Current Exhibits
Letters of Conscience: Raphael Lemkin and the Quest to End Genocide
Raphael Lemkin devoted most of his life to studying and writing about genocide, a term he coined to draw international attention to a crime that had no name. He also actively campaigned for international laws that would protect ethnic, racial, religious and national groups. His most intensive efforts focused on the drafting, adoption, and ratification of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.
When Lemkin died in 1959, he left an extensive trove of correspondence and papers documenting his work, as well as treatises on the meaning and impact of genocide. Today, many of those papers are held in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, from which most of the artifacts used in this exhibition are drawn. Additional collections are located at the New York Public Library and the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati.
Together, they provide an important resource and source of inspiration for new generations of scholars, human rights advocates, diplomats, and activists who continue to wrestle with the crime of genocide, which, sadly, continues to occur in the world today.
On view through: April 18, 2010
Location: Selz Foundation Gallery, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NY
Pages from a Performing Life: The Scrapbooks of Molly Picon
Small in stature but larger than life, Molly Picon commanded a global audience. Born to immigrant parents in New York, Picon spoke English from childhood, yet she rose to fame performing in Yiddish for audiences from Argentina to Zagreb. She entertained American troops in Korea and played to Jewish survivors in post-Holocaust Warsaw. She dressed as a yeshiva boy to play Yidl and an old woman to play Yente and in doing so won the hearts of audiences even if they did not speak Yiddish.
A combination showstopper and public servant, character actress and superstar, Molly Picon embodied the spirit of Yiddish theater and culture for the 20th century.
The American Jewish Historical Society presents a personal account of Molly Picon's life on and off the Yiddish theater stage in this exhibit of scrapbooks kept by the legendary performer and her husband and collaborator, Jacob Kalich.
Opens: January 26, 2009
Location: Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, NY
The Jewish Historical Society of Michigan in cooperation with the American Jewish Historical Society presents:
From Haven to Home: Three Hundred and Fifty Years of Jewish Life in America
Organized by AJHS/Boston, From Haven to Home has traveled to cities across the U.S. since it first appeared in 2004 in celebration of the 350th anniversary of the Jewish presence in America. It is available for travel in 2010 and 2011. If interested, or for more information, click here: http://ajhsboston.org/exhibit/index.htm
Opening October 26, 2008, the American Jewish Historical Society presents:
Voices of Change: Jewish Youth in America
Young Jews in America have been prominent in the ranks of Jewish political and social movements from anarchism to the counterculture and feminism. They have played a key role in developing a Jewish press, pioneering new Jewish institutions, and creating alternatives to those institutions. They have also been the object of communal disapproval, anxiety and policy.
The exhibit includes leaflets, newsletters and reviews from World War I into the twenty-first century that contain expressions of their desire to “do something Jewish” to implement change, oppose oppression and war, assure the survival of Yiddish, find their own Jewish identity and new forms of religious observance.
Location: Center for Jewish History, mezzanine, 15 West 16th Street, New York
American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors, 1945-1953
American Jewish Army chaplains were among the first to encounter Jewish survivors of the Nazi‘s extermination campaign. One thousand American rabbis, half the rabbis in the United States, volunteered to serve in the war. Three hundred and eleven Jewish chaplains served on active duty. Of those, approximately 60 had the opportunity to help the survivors in Europe and elsewhere. AJHS organized this stirring exhibition on these chaplains drawn from its extensive holdings, including the records of the Jewish Welfare Board.