 million hits annually and is on track to welcome over 600,000 visitors in 2008.

Planning Team: The internationally acclaimed architectural firm, Polshek Partnership Architects (PPA), is designing the building. PPA has completed the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, The William J. Clinton Presidential Center, and the recently-opened Newseum in Washington, D.C. Gallagher & Associates, one of the leading design firms in the country, is designing the core exhibition. Gallagher completed the design of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Gettysburg National Park and Visitors Center, among many others. It is currently working on the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s Ocean Hall among many other outstanding projects. Professor Jonathan Sarna, Professor of History at Brandeis University, heads a world-class team of leading American Jewish historians, including Professor Michael Berenbaum of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute, Professor Pamela Nadell of American University, Professor Beth Wenger of the University of Pennsylvania, and others.

Funds Raised to Date: The goal of the campaign is to raise $150 million, including an $18 million endowment to help support operations. Over $117 million has been raised to date. Contributions to the campaign include $25 million from Sidney Kimmel, $5 million from The Ed Snider Foundation and $5 million from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Dr. Alexander and Lorraine Dell, as well as 35 gifts/pledges of $1 million-$4,999,999, and 67 gifts/pledges of $100,000 - $999,999. Notably, the campaign has attracted significant support from individuals and foundations across the country. We believe this success reflects the importance of this Museum, its unique location on Independence Mall, and the vision of its message.

From the heart of America’s most historic square mile, the Museum will continue to pursue its educational mission − to inspire in people of all backgrounds and all ages a greater appreciation for the diversity of the American Jewish experience and the freedoms to which all Americans aspire. Independence Mall will deliver its message of liberty and the Museum will demonstrate what is possible when people live in freedom. In addition to creating a passion for life-long learning and preserving a vanishing past, the Museum will serve as a bridge to a shared future.

At no time in the history of the United States has the experience of any ethnic group been chronicled and presented on this scale and in one central location. The end result of the campaign will be to establish a major new national cultural institution that tells a story important to all Americans. The Museum will celebrate tolerance and freedom, teach respect for cultural differences and nurture an understanding of our connections to a fragile world and each other.