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The Celia Adler Story: Her Life in
Yiddish Theatre....
The Museum
of the Yiddish Theatre
The life and times of the great Yiddish
actress, Celia Adler, is on display here in a multimedia
exhibition, which includes for the first time, the
English translation of her autobiography, excerpts from
an interview conducted by the American Jewish Committee,
a tribute by her son about his father, the Yiddish actor
Lazar Freed, and much more. A must see! |
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The Kajmans of Lomza Gubernia
Szejna and Sara Kajman immigrated to
Louisiana in 1920. In this exhibition you will see many
postcards, containing photographs, messages and good
wishes from their friends and family from the towns of
Szczuczyn and Grajewo, which are located in present-day
Poland. |
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The Hermann Pressman Diary
From Berlin to
Antwerp and the
Bronx:
A
Life in Pre-War Europe and
a
Subsequent Journey to America
Hermann's diary tells of his
day-to-day activities in Europe and the United States
between 1933 and 1935, his friends and future wife, his
relationship with his parents and sister, and more. At
times he also gives his impressions of the
tragedy that was occurring in Nazi Germany during this time.
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My Father, Maurice Schwartz
Risa and Marvin
Schwartz, two Jewish children who were saved during the
Holocaust by being sheltered and raised by a Belgian
family, were adopted in
1946 by famed actor and director Maurice Schwartz and
his wife Anna, and were raised and educated in the
Greenwich Village section of New York City. Here you
will read Risa's very interesting reflections and
recollections, along with never seen before by the
public photos of the Schwartz family.
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The Landjuden of Euskirchen
The Sibilla Schneider Photographic Collection
Sibilla Schneider
was a descendant of the Juelich family that once
lived in and around the small town of Euskirchen,
Germany. They belonged to the social group of
landjuden, or “country Jews”, who flourished
throughout Europe, from the Alsace to Slovakia until
their lifestyle disappeared in the Shoah.
In
this online exhibition, you can view nearly three
dozen fine photographs of the Schneider-Juelich-Heumann
family members from Euskirchen and learn a bit about
their family history.
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Lost Treasures
The Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe
An
art exhibition of linocuts of former wooden synagogues
created by Bill Farran, presented in a virtual room of
the Museum of Family History. |
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The Remarkable Zalmen Zylbercweig
and his Lexicon of the Yiddish
Theatre
During the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thousands of
men and women have participated in some way in
the Yiddish theatre. This exhibition focuses on
the work of one man, as well as the professional
life of his second wife Celia and her first
husband, actor Leon Zuckerberg.
Zylbercweig was editor of the six-volume "Leksikon
fun yidishn teater (Lexicon of the Yiddish
Theatre)", a compendium of more than 2,800
Yiddish-language biographies and histories of those
individuals and now-defunct theatrical organizations who
were once involved in some way with the Yiddish theatre.
Zylbercweig and his wife also were the hosts of their
own Yiddish-language radio programs from 1949 to 1969,
and these will be part of the Museum's "On the Air!"
program. |
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Lives
in the Yiddish Theatre:
Tributes to a Bygone Era
Here a child or grandchild has chosen
to honor and preserve the memory of one or more of their
family members who in the past was involved in some way
with the Yiddish theatre. This multimedia
exhibition, displayed on virtual museum walls,
pays tribute to: Leon and Celia Zuckerberg; Isaac and
Adele Swerdlow; Esta Salzman and the Lubritskys (Dave,
Fanny and Goldie); Harry Jordan, the Fisher Family of
Warsaw (all of whom were once actors), as well as David
Pinski (the famed Yiddish playwright). A must see! |
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A Bintel Briv:
Correspondences from
Zembrover Refugees
After the War
Part of the
Museum's
World Jewish
Communities/Landsmanshaftn in America exhibition.
Thousands of
survivors of the Holocaust, refugees from World
War II, wrote to their landsleit
(townspeople) from many countries throughout the
world within the first few years that followed
the war. In this exhibition you can read
empathetically excerpts from just some of their
correspondences with their landsleit who were
located in the United States. By doing this you
most certainly will gain a sense of the turmoil
and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty that
existed within these refugees within the
immediate post-war years. The letters you will
read here were written by landsleit from Zambrow, a town
located in Northeast Poland. |
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The Jews of Odessa: A Short
History
First, "A Plea From
Odessa", a letter from Jacob Tenenholz written from the
Perecyp District there during the pogrom there in
1905-6. Here is a list of 555 "souls", family members,
including small children, who "possess a capital of
1.1000. rubles." The list is divided into three pages
arranged alphabetically and includes the names, ages and
occupation of many of those listed. Translated from the
original French. You will also be able to read about the
Gerber family who once lived in the Odessa District. You
will also find here information on a number of Odessa
photographic studios.
Within this exhibition, you may also read an article
from the New York Daily Tribune in 1906 about the
declaration of martial law in Odessa. You can find all
links to this exhibition at the bottom of
this page. |
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Where Once There Were Jews: Łapy,
Poland
Part of the
Museum's permanent exhibition about Eastern European
Jewry
The story of Łapy native Sol
Rubenstein begins:
"The one-story brick house in
which I was born on March 2,
1916 stood on the main street in
Łapy, Poland, twenty-five
kilometers south of the city of
Bialystok. Łapy, a small town
called in Yiddish "shtetl," was
a major railroad crossing for
the Warsaw-Vilna line. It had
approximately one hundred Jewish
families and three-thousand
gentile families in 1939. The
main industry was government
railroad repair shops that
employed about 4,000 gentile
people. The Jewish population
was discriminated against and
denied the opportunity to work
at the railroad shops....."
Continue to read Sol's story as
well as see many photographs of
Łapy taken there both before and
during the war when the Germans
occupied the town. |
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To Honor and Preserve
Megillat Esther: The Story of
Esther
The Memories of Leo and Sylvia
Dashefsky
How we each choose to honor our
ancestors may take on many forms depending on our inclinations
and talents,
whether the form be simply a discussion about
them to others in our family during a family get-together, or
the telling stories
to multiple generations as part of an
ongoing project to preserve the "oral history" of the family.
These presentations may serve as a lasting legacy for
generations to come.
The
first part of this
multi-faceted exhibition
is entitled "Megillat
Esther: The Story of
Esther". It is the
account of Irene
Weinberg's survival as
an Aryan Pole during the
Shoah, compiled by her
son, Rabbi Norbert
Weinberg and is based on
original documents and
taped and video
testimony.
The second part of the
exhibition
consists of a lovely
twenty-three minute
slide show about the
parents of Batya
Dashefsky (created by
herself), her family et
al. I recommend you
visit this exhibition
and watch the show (with
music and narration) and
think about how you
might use your
creativity to honor your
own family. The
presentation spans many
decades, from life in
Europe to immigration,
to immigrant Jewish life
in America in the 1920s,
Brownsville, Palestine,
Syracuse, New York and
Philadelphia.
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The Jewish Folk Style in the
Wooden Wall Paintings of Eastern Europe
This
exhibition, replete with numerous photographs of the
interiors and exteriors of the wooden synagogues that
once stood in Europe. This exhibition comes to you
courtesy of an associate professor of art history in
Kharkov, Ukraine. Professor Kotlyar gives interesting
insights into the paintings themselves, as only an art
historian can. |
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Never Forget: Visions of the Nazi
Camps
part of
the Museum's "World War II and the Holocaust" exhibition
series.
A
multimedia presentation that represents in some small
way the history of the Jewish "experience" during the
Holocaust in nearly fifty transit, labor and
concentration camps.
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