Tag Archives: Jewish heritage

Virtual Walking Tours, 9/11 Tribute Concert Highlight Museum of Jewish Heritage’s Fall Programming

The Museum of Jewish Heritage, NYC, mounts an enriching line-up of in-person and virtual events, including virtual walking tours of historic Jewish sites and a 20th anniversary 9/11 tribute concert this fall © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

(New York, NY)— This fall, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will present an enriching line-up of in-person and virtual events, including virtual walking tours of historic Jewish sites, launches for four upcoming books about the Holocaust, and a twentieth anniversary 9/11 tribute concert with the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra. 

“This fall, we’re excited to present an array of programming that will allow our visitors to explore, learn, be entertained, and remember together,” says Museum President & CEO Jack Kliger. “Whether you join us virtually or in-person in our newly renovated Edmond J. Safra Hall, we look forward to offering programs that take you to another place and time and leave you with a new or deeper understanding of Jewish heritage and the Holocaust.”

All in-person events will also be livestreamed and available virtually for audiences around the world.

Fall Highlights include:

  • Virtual walking tours that highlight the Jewish history and neighborhoods of major European cities such as Budapest, Berlin, and Amsterdam (September 1 – October 17)
  • Book launches for four new nonfiction books that explore Holocaust history: “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days,” “ We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration,” “Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love,” and “What They Didn’t Burn: Uncovering My Father’s Holocaust Secrets” (August 31 – October 5)
  • A special 9/11 tribute concert with the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestraon the 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks (September 11) 

For more information and a full calendar of events, visit the Museum’s events page:

https://mjhnyc.org/current-events/

During in-person events, the Museum’s LOX at Café Bergson will be open for brunch, lunch, and

dinner, serving its Museum-made smoked salmon and other kosher delicacies.

Here are event details:

“All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” Book Talk 

Tuesday, August 31, 2021 | 2:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Mildred Harnack was an American activist who witnessed the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and joined what would become the largest underground resistance group in Berlin as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution. When the first shots of the Second World War were fired, she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies.  Harnack would eventually get captured and was sentenced to execution by Hitler and was beheaded. 

Join the Museum for a program exploring Harnack’s life and legacy with her great-great-niece Rebecca Donner, author of the newly-released book “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler”

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Budapest 

Wednesday, September 1, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle to discover the vibrant history and culture of Jewish Budapest. On this live, virtual walking tour, tour guide Adam will bring visitors through the heart of the historic Jewish quarter of Pest—one of Budapest city center’s most intriguing areas.

“We Share the Same Sky” Book Launch

Thursday, September 9, 2021 | 7:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

“We Share the Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory & Migration” documents Rachael Cerrotti’s decade-long journey to retrace her grandmother’s Holocaust survival story. The new memoir, scheduled for release in August 2021, explores the pursuit of memory and how the retelling of family stories becomes the history itself.

Join the Museum and Descendants of Holocaust Survivors (2G Greater New York)for a program celebrating the launch of We Share the Same Sky. Cerrotti, who is an award-winning photographer, writer, educator, and audio producer and the inaugural Storyteller in Residence for the USC Shoah Foundation, will be in conversation with Ellen Bachner Greenberg, co-founder of Descendants of Holocaust Survivors.

Remembrance, Reflection, Resilience: A 9/11 Tribute Concert 

Saturday, September 11, 2021 | 8:00 P.M. 

Edmond J. Safra Hall (In-Person Event)

The Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra present a special concert to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001. Interspersed with readings of remembrance and reflection, the concert will feature Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” the world premiere of Gary S. Fagin’s “9/11 In Memoriam,” Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington’s “Come Sunday” featuring the KCO’s Orlando Wells on violin, and other music of uplift and inspiration.

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Porto

Sunday, September 12, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle for a live, virtual walking tour in the beautiful coastal city of Porto, Portugal.

Jews have lived in Porto since the 12th century, and the city’s Jewish population was an active part of its business and civic community in medieval times—until the Inquisition forced many into conversion or expulsion.

With our guide Sara, the walking tour will explore some of the old neighborhoods of the ancient Portuguese Sephardic Jews, turned into the boroughs of converted “New Christians.” We’ll also learn the exciting story of the rejuvenation of Porto’s Jewish community during the last century.

“Into the Forest” Book Launch 

Sunday, September 12, 2021 | 2:00 P.M. ET

Edmond J. Safra Hall (In-Person Event)

From a little-known chapter of Holocaust history, Rebecca Frankel’s “Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love” (which will be published on September 7, 2021) is one family’s inspiring true story of love, escape, and survival.

In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods―through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids―until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944.

During the first ghetto massacre, Miriam Rabinowitz rescued a young boy named Philip by pretending he was her son. Nearly a decade later, a chance encounter at a wedding in Brooklyn would lead Philip to find the woman who saved him. And to discover her daughter Ruth was the love of his life.

Join the Museum for a program celebrating the launch of Into the Forest with Frankel and David Rothkopf, host of the Deep State Radio podcast and CEO of The Rothkopf Group. 

Stories Survive: Dr. Rene David Alkalay

Tuesday, September 14, 2021 | 2:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event) 

Dr. Rene David Alkalay was born in March 1941 in Zagreb, the capital of the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia). When Dr. Alkalay was just a few weeks old, Croatia became a puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and his father and paternal relatives were imprisoned in a concentration camp run by the country’s new Ustaša regime. Later that year, Dr. Alkalay, his mother, and his maternal relatives were imprisoned in other Ustaša-run concentration camps, where they remained for two years.

After the camp was liberated, Dr. Alkalay hid in the forest with partisan groups for a year and then was airlifted out of Yugoslavia to a Displaced Persons camp in Italy. He spent four years after the war at a Catholic school in Rome, unaware of his true religious identity.

In 1950, Dr. Alkalay and his family emigrated to the United States, where he later became a psychotherapist, nutritionist, and pastoral counselor. Join the Museum for a program exploring Dr. Alkalay’s story of survival in Croatia.

“Truus’ Children” Screening and Discussion 

Sunday, September 26, 2021 | 2:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

In December 1938, Dutch social worker Truus Wijsmuller was invited to a meeting with Nazi official Adolf Eichmann regarding the transportation of Jewish children out of Nazi territory. With Eichmann’s permission, she quickly organized 600 Jewish children in Vienna and helped transport them to safety in England and the Netherlands. She then continued organizing transports for the next 18 months, becoming a central figure in the rescue network known as the Kindertransport. In total, the Kindertransport saved the lives of approximately 10,000 children.

Join the Museum and the Netherlands’ diplomatic network in the US for a virtual screening and discussion of Truus’ Children, a new film from Dutch filmmakers Pamela Sturhoofd and Jessica van Tijn exploring Wijsmuller’s remarkable legacy. As it tells Wijsmuller’s story, the film also probes the question of why Wijsmuller has been largely forgotten in the 75 years since the World War II.

This program will feature an exclusive panel discussion with Sturhoofd, van Tijn, and Ilse Bauer-Langsdorf, one of the children saved by Truus Wijsmuller. The discussion will be moderated by Michael Simonson, Head of Public Outreach and Archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute. 

Jewish Multiverse: Judaism and Superheroes

Thursday, September 30, 2021 | 7:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Since the first Superman comic was published in 1938, there has been a persistent fascination with superheroes. Today, we see them everywhere: television, movies, comics, toys, and anywhere else one can think of. Jews have played an important role in superhero culture, both as characters and creators.

Join the Museum for a program exploring Jewish superheroes with comic book writer Marguerite Bennett (DC Bombshells) and editor Danny Fingeroth (Marvel’s Spiderman Comics Line). They will be in conversation with journalist Abraham Riesman, author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee.

Powerhouse Jewish Women: Isle of Kiezbos & Stephanie Lynne Mason in Concert 

Sunday, October 3, 2021 | 3:00 P.M.

Edmond J. Safra Hall (In-Person Event)

Celebrate Jewish women’s music at this energetic Isle of Klezbos concert, held live in the Museum’s Edmond J. Safra Hall.

This soulful, fun-loving powerhouse all-women’s klezmer sextet has toured from Vienna to Vancouver since 1998. The band, led by drummer Eve Sicular, approaches tradition with irreverence and respect and is known for its tight yet adventurous sound, lush arrangements, luscious compositions, and solos that swing the Yiddish stratosphere. The band also includes Pam Fleming on trumpet,Reut Regev on trombone, Melissa Fogarty on vocals, Shoko Nagai on accordion and piano, and Saskia Lane on double bass.

Isle of Klezbos will be opened by Broadway actress and singer Stephanie Lynne Mason, known for her leading roles in Fiddler on the Roof and Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, accompanied by Bob Marks on piano.

“What They Didn’t Burn” Book Launch

Tuesday, October 5, 2021 | 7:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Growing up, author Mel Laytner saw his father as a quintessential Type B: passive and conventional. As he uncovered documents the Nazis didn’t burn, however, another man emerged—a black market ringleader and wily camp survivor who made his own luck. The tattered papers also shed light on painful secrets his father took to his grave.

Melding the intimacy of personal memoir with the rigors of investigative journalism, “What They Didn’t Burn: Uncovering My Father’s Holocaust Secrets” is a heartwarming, inspiring story of resilience and redemption. A story of how desperate survivors turned hopeful refugees rebuilt their shattered lives in America, all the while struggling with the lingering trauma that has impacted their children to this day.

Join the Museum for a conversation with Laytner and Jane Eisner, Director of Academic Affairs at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and former editor-in-chief of The Forward, about “What They Didn’t Burn.”

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Berlin 

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle for this live, virtual walking tour of one of Berlin’s oldest neighborhoods. There will be an exploration of areas where Berlin’s Jewish community once flourished and explore how its tragic history is being memorialized today.

Led by tour guide Martin, the tour will begin at the Jewish Boy’s School, then head to the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin and the neighboring location of the Jewish retirement home. All three sites were seized by the Nazis. There will also be stops at the haunting memorial sculptures by German artist Will Lammert, the New Synagogue built in 1866, and Museum Island—a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the heart of the city.

Introduction to the Holocaust 

Thursday, October 7 – November 4, 2021 | 5:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum for a virtual adult education course offering an introduction to the Holocaust. The five-part course will meet weekly on Thursdays from 5:00 to 6:30 PM ET. Each class will include a full lecture followed by student Q&A.

The first four sessions will be led by Dr. Avinoam Patt, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Patt is a former research scholar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and has published extensively about Jewish life in Europe before, during, and after the Holocaust.

The fifth session will feature Maritza Shelley, a Holocaust survivor from Budapest, Hungary. Shelley survived forced labor and a Nazi death march when she was a teenager. Along with her mother and sister, she eventually escaped, obtained false papers, and hitchhiked back to Budapest with a convoy of Nazis. Shelley emigrated to New York City in 1947.

Wallenberg: A Musical Tribute

Thursday, October 7, 2021 | 7:00 P.M. ET

Edmond J. Safra Hall (In-Person Event)

“Wallenberg,” an epic new musical with book and lyrics by the 2006 Kleban Award-winning team of Laurence Holzman and Felicia Needleman and music by Benjamin Rosenbluth, brings the incredible true story of Raoul Wallenberg, one of the greatest unsung heroes of the 20th century, vividly to life.

In July 1944, the 32-year-old Wallenberg, a businessman from Stockholm, left the safety of neutral Sweden on an American-sponsored mission to Nazi-occupied Hungary. Between face-offs with the notorious Adolf Eichmann and secret dealings with the wife of one of Hungary’s most prominent fascist leaders, Wallenberg saved over 100,000 lives—more than were rescued by any other individual during the Holocaust.

Join the Museum for an evening with the creators and actors behind “Wallenberg,” who will explore the Wallenberg story and perform a set of exhilarating and richly melodic songs from the musical’s score.

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Odessa

Sunday, October 10, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle for a virtual stroll through Odessa’s old town and uncover the story of Odessa’s Jewish community.

Tour guide, Olga, will be live on the streets of Odessa sharing her city’s rich Jewish heritage. She’ll showcase sites from the golden age of the city’s Jewish community, focusing on the time from the city’s founding through the 1860s and exploring the identities and motivations of Odessa’s early Jewish settlers.

Attendees will see the Brodsky Synagogue, talk about the powerful Ephrussi family, follow in the footsteps of the prominent Jewish revolutionary Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and see the beautiful mansions that were once home to Jewish merchants in the early 1800s.

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Amsterdam

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle to travel back in time to learn about Amsterdam’s Jewish history on this live, virtual walking tour with tour guide Stephan.

Stephan will explore the city’s historic Jewish Quarter, explaining how Amsterdam became a safe haven for Jews fleeing southern and eastern Europe starting in the 16th century, and why 10% of its population was Jewish at the onset of the Holocaust.

The tour will include stops at the two Amsterdam synagogues and its famed Jewish memorial. Attendees will also see the city’s oldest park, the Hortus Botanicus—a botanical garden established in 1638—and Steohan’s favorite street in Amsterdam. Discover history through a walk along the canals.

Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Prague

Sunday, October 17, 2021 | 11:00 A.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Join the Museum and Our Travel Circle to explore the historic Jewish community of Prague, in the Czech Republic.

On this live, virtual walking tour, attendees will learn the history of the Jewish community in Bohemia since the 10th century with our guide Nikola. They will visit several synagogues: the Maisel Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue, and the Old New Synagogue—Europe’s oldest synagogue still in use.

The tour will explore the impact of World War II and the German annexation of Czechoslovakia through the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) and the Terezin Ghetto. Learn the story of Nicholas Winton, the British businessman who saved 669 children with his rescue mission. And finally, attendees will hear the story of the American ambassador’s residence in Prague—the spectacular Petschka Palace.

Love in Wartime

Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 7:00 P.M. ET

(Virtual Event)

Love stories during the Holocaust are as inspiring as they are remarkable. In photographer Max Hirshfeld’s new book Sweet Noise: Love in Wartime, he offers an intimate look at one of these stories through powerful photographs, a series of emotional love letters between his parents, and the narrative of a son’s pilgrimage exploring his origins.

Join the Museum for a program exploring Hirshfeld’s work with the photographer and Jacqueline Kott-Wolle, a fellow artist and daughter of Holocaust survivors. Hirshfeld and Kott-Wolle will explore different forms of love, expression, and the idea that Jewish trauma and hardship did not end after the war.

The Light and Legacy of Rachel Cowan

Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 6:45 P.M.

(In-Person Event)

Rachel Cowan was a civil rights activist, community organizer, the first female Jew by choice ordained as a Rabbi, and a beloved and influential mindfulness teacher. After she was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer, her years of mindfulness practice enabled her to model living well while dying. Join the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and presenting partners B’nai Jeshurun and the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, for an evening celebrating the remarkable light and legacy of Rachel’s life.

The program will feature a screening of Dying Doesn’t Feel Like What I’m Doing, a new film about Cowan from American-born, Jerusalem-based documentary filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Weiman-Kelman, Khary Lazarre-White, Executive Director & Co-Founder of the Brotherhood Sister Sol, and Jeannie Blaustein, Founding Board Chair at Reimagine End of Life. The discussion will be moderated by Rabbi Marc Margolius, Senior Program Director at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of almost 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. The Museum is the home of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.

The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. 

The Museum is closed on Saturdays, Jewish holidays, and Thanksgiving. 

Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 36 Battery Place, New York City, 646-437-4202, mjhnyc.org.

See also:

GROUNDBREAKING EXHIBIT AT MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE TRANSPORTS TO ‘AUSCHWITZ: NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY’

GLOBAL SCAVENGER HUNT TURNS INTO PERSONAL ODYSSEY FOLLOWING ROUTE OF JEWISH DIASPORA (PART 1: Vietnam-Athens)

GLOBAL SCAVENGER HUNT TURNS INTO PERSONAL ODYSSEY FOLLOWING ROUTE OF JEWISH DIASPORA (PART 2: MOROCCO-GIBRALTAR)

GLOBAL SCAVENGER HUNT TURNS INTO PERSONAL ODYSSEY FOLLOWING ROUTE OF JEWISH DIASPORA (PART 3: IBERIA-NYC)

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Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust Extends Groundbreaking Auschwitz Exhibition in Response to High Demand

Artifacts and images from dozens of institutions and private collections from around the world are on view at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust’s groundbreaking exhibit, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away, including Mauthausen Memorial, Mauthausen, Austria, where the crematorium is no longer open to the public. © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

– Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. exhibition will remain on view at the NYC museum through August 30, 2020, an eight-month extension from its originally scheduled close date –

– Exhibition features more than 700 objects and 400 photographs on display in North America for the first time, including a shofar that was secretly blown at Auschwitz and a collection of 10 original artifacts from the Anne Frank House –

New York, NY – Due to an overwhelming response, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today announced that Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.the most comprehensive Holocaust exhibition about Auschwitz ever presented in North America, will be extended until August 30, 2020. Produced by the international exhibition firm Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, the groundbreaking exhibition is the largest ever on Auschwitz with more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs.

The extension responds to the record number of visitors the exhibition drew to the Museum since opening in May. To date, more than 106,000 people from across the country and globe have come to the Museum to see the exhibition, including more than 36,000 students to date and approximately 12,000 students scheduled to visit before the end of 2019.

“The number of adults and school visitors drawn to Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. has been incredible. This exhibition greets its visitors with a clear warning to be vigilant – to not allow this history to repeat and to never presume that it won’t,” notes Bruce C. Ratner, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “In recent years and recent months even, we have seen a surge in antisemitic rhetoric, hate crimes, and a weaponized nationalism both here in the United States and abroad. We are extending this exhibition at our Museum because it offers clear, moral lessons that resonate powerfully today and from which visitors want to learn.”

“It has been a great honor to preside over the Museum as it presents this astounding exhibition and to witness it move so many of our visitors as deeply as it has moved me,” says Jack Kliger, the Museum’s President & CEO. “Most remarkable, this exhibition is dynamic. Already large in scope, it continues to acquire new artifacts over the course of its life, such as the shofar clandestinely used in Auschwitz that we unveiled last month ahead of Rosh Hashanah.”

“We have been profoundly overwhelmed by the phenomenal visitor response in New York – not only by the numbers themselves, but especially by the time visitors spend in the exhibition – on average two hours – and the care, attention and respect they show for this story. Deciding to visit this exhibition is a courageous step. It means confronting oneself with a traumatic, complex and challenging past. And more importantly, it helps us understand more critically our own present,” says Luis Ferreiro, Director of Musealia and the exhibition project.

“I don’t think that there is a more important exhibition presented in New York at the moment. This one about Auschwitz explores the essence of mankind, analyzes the limits of what is human, and asks important questions about our contemporary responsibility. I am glad people will be able to see it there longer,” says Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. traces the development of Nazi ideology and tells the transformation of Auschwitz from an ordinary Polish town known as Oświęcim to the largest German Nazi concentration camp and the most significant site of the Holocaust —at which ca. 1 million Jews, and tens of thousands of others, were murdered. Victims included Polish political prisoners, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those the Nazis deemed “homosexual,” “disabled,” “criminal,” “inferior,” or adversarial in countless other ways. The exhibition tells not only the story of their persecution and murder, but also the myriad ways ordinary people responded to the unfolding genocide, including inspiring stories of resistance, resilience, courage, and altruism. In addition, the exhibition contains artifacts that depict the world of the perpetrators—SS men who created and operated the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps.

With more than 700 objects and 400 photographs, mainly from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the New York presentation of the exhibition allows visitors to experience artifacts from more than 20 international museums and institutions on view for the first time in North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz. Other artifacts include: concrete posts that were part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp; part of an original barrack for prisoners from the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest-serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the SS; Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made Model 2 freight train car of the type used for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland. 

The exhibition also features 10 artifacts on loan from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which include the spilled, dried beans Anne wrote about in her diary and that were later discovered lodged between the cracks of stairs in the home where she hid from the German Nazis. The beans have never been displayed anywhere before. Most recently, the Museum announced the exhibition’s incorporation of a shofar (a ram’s horn that is made into a special wind instrument used during Jewish High Holiday services) that was hidden and clandestinely blown in the Auschwitz. The shofar was newly added to the exhibition on the cusp of the High Holy days and temporarily transported to two New York City synagogues to be blown on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

The Museum of Jewish Heritage has incorporated into the exhibition nearly 100 rare artifacts from its collection that relay the experience of survivors and liberators who found refuge in the greater New York area. These artifacts include: Alfred Kantor’s sketchbook and portfolio that contain over 150 original paintings and drawings from Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Schwarzheide; the trumpet that musician Louis Bannet (acclaimed as “the Dutch Louis Armstrong”) credits for saving his life while he was imprisoned in Auschwitz; visas issued by Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania often referred to as “Japan’s Oskar Schindler”; prisoner registration forms and identification cards; personal correspondence; tickets for passage on the St. Louis; and a rescued Torah scroll from the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg. 

Also on display from the Museum of Jewish Heritage collection is Heinrich Himmler’s SS helmet and his annotated copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as an anti-Jewish proclamation issued in 1551 by Ferdinand I that was given to Hermann Göring by German security chief Reinhard Heydrich on the occasion of Göring’s birthday. The proclamation required Jews to identify themselves with a “yellow ring” on their clothes. Heydrich noted that, 400 years later, the Nazis were completing Ferdinand’s work. These artifacts stand as evidence of a chapter of history that must never be forgotten.

Alongside Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., the Museum offers a series of talks, screenings, performances, and commemorative events that further explore Jewish history and life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The last week of October, artist and Holocaust survivor William Bernheim will discuss his history and artistic response, and author Marty Brounstein will present a program abouta Christian couple in the Netherlands who saved the lives of over two dozen Jews. November programming includes commemorative events for the 81stanniversary of Kristallnacht, including “Stories Survive: An Eyewitness Account of Kristallnacht” with Ruth Zimbler. In December, The Sorceress will be performed by the resident National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. To learn more about these and other activities, visit the Museum’s Events page here: https://mjhnyc.org/current-events/

Following the New York presentation, the exhibition is intended to tour other cities around the world. Future destinations will be announced by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Curated by an international team of experts led by historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. first opened in New York City on May 8, 2019 after its successful run at Madrid’s Arte Canal Exhibition Centre, where it was extended two times, drew more than 600,000 visitors, and was one of the most visited exhibitions in Europe last year. The exhibition explores the dual identity of the camp as a physical location—the largest documented mass murder site in human history—and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human barbarity.

Museum of Jewish Heritage Board Vice Chairman George Klein visited the exhibition in Spain and recommended to his Board that they bring it to Lower Manhattan.The exhibition features artifacts and materials on loan from more than 20 institutions and private collections around the world. In addition to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, participating institutions include Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg, and the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London. 

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far awaywas conceived of by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and curated by an international panel of experts, including world-renowned scholars Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, and Paul Salmons, in an unprecedented collaboration with historians and curators at the Research Center at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, led by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz.

“When we, the Musealia curatorial team set out to design the Auschwitz exhibition, we realized that we faced a difficult problem. In Auschwitz over a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered shortly after their arrival or suffered and died in unimaginable circumstances. How does one create an exhibition about such a dark chapter in human history that, in our understanding, is not long ago and happened in a place not far away? How does one make the public, that has so many opportunities to explore a great city like New York, decide that it would want to see such an exhibition? Our tools were straightforward: a narrative told through more than 700 original artifacts, 400 original images, 100 stories, made present by means of filmed testimonies and quotes – all revealing individual experiences of a history we must learn from,” says Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Chief Curator.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is presented in the symbolic, hexagonally-shaped core building at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This 18,000-square-foot exhibition introduces artifacts and Holocaust survivor testimony through 20 thematic galleries. 

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is made possible with lead support by Bruce C. Ratner, George and Adele Klein Family Foundation, Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert, and Larry and Klara Silverstein & Family. The exhibition is presented in part with major support by The David Berg Foundation, Patti Askwith Kenner, The Oster Family Foundation, and The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust. The New York premiere is made possible in part by Simon & Stefany Bergson with additional support from The Knapp Family Foundation.

GENERAL INFORMATION

TICKETS

Entry is by timed ticket available at Auschwitz.nyc. Audio guide (available in 8 languages) is included with admission.

$25 Flexible Entry—entry any time on a specific day

$16 Adults

$12 Seniors and People with Disabilities

$10 Students and Veterans

$8 Museum Members

FREE for Holocaust survivors, active members of the military and first responders, and students and teachers through grade 12 in schools located in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (with valid school-issued ID). 

For group visits, contact the Museum at 646.437.4304 or [email protected]. See Auschwitz.nyc for more information.

HOURS AS OF NOVEMBER 1, 2019:

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday & Thursday          10 AM to 6 PM            
Wednesday                                                     10 AM to 9 PM

Friday                                                              10 AM to 3 PM            

Last admission to Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far awayis 2 hours before closing time. Last entrance to the rest of the Museum is 30 minutes prior to closing time.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Since 1997, the Museum of Jewish Heritage has welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors; it maintains a collection of more than 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. 

The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. 

The Museum is closed on Saturdays, Jewish holidays, and Thanksgiving. 

Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, 36 Battery Place, New York City, 646-437-4202, mjhnyc.org.

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Photo Exhibit Honoring Elie Wiesel Opens in Moscow

MOSCOW, RUSSIA — Limmud FSU, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, in partnership with the Shem Olam Institute and the Nativ organization, has just opened a photographic survey of the life of Elie Wiesel, at the Israeli Cultural Center in Moscow. The exhibition will run until the end of September.

An array of VIPs participated in the opening August 25, including Russian Chief Rabbi Avraham Shayevich; Russian Jewish Congress President Yuri Kenner; Israel’s Minister of Immigrant Absorption Sofa Landver; Conference of European Rabbis President Pinchas Goldschmidt; Euro-Asian Jewish Congress Secretary General Mikhail Chlenov; Israeli-Russian Business Council Chairman Dr. Temur Ben Yehuda; Prof. Ilya Altman, representing the Claims Conference in the FSU; American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s representative in Moscow, Alik Nadan; and the founder and chairman of Limmud FSU, Chaim Chesler.

Wiesel was a leading supporter of the movement to free Soviet Jewry and in 1966 wrote a highly influential book on the struggle. “It’s fitting that Elie Wiesel was honored in Moscow by the very people he helped free 50 years after writing ‘The Jews of Silence,'” said Chesler. “His memory will serve as an inspiration and a symbol of our triumph.”

Dr. Yoel Rappel, the founder and director of the Elie Wiesel Archive at Boston University, curated the exhibition, which showcases milestones in Wiesel’s life, from his youth before and during the Holocaust to his work as a novelist, journalist, Jewish leader and Nobel Prize winner.

“When I asked Wiesel how the struggle for Soviet Jewry is more important than the struggle for Holocaust awareness, he replied: ‘the Jews of Europe were exterminated physically by the Nazis; the Jews of the Soviet Union were being destroyed spiritually. The first we were unable to avoid, but we must prevent the second from succeeding,'” said Rappel.

Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, now in Romania. He was just 15 years old when the Nazis deported him and his family to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished, yet his two older sisters survived. Elie and his father were later transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945.

“Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was a source of inspiration for Jews around the world – and all free people. A philosopher, teacher, journalist and writer, he embodied the struggle against evil and for the right of Diaspora Jews to immigrate to Israel,” said Landver. “There is no one who will be better remembered as a fighter for humanity. Wiesel managed to break through the Iron Curtain and allow many Jews to return to the Jewish homeland.”

In 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel as chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became the founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel and his wife Marion established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice. He received 140 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning all over the world.

Elie Wiesel died in New York in July.

The entire exhibition may be viewed or downloaded here.

Limmud FSU is a nonprofit founded 10 years ago by Chaim Chesler, former treasurer of the Jewish Agency, and Sandra Cahn, a philanthropist from New York. Since its inaugural conference in Moscow in 2006, Limmud FSU has created an independent educational and communal network of annual conferences and festivals, attracting more than 35,000 participants in Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Russian Far East and the Volga-Ural region), Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Israel, North America (Greater New York, the West Coast, and Canada), and Australia. Limmud FSU engages young Russian-Jewish adults, empowering them to take ownership of their identity and to connect with their communities through pluralistic, egalitarian volunteer-driven conferences of Jewish learning and culture. In this way, Limmud FSU strives to foster the next generation of young Russian-speaking Jewish leadership and so revitalize Jewish communities in the countries of the former Soviet Union, and in countries with Russian-Jewish communities, wherever they may be. Key partners include the Claims Conference, JDC, philanthropist Matthew Bronfman, Aaron Frenkel, Michal Grayevsky, Ronald Lauder, Diane Wohl, the Jewish National Fund (KKL), UJA-Federation of New York, Israel Bonds, the Jewish Agency, and others. For additional details: www.limmudfsu.org.
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Burkat Global Tour Explores 3000 Years of Jewish India Up to Present

Travelers at Magen Aboth Synagogue in Alibag on the Konkan Coast following the path of Jews shipwrecked there more than 2,000 years ago. The synagogue is two hours from Mumbai by private boat and bus on Burkat Global's "3000 Years of Jewish India" tour starting in Mumbai, January 26, 2015 © Burkat Global, LLC
Travelers at Magen Aboth Synagogue in Alibag on the Konkan Coast following the path of Jews shipwrecked there more than 2,000 years ago. The synagogue is two hours from Mumbai by private boat and bus on Burkat Global’s “3000 Years of Jewish India” tour starting in Mumbai, January 26, 2015 © Burkat Global, LLC

Coming upon a pastel pink synagogue with hot pink trim is only one of the surprises travelers will uncover on Burkat Global’s 3,000 Years of Jewish India tour.  In Southern India you’ll walk in the footsteps of the Jews who arrived as spice traders 3,000 years ago and those who settled there.2,000 years ago after the destruction of the second temple.

The journey begins in Mumbai (aka Bombay), India’s  most sophisticated city, where you’ll shop in ancient bazaars and visit colonial relics.  You’ll also tour breathtaking synagogues and historic sites,  take a private boat across Mumbai harbor  to visit age-old synagogues and oil pressers on the Konkan Coast, and take another private boat to Elephanta Island to explore  early Hindu caves.

A short flight takes the group to Cochin (aka Kochi) and the backwaters of Kerala, “the Venice of the East,”  for Ayurveda massage, yoga, or just relaxing. You’ll enjoy a Kathakali performance and traditional Kerala home-style meals.   There’s also a lazy afternoon on board a luxury houseboat, dining and taking pictures of villagers fishing, palm-fringed paddy fields and brightly-painted houses and churches.

In the city of Cochin you’ll have a cooking lesson and visit  a “secret” synagogue;  tour ancient Jew Town’s spice markets, antiques shops, Jewish cemetery and India’s oldest synagogue; view contemporary art on a special tour of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale; and see the Dutch Palace, Vasco da Gama’s church and more. In Muziris, where Jewish traders settled even before Cochin, you can work with archaeologists digging up the past, and swim in the Arabian Sea.  You’ll see recently-restored synagogues and an ancient Jewish cemetery in a town where Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Christians  have lived peacefully  for millennia.

There are about 5,000 Jews left in India, Howard Burkat tells me. “Because no one really knows the exact number, sometimes the number is thought to be as many as 7,500. There were substantially fewer than 100,000 before Israel became a state. Again, an exact and reliable number is very hard to come by. The vast majority of Indian Jews left the country to settle in Israel  in the years immediately after that country’s gaining independence in 1948.

The synagogues that remain are in many cases still used as places of worship. They were built in the 17th-19th centuries and most have been used by the community ever since. However, some are in excellent condition. Some need sprucing up. And some are in terrible shape waiting to be restored.

Recently the government of the southern state of Kerala, where the synagogues around Cochin are located, has  restored a number of synagogues beautifully, he says. “In fact Dr. Shalva Weil of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is the scholar in residence on our tour and travels with us, was heavily involved in a number of these restorations.”

Dr. Shalva Weil of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem speaking at Bombay's 1884 Temple Knesset Eliyahoo, built by the Sassoon family, prominent Jewish philanthropists. On Burkat Global's "3000 Years of Jewish India" tour, Dr. Weil is the scholar in residence speaking daily on tour destinations. © Burkat Global, LLC
Dr. Shalva Weil of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem speaking at Bombay’s 1884 Temple Knesset Eliyahoo, built by the Sassoon family, prominent Jewish philanthropists. On Burkat Global’s “3000 Years of Jewish India” tour, Dr. Weil is the scholar in residence speaking daily on tour destinations. © Burkat Global, LLC

In Mumbai on the holidays a few hundred people might attend services; out on the Konkan coast in the country outside Mumbai, fewer than a dozen people might worship. In still other synagogues, no one attends – they are museums maintained by government entities.

There is an old, beautiful synagogue, nearly 300 years old, hidden deep in the marketplace in Cochin. It is not visible from the street. You must be led to it through a large pet store and garden center whose Jewish owner will take you through his stores and into the synagogue to tell you its history.

“There are no regular services now, the last rabbi returned to Israel more than two years ago,  but on our tour, Sabbath worship will be arranged,” Burkat says., “Travelers sit under chandeliers ordered from Europe in the 1700s, and walk on tile floors from China, each one different from the next, that have been in place for hundreds of years.”

Dr. Shalva Weil of The Hebrew University, considered the world’s leading expert on Jewish India, will be the scholar in residence, traveling with and teaching the group.

Along the way there are delicious meals of Indian food—not hot unless you like it hot—and special Jewish Indian Shabbat dinners.  (Note that tour meals are not kosher, but are  vegetarian and fish.)   Hotels, all green award winners, include the legendary 5-star Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, Kerala’s lakeside Coconut Lagoon Resort, which Condé Nast Traveler has called one of the world’s best getaways, and the Brunton Boatyard, which combines 19th-century atmosphere with 21st-century luxury on an historic stretch of Cochin’s celebrated harbor.

There are also opportunities to meet local people. “In Mumbai and Cochin we arrange dinners with local Jewish community leaders. Our ground operator and guides are members of the Bene Israel community in Mumbai – they are leading our group into their own community.”

“3000 Years of Jewish India” makes three stops. In Mumbai and Cochin the group travels to numerous Jewish and non-Jewish sites. “Doctor Shalva Weil explains and lectures on the Jewish sites each day when we are visiting them. We also spend four days at the Coconut Lagoon resort, one of the most luxurious in India. This is a wonderful indulgence stop. There is a chance to learn about the literary heritage of Kerala and also see its famous Kathakali dances. There may be a lecture by Dr, Weill, but there is not Jewish heritage component here as there is in Cochin and Mumbai.

The tour is geared organized by the Burkat family and designed for families.

The small-group, land-only tour costs $7,995 per person, double occupancy, and includes almost everything: accommodation in luxury hotels, all intra-India transportation and transfers, daily breakfast, 21 lunches and dinners, bottled water,  sightseeing with entrance fees, the services of expert Indian Jewish guides, taxes and gratuities.  There is one departure: January 26, 2015; the tour is limited to 20 people.  International air fare is not included.

For more information about the “3,000 Years of Jewish India” tour, visit www.burkatglobal.com.  For reservations, call 914-231-9023.

 

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