The Jewish Museum

Last Summer the National Museum of American Jewish History opened in Philadelphia. I went there with my sister on the occasion of her visit, and who knows when I'd have gotten around to it otherwise?

We were skeptical of the $12 admission price, but in we went. The museum has an atrium design, with a nearly empty, 5-storey tall cylinder of space making up perhaps 40% of it. As a real estate question, that is wildly expensive, but there is no missing the effect it has on the visitor. The mission of the museum is elevated by the essential grandeur of the building that houses it.

On one side of the atrium are the galleries. They trace American history from the earliest arrival of Jews 350 years ago through the careers of famous living persons.

I was impressed by the museum for several reasons, including its inclusion of radical histories such as Jews in the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, and even the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who were deported along with hundreds of other dissidents in 1920.

The museum does not rely on digital screen images and educational boards, as some museums do. The artifacts presented are quite impressive. Irving Berlin's old piano, with his original manuscript of the lyrics to "God Bless America" is nothing to sneeze at! I and all of my generation sang it as school children, along with kids before and after us.

Another happy accident is that the Holocaust does not overshadow or eclipse the story presented by the museum. It carries the stories of refugees from Nazi Germany being turned away at US ports, or in other cases finding safe haven here. It carries the story of Jewish US soldiers among those liberating the concentration camp at Dachau.

This picture shows the display of a mid-20th Century home, which is alongside images of Levittown, created by a Jewish developer, and (to me) one the strangest places on the planet! Actually there are more than one, but I'm familiar with the one in Eastern Pennsylvania.

I have been inside more museums than I can possibly remember or count, including some of the greatest in the world, so I'm no push-over for a good write-up. This one is a solid winner and very well worth the admission fee. Perhaps I'd be even more impressed if I was Jewish!