Category: Past

In the fall of 1950, Hebrew Theological College (HTC) Librarian Leah Mishkin received several large crates filled with Jewish ceremonial objects and religious texts. More crates would arrive over the next few years until, ultimately, Mrs. Mishkin became custodian of over sixty objects and thousands of books, all entrusted to HTC by the Jewish Cultural… Read More

Kindertransport – Rescuing Children on the Brink of War showcases the astonishing rescue effort that, in only nine months, brought thousands of unaccompanied children from Nazi Europe to the United Kingdom. Through personal artifacts, stories, and firsthand testimony, those who lived through the “Kindertransport” program tell its history. The exhibition’s thoughtful, artistic design draws visitors… Read More

Shtetl in the Sun celebrates the work of Andy Sweet, a dynamic young photographer in the late 1970s, and his images of Jewish life in South Beach, Florida. In the late 1970s, more than 20,000 elderly Jews, many of them New York transplants and Holocaust Survivors, called South Beach home. This area of barely two… Read More

In 1942, in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066. The law ordered the forced imprisonment of all Japanese Americans living on the west coast of the United States, which at the time had the second largest population of Japanese people living outside… Read More

More than a place to get a meal, the Jewish deli is a community forged in food. “I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli explores how Jewish immigrants, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, imported and adapted traditions to create a uniquely American restaurant. The exhibition reveals how Jewish delicatessens became a cornerstone of… Read More

Chim: Between Devastation and Resurrection shines a light on the work of one of the most respected photojournalists of his day. Born Dawid Szymin in Warsaw in 1911, Chim, who published under the name David Seymour after World War II, was an astute observer of 20th Century European politics, social life, and culture, from the beginnings… Read More

In 1945, a diary was discovered in the liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp. It was written by a 14-year-old Jewish girl named Rywka Lipszyc and documented her life in the Łódz Ghetto between October 1943 and April 1944. Rywka’s diary told stories of a young girl who lost her siblings and parents, but never lost hope or… Read More

“The Negro Motorist Green Book” guided Black Americans to thousands of businesses for over thirty years. When the first “Green Book” was published, the American road was a metaphor for freedom: freedom to change your present situation, determine your destiny, and travel. Yet, in 20th-century America, this same road was a dangerous place for Black travelers. The… Read More

Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II tells the heroic tale of the top-secret U.S. Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the “Ghost Army,” and their covert operations across Europe that helped win the war, armed with nothing heavier than .50 caliber machine guns. This carefully selected group of artists, engineers,… Read More

Shanghai: Safe Haven During the Holocaust sheds light on a lesser-known moment in Holocaust history: European Jews who had been shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution found a beacon of hope in an unlikely place: Shanghai, China. In 1946, American photojournalist Arthur Rothstein began a project documenting the lives of… Read More