Museum Musings

The Museum’s collection numbers over 25,000 artifacts, ranging from 18th-century documents to theater costumes to turn-of-the-20th-century Yiddish typewriters. It includes objects marking events of national significance, as well as those that tell the personal stories of everyday American Jews. This past year we had the honor of enriching our collection with truly a one-of-a-kind artifact that artfully, playfully, and touchingly represents those everyday stories.

Adorned with a silver Kiddush cup, golf balls ornamented with Jewish stars, and plaques bearing Yiddish nicknames—all perched upon 4 dreidels—“De Yiddishe Kup” was brought to our attention by Arnold Kaplan, a connoisseur and collector of American Judaica and a friend of the Museum. Arny encouraged 4 friends in his Lakewood Ranch, Florida retirement community to donate this beloved golf trophy to the Museum. For Arny, and for us, this piece of American Jewish folk art represents the camaraderie of one group of golf buddies who have been “experimenting with the social adventure of retirement that included the challenge of meeting new friends in a new environment and hoping along the way to enjoy life while embracing and fulfilling their Jewish heritage and social traditions.”

As each golfer spoke at the presentation of the “Kup” to the Museum, it was evident to all those in the room—spouses, family members, staff, and one member of the team joining via Skype—just how much the friendship that developed on the golf course rekindled and encouraged the team members’ and their wives’ Jewish identities, brought to life around the many Shabbat dinners they shared with “De Yiddishe Kup” at the center of the table.

We promise to lovingly and respectfully refer to our artifact by its formal name, “De Yiddishe Kup,” and we are so thrilled to exhibit it in our lobby this month, as the US Open comes to Merion Golf Club. So if you’re in town for the tournament, stop by and see it!


Contributed by Ivy Weingram, Associate Curator

The leadership and staff of the National Museum of American Jewish History join me in mourning the loss of Senator Frank Lautenberg, who passed away on Monday at the age of 89. The first generation American, WWII veteran, and five-term New Jersey senator was a tireless champion for many of the values we treasure at the Museum—freedom, equality, hard work, leadership, service, imagination, and tradition. His leadership was critical to passing the 1990 law providing refugee status to people from historically persecuted groups and opening our doors to those who experienced religious persecution in their native lands, including an estimated 350-400,000 Soviet Jews. His legacy will live on in the hundreds of thousands whose lives he has positively impacted. We remember him fondly with a video that he recorded in our It’s Your Story booth in 2010. May his memory be a blessing.

-Ivy Barsky, CEO and Gwen Goodman Director
 

May 28, 2013

By guest blogger, Valerie V. Gay, Executive Director, Art Sanctuary 

“Naturalize: intransitive verb: to become established as if native” (Merriam Webster)

On a beautifully blustery spring morning, I was privileged to witness 47 people from 31 countries become “established” as US citizens during a simple and elegant ceremony held at the National Museum of American Jewish History.
In fact, it was a day of privileges: I was asked to introduce and sing “God Bless America” during the ceremony. Prior to this occasion, I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that Irving Berlin, born, Israel Isidore Beilin, immigrated from what is now Belarus to the United States. I always thought of him as one the most important “American” composers: an important American composer. Period. So my first privilege that day was to remind these newly established Americans that immigrants like them have made incredible contributions to our country and the people who live herein.

The 2nd privilege that day came as a surprise. As a participant in the program, I was asked to stand in the receiving line and shake the hands of each person as s/he walked across the stage of the auditorium having first received his/her Certificate of Naturalization. The smile never left my face as I shook each hand, looked each person in the eye and said, “Congratulations!” I was privileged and honored to be one of the first to welcome these new citizens, and I don’t think I will ever forget the look of gratitude on the face of one particular elderly woman, who has undoubtedly experienced much in her life. The tears in her eyes mirrored my own, as I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride for a group of people I’d never met before and will probably never meet again, but with whom I now share a profound memory.

I know all is not right with our country; there are so many societal ills and injustices within our borders. One can easily wax on about a plethora of systems that are broken; however, even with all of our messiness, I’m glad to be an American and can choose to join others to fix the broken. My ancestors did not choose to come to this country, but once here they no doubt aspired to have the freedom we enjoy. Which brings me to the 3rd and final privilege of this experience: being reminded that I have a responsibility to those who came before me (many of whom did not have the opportunities I enjoy), and those who will follow, to exercise my inalienable rights as an American citizen, not just for my benefit, but for the benefit of my family and community.  

 





Valerie V. Gay is the Executive Director of the Art Sanctuary in Philadelphia. Having been named one of Philadelphia’s “101 Connector Leaders,” Ms. Gay serves on the Board of Directors of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the Marian Anderson Award and the Blues Babe Foundation, is a Trustee for the Concerto Project of New York, is a member of the Arts Rising Steering Committee, Fresh Artists Advisory Council, and Virtuoso Committee for the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Over a year later, we are still so excited that Margaret Anne Goldsmith, a descendent of the first four Jewish families to settle in Huntsville, Alabama, chose to donate a large collection of family heirlooms to the Museum’s artifact collection in 2012. In our collection, this family’s Southern experience improves our holdings by providing a meaningful counterpoint to the more well-known stories of the Jewish communities of the big cities, especially those on the East Coast.

All German Jewish immigrants, the Herstein, Bernstein, and Schiffman families settled in Huntsville in the 1850s and Oscar Goldsmith arrived soon after; subsequent generations united these four families in marriage. Members of the family have figured in every phase of the history of that city, both economically – from the agrarian years of the nineteenth century through Huntsville’s growth into “Rocket City” after World War II – and socially – from the time of institutionalized slavery before the Civil War to segregation to the civil rights era.

Ms. Goldsmith has been very generous with her legacy, sharing her family’s story through many outlets and donating or lending heirlooms and papers to several museums and libraries. She recently donated land to the city for a nature preserve and an elementary school, and established an artist’s group that works closely with the nature preserve.

We are proud to present a new installation of artifacts from this collection on the first floor of the Museum, which is free to the public. In addition to those artifacts we are also displaying more artifacts upstairs in the core exhibition, and more will be installed in the coming months. When you visit, see if you can pick them out!

But the objects that are now on display are the tip of a wonderful Alabama iceberg and the collection we received consists of many letters, photographs, books, business ephemera, and personal artifacts ranging from clothing and candlesticks to shaving mugs and poker sets. It is currently being inventoried and photographed before it is formally accessioned, a process that will be ongoing through the coming months. This phase will involve continued research, condition assessment, and careful measurement of each object as it is processed into our collections management database and coded so that it will be easily accessible to scholars and curators. Additionally, each object will be safely rehoused so that it can be preserved for future generations – an incredibly important part of our mission.

The Goldsmith family is to be commended for their careful stewardship of these artifacts over the years, and we can’t thank them enough for making the decision to donate them to the NMAJH!

Contributed by Claire Pingel, Chief Registrar and Associate Curator
May 1, 2013

Margaret Anne Goldsmith poses with a grandfather clock and a portrait of herself by Maurice Grosser that she recently gave to the Museum in memory of the Bernstein, Herstein, Schiffman and Goldsmith families (2011.151)

Those of us who come from families with military connections know that during holiday seasons, it is especially important to remember the sacrifices of Americans who are serving in the US Armed Forces.  As they fight to restore liberty to people across the globe and maintain our freedom at home, many Jewish soldiers celebrate Passover far from familiar surroundings. A Stars and Stripes article about a military Seder in Europe caught my eye yesterday and made me think of similar stories that have become a part of our artifact collection in recent years.

Wartime Seders organized by or for soldiers are nothing new and there are documented examples dating back to the Civil War in America. During World War II Passover, when families and friends come together to retell the story of the ancient Israelites’ liberation from bondage, took on very contemporary significance due to the extreme suffering of Europe’s Jewish communities.

   

 

 

I have to say, I wasn’t so surprised to hear that Sheryl Sandberg had formed Lean In, a new movement and book to empower women to take their rightful seats at the table and pursue their personal and professional goals. That’s because Sandberg’s bat mitzvah story is a part of our traveling exhibition presented with Moving Traditions,Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age, which will be on view at the Jewish Museum of Florida beginning April 9th*. The exhibition shows how bat mitzvah evolved from a radical, 1922 innovation by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and his daughter, Judith, into a nearly universal American tradition. At its essence, Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age is a story about how individuals shape and change tradition, which is just what Sandberg calls for in Lean In: starting the conversation and inspiring women to find their voices and become changemakers.

 

 

 

Sheryl Sandberg became a bat mitzvah in December of 1982 at Temple Sinai in Miami, Florida. For that occasion, she was twinned with refusenikKira Volvovsky of Gorky, USSR, who was unable to celebrate her own bat mitzvah under an oppressive Soviet regime.  Did Sandberg’s bat mitzvah, a rite her mother and grandmothers never had the opportunity to enjoy, inspire her to work toward changing the nature of women’s leadership roles in the workplace, at home, and in their communities? I wonder, too, if twinning with a refusenik (the “social media” of the 80s?) encouraged her to now challenge the status quo in a big way.

 

 

 

So though a flurry of recent press focuses on her superhuman ability to have it all as a working mom—balancing engaged parenting with the demands of a high-level career—Sheryl Sandberg’s propensity to reach out, lean in, and take action actually dates back a few decades.  How perfect that Bat Mitzvah is on its way to Miami, the city where Sandberg came of age.

 

 

 

At the end of her video pitch for the Lean In project, she sums up the importance of this endeavor with simple reasoning: “This is about believing in yourself.” As Sandberg and the dozens of other women in Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age have shown us, bat mitzvah wouldn’t be the ubiquitous rite it is today without the girls (and their parents and their rabbis) who believed in themselves, and in the dynamism of Jewish life, enough to take a risk and start a conversation.

 

 

 

- Contributed by Ivy Weingram, Associate Curator

 

 

 

*You can still catch the exhibition through March 29th in the Janice Charach Gallery of the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit.

 

 

 

 

 

The Museum is honored to exhibit this series in recognition of the centennial of the United Synagogue’s founding. 

National Museum of American Jewish History, 2009.46

Gift of Jordan B. and Lorraine S. Cherrick of Saint Louis, Missouri, U. S. A., in loving and blessed memory of Adam Cherrick, J. J. Greenberg, and Elie Schwartz

 

At the NMAJH, we love to encourage every visitor to participate in conversations about American history and its intersections with contemporary life, and to add their own personal stories to those that we tell in our exhibitions. In this spirit, we recently added a new feature to the Museum’s free-of-charge first floor that allows our youngest visitors to join in the fun while learning about a historic community leader.  

 

Last month, we installed three prints of a portrait of Dr. Solomon Schechter (1847-1915), an esteemed rabbi and lifelong educator, on the Museum’s first floor. Rabbi Schechter’s legendary commitment to learning is commemorated in an international network of educational institutions that bear his name, and he is also remembered for his leading hand in the 1896 rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza. 

 

In February 1913, Rabbi Schechter led a group of 22 synagogues in founding United Synagogue, which became a national organization supporting the educational and spiritual life of American Conservative congregations. This year United Synagogue celebrates 100 years of tremendous achievement in enriching synagogue life, youth programming and education, social justice, and environmental activism.

 

In addition to providing a riveting look at a leader of worldwide importance, when shown together, the two artist’s proofs and the final etching of a portrait of Rabbi Schechter by Hermann Struck (1876-1944) provide an exceptional view into the renowned landscape and portrait artist’s process of representing one of American Jewry’s most distinguished leaders. 

 

In January 1913 The New York Times characterized Struck, who was then touring American cities to sketch our modern urban landscapes, as “a most striking example of the reconciliation between the new and the old…between modern culture and the oldest ideals and traditions of his ancient Jewish faith.” This pull between tradition and innovation can be seen as the quintessential drama of American Jewish life and it is a story that is repeated throughout the Museum’s galleries. Although he focused on sketching American cityscapes with skyscrapers – which he called a “giant wonderland” – during this trip to the United States, Struck also executed many portraits while he was here.  

 

 

Future community leader Jocelyn Kraut seeks her muse. 

 

Near the installation of the etchings, we have added a table where children – and in more than one instance adults – have been busily executing their own portraits and self-portraits after reading about the inspiring leadership example of Rabbi Schechter. Our budding artists are encouraged to bring their work to the Museum’s gift shop so that it can be added to a growing online exhibit that you can view here.

 

-Contributed by Claire Pingel, Chief Registrar and Associate Curator

February 28, 2013