VOLUME 9 • NUMBER 3
SUMMER 2012
Onlyin America
®
A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O RY
Museum’s First Special Exhibition Features Rare Washington Letter G eorge Washington’s historic 1790 letter to the “Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island,” which affirmed rights and privileges generally unknown to Jews for millennia and underscored the new nation’s commitment to religious liberty and equality for people of all faiths, is the remarkable centerpiece of the National Museum of American Jewish History’s first special exhibition, To Bigotry No Sanction: George Washington and Religious Freedom.
Letter from George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., August 1790. Courtesy of the Morris Morgenstern Foundation.
Opening June 29, the exhibition also features correspondence between Washington and other American religious communities; “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777 and printed in broadside form in Williamsburg, Va. in 1779;
“The stunning constellation of objects we’ve gathered for the exhibition recounts, animates, and provides insight into the remarkable period in which religious freedom was established in America. Visitors can track the unfolding of the national conversation,” said Ivy L. Barsky, the Museum’s Gwen Goodman Director and CEO. “I cannot express the thrill, honor, and gratitude I feel, as does everyone connected to the Museum, that we have been entrusted with this remarkable (continued on page 2)
Ivy L. Barsky Named Museum CEO
CONTENTS Washington’s Historic Letter
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New CEO Appointed
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Exodus Program (caption)
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Equality Forum (caption)
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Mighty Max Program
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Big Bang Bat Mitzvah
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series of special exhibitions, both traveling and for display at the Museum. “I am gratified to have this opportunity to work with the Board and staff to take the Museum to the next level as a regional and national asset,” Ms. Barsky said. “My goal is to bring to life—in the way we operate as a Museum and in how we serve our audiences—the spirit of optimism, willingness to take risks, and dedication to making a better world, which are embodied in the stories of American Jewish history.”
Ivy L. Barsky, new Museum CEO.
A Portrait of George Washington, Gilbert Charles Stuart, ca. 1800, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of the Honorable Walter H. Annenberg and Leonore Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, 2007.
the first public printing of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Packet on Sept. 19, 1787; Pennsylvania’s ratification of the Bill of Rights; and a beautiful portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart.
year after she joined the National Museum of American Jewish History as Director and COO, Ivy L. Barsky has been named the Museum’s Chief Executive Officer as of July 1, replacing Michael Rosenzweig, who has served the Museum as President and CEO since April 2009.
Ms. Barsky has made a substantial impact at the Museum during her year as second-in-command. She is overseeing a strategic planning process, an evaluation of the Museum’s core exhibition, and has launched a
In announcing Barsky’s appointment, Museum Co-Chair Philip M. Darivoff said, “Ivy Barsky is an exceptional choice as the next leader for the National Museum of American Jewish History. She is well suited to build on the foundation laid by Gwen Goodman and strengthened by Michael Rosenzweig. She has an inspiring vision for the Museum, the requisite leadership and managerial skills, and a commitment to audience and community engagement that are ideal for leading us into the future.” Rosenzweig joined the Museum when its new building was under construction. He oversaw completion of the building and the Museum’s successful $155 million capital campaign, as well as the installation of the core exhibition. He also recruited and hired the additional staff needed to operate the new Museum. Under Rosenzweig’s leadership, the Museum opened in November 2010 with a star-studded launch and to critical and popular acclaim.
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The Museum served as a host venue for Equality Forum’s International Equality Dinner, which featured Annise Parker (center), Mayor of Houston, and Michael Oren (left), Ambassador of Israel to the United States, as the Keynote Speaker. With them is Daniel Kutner, Consul General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States. ▼
Ronald Rubin, NMAJH Co-chair, said, “Michael has been an outstanding leader and he will be missed. His passion and hard work were instrumental to realizing our dream of a national museum on Independence Mall dedicated to telling the story of the American Jewish experience. He brought our building in on time and on budget and played a critical role in raising the funds needed for the project. We will forever be in his debt and wish him the very best in his next endeavor.” Ms. Barsky was formerly Deputy Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York. Her previous experience includes nearly a decade working in the arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and P.S. 1 in New York City. Barsky earned her M.A. in art history from the University of Pennsylvania and received her undergraduate degree from New York University. She led the team that was honored with the American Association of Museum’s grand prize for Excellence in Exhibitions (2004) for “Ours to Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War” and that created the Keeping History Center (2009), a new media installation overlooking New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. She was recognized with the New York City Museum Educators Roundtable Award for Excellence in Museum Education (2005). Barsky was an adjunct professor in Museum Studies at New York University. ▲
Manuscript prayer celebrating George Washington, known as “the Richmond Prayer.” National Museum of American Jewish History, gift from ARA Services, Inc. Conservation funds provided by the Robert Saligman Charitable Fund.
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▲ Samuel G. Freedman (left), Columbia University Professor, and Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin (right), Founding Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Israel, spoke at the Museum on the theme of freedom in the Book of Exodus, and explored its relevance to contemporary life. With the speakers (from left) are Ivy L. Barsky, the Museum’s Director; Melvin and Eunice Miller; and Michael Rosenzweig, the Museum’s former President. The program was sponsored by the Melvin N. & Eunice A. Miller Foundation.
Exhibition Explores Roots of Religious Freedom piece of American – and American Jewish – history.” Washington’s letter to Newport Jewry is arguably the single most important document in American Jewish history. Composed on the heels of his 1790 visit to Rhode Island, America’s first President pledged to uphold the Constitution’s offer of “the invaluable rights of free citizens” to Americans of all faiths, an extraordinary promise considering that it came at the same moment that Jews in Russia were being confined to the Pale of Settlement. The letter has been generously loaned to the Museum by the Morris Morgenstern Foundation. “It is our fervent hope that unprecedented numbers of people, Jews and Gentiles alike, will be afforded the opportunity to see this document at your institution, and think about the message embodied therein. If they can appreciate and heed its spirit, the world will be better for it,” said Richard Morganstern. The letter has been kept for the past decade in an arts storage facility in suburban Maryland by the Foundation, after having been on loan to the B’nai B’rith International Klutznick Museum in Washington, D.C., which closed in 2002. “We are proud to have been the home of the letter for more than 40 years,” said Daniel S. Mariaschin, Executive Vice President of B’nai B’rith International. “We’re pleased that this uplifting national treasure is available again for public viewing and will be seen by thousands more people.”
Photo by Tara Lessard
In announcing his departure, Rosenzweig said, “I have loved every minute of my time at the Museum and have accomplished what I was hired to do. With the Museum open and operating efficiently, the time is right for me to move on to my next challenge.”
Photo by I. George Bilyk
CEO Named
In the letter, Washington stated unequivocally that Jews living in the United States would enjoy “the exercise of their inherent natural rights.” Invoking his favorite biblical metaphor, he hinted that America itself might become a promised land for Jews, where “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.” “This exhibition illustrates a truly important moment in American history. People of all faiths intently followed the debate about the nature and limits of the new American government and its approach to religion, seeking assurance that their rights would be protected. George Washington did not disappoint them, and his correspondence with Newport’s Jews is emblematic of the moment in American history when democracy and pluralism were being established as the defining principles of a new nation. Its message continues to be as relevant today as it was 222 years ago,” said Dr. Josh Perelman, the exhibition curator and the Museum’s Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Programs. Washington’s inauguration as America’s first president prompted letters of congratulation from numerous American communities of faith, who, like the Jews, hoped to ensure the liberties of worship. The exhibition includes letters from Washington to America’s Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Quaker communities. “Presenting Washington’s poetic and courageous declaration now, at time when Americans and their leaders are engaging in passionate debates about faith, identity, and politics, gives visitors from all over the world a reminder of these powerful ideals and invites them into a lively discussion about freedoms that lie at the core of our nation,” said Ms. Barsky. An interactive touchscreen will allow visitors to explore the deeper meanings in the correspondence in a truly 21st-century format. Based on content developed by the Museum’s Chief Historian, Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, and the educational organization, Facing History and Ourselves, the annotated letters will also be available on the web at www.religiousfreedom.nmajh.org.
The Museum is a sponsor of Wawa Welcome America! and will be free to all visitors on Wednesday, July 4. The exhibition will remain on view through Sept. 30.
Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age
Another panelist, Dr. Melissa R. Klapper, professor of history at Rowan University, said that bat mitzvah illustrates the flexible nature of the American Jewish community. “Since the earliest days, there has always been a very explicit commitment to trying to craft an American Jewish identity although that’s defined very differently by different groups of people in different places, different times, and coming from different religious traditions. But that has been a very common theme through American Jewish history,” Dr. Klapper said. The program concluded with a keynote by actress Mayim Bialik, who took a break from shooting The Big Bang Theory and her book tour to share some observations about her bat mitzvah. Dr. Bialik – she received a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and Hebrew and Jewish studies from UCLA in 2000 and earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the school in 2007 – said her bat mitzvah was, for her, the opportunity “to chant from the Torah and to stand up as a leader in our community. For me, that was the rite of passage. “When I think about my bat mitzvah, I think about it with a tremendous amount of reverence and also joyfulness,” continued Dr. Bialik, who became an observant Jew as an adult. “The complexity of the trope and the chanting, and the music of my ancestors, and the dancing of the women of Miriam at the shores of the sea and the dancing of a country being born among enemies. These are the things I remember from my bat mitzvah. We find ways to rejoice.” Torah and joy were two of seven values that Dr. Bialik said were passed down through the women in her family. Through anecdotes, she conveyed how those values related to her bat mitzvah and her identity. The other five values she shared were otherness, character, tradition, purpose, and the seventh, she admitted, she got stuck on. “I don’t know what your seven is. I don’t know what my seven is,” she said. Ultimately, however, she decided “the bat
His parents, Bert and Ruth, owned Camp Pocono Highlands and in the Museum’s collection was a camp memories book, or scrapbook, donated in 1993 by Dr. Elaine M. Samans (nee Yankeloff), who attended the camp in 1939. The Curatorial Department shared the scrapbook with Mr. Weinberg as he toured the Museum and he was impressed by the Museum and by the artifact.
Rebecca Einstein, Fountain Valley, California, February 4, 1984, Courtesy of Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr.
mitzvah is the beginning of inspiration, a testament to a people inspired. And number seven is how we all go out into the world and inspire someone else.” The discussion was moderated by Dr. Pamela S. Nadell, who serves on the Museum’s Historians Committee, and is the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History as well as Chair of the Department of History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University. Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age is currently on view through mid-September at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, and will then travel to Larchmont Temple in Larchmont, N.Y. and the Janice Charach Gallery at the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit. For information about bringing the exhibition, Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age, to your community, please contact Assistant Curator Ivy Weingram at
[email protected]. Coming of Age in America programming has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Federal-State Partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the DolfingerMcMahon Foundation.
Photo by Scott Weiner
A larger trend in Jewish education leading to the increase in bat mitzvah was that religious school attendance began to be paired with bar mitzvah preparation. “More and more synagogues made rules that said if you want to have a bar mitzvah at our synagogue, then your child has to attend religious school for a certain number of years. It seems that as more and more synagogues passed these rules, they began to examine, ‘well, we want our girls to attend our religious schools as well. What justification do we have for not extending this to girls as well as to boys?’”
Drummer a Hit
“I really enjoyed the Museum and seeing the scrapbook was a special treat,” Mr. Weinberg said. “Philadelphia has always been a special place for the band and now I look forward to returning even more and spending more time at the Museum.” And like a good Jewish boy, he called his 96-year-old mother to let her know about the scrapbook and Museum. Prompted by his call, she, too, visited the Museum on her way to seeing her son perform at a show the next night, and took a 73-year trip down memory lane. She saw a picture of herself, recognized friends and relatives, as well as the signature of her husband, Bert, on a “Best Mannered in the Bunk” certificate, and delighted in reminiscing about her past. “Those bunks are new,” she recalled while viewing photographs in the scrapbook. “That’s a man-made lake.” “Our summer camp exhibit is a very popular attraction for many of our visitors and it has incredible resonance, whether you are a camper, a camp owner, or the drummer for one of the best rock performers and rock bands ever,” said Ivy L. Barsky, the Museum’s Director.
Max Weinberg (second from left) with (from left) Jonathan Stein, and Mickey and Larry Magid at the Museum. The Magids, Stein, and Lisa Popowich supported “Mighty Max: An Evening with Max Weinberg,” during which the drummer shared his experiences from playing his first bar mitzvah at age seven, to performing with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Max Weinberg 7 on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and the newly formed Max Weinberg Big Band.
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Max Weinberg Speaks at Museum M
ax Weinberg, the drummer for the E Street Band, wowed an audience of 300 during a presentation at the Museum, before taking the stage with Bruce Springsteen for two shows in Philadelphia. To a standing ovation at the Museum, Mr. Weinberg shared stories about his Jewish background, his tenure as the bandleader on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and, of course, his career as a rock and roll drummer for one of the greatest of rock stars and greatest of rock bands.
Photo by Scott Weiner
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee held its annual reception, featuring Senator Joseph Lieberman (center) as its keynote speaker. With Senator Lieberman (from left) are Philip M. Darivoff, Museum Co-Chairman and an AIPAC National Board Member; Mike Levin, AIPAC National Board Member; Hadassah Lieberman; Gail Kaplan, AIPAC activist; Lonny Kaplan, AIPAC National President Emeritus and National Board Member; and Marc Felgoise, AIPAC National Council Member.
Museum Presents A Big Bang Bat Mitzvah Program bat mitzvahs for their girls in 1950 and by 1960 it was almost universal. Those statistics came courtesy of Dr. Jonathan Krasner, Associate Professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a panelist at the Museum as part of the Museum’s Coming of Age in America program series, held in conjunction with the opening of an exhibition, Bat Mitzvah Comes of Age, at The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery at The JCC of Manhattan. Created Dr. Mayim Bialik (center) with Dr. Melissa R. Klapper (left) and Dr. with Moving Traditions, the exhiPamela S. Nadell. The actress, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience bition explores how the tradition from UCLA, gave a keynote address following a panel discussion on of bat mitzvah has evolved and coming of age in America that included Dr. Klapper and Dr. Nadell. how the related changes in Jewish ollowing Judith Kaplan’s 1922 bat mitzvah, it education, practice, and leadership developed. took until the 1950s for the ceremony to One possible reason leading to the rise of bat reach a turning point in its popularity. mitzvah may have been women’s involvement in According to surveys, in the Reform movement the workforce due to World War II, Dr. Krasner only 25 percent of synagogues had bat mitzvahs said. “It may have had some influence on for their girls in 1948, although many offered women’s feelings about themselves and may have confirmations. By 1960, 90 percent of Reform encouraged people to begin to think about female synagogues had bat mitzvahs. In the Conservative equality in a more serious way.” movement, about one-third of synagogues had
F Drummer Max Weinberg and Claire Pingel, the Museum’s Chief Registrar and Associate Curator, look over a scrapbook in the Museum’s collection from the camp his parents owned. 4
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