Visiting Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History

This past weekend when I was itching to get out of the house but didn’t want to venture too far in the rain, I decided to visit a museum located right in my neighborhood that I had never visited before – the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH).

The museum sits within the nation’s most historic square mile, on the corner of 5th and Market Streets overlooking Independence National Historic Park, having moved to this location in 2010 after being housed in the same building as the Mikveh Israel synagogue since 1976. The building’s modern glass facade is complimented by the gorgeous Religious Liberty, a statue created for the 1876 Centennial Exposition by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, the first Jewish American artist to receive international fame. The NMAJH is Smithsonian-affiliated and is the only major museum in the nation dedicated solely to the Jewish American experience. It is open six days a week (closed on Mondays) and offers free admission in the month of February.

I’m not Jewish, but being a fan of all types of history and having taken a college class on Philadelphia’s religious history, this museum had been on my interest list for a while. You don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate what the museum has to offer – it provides an amazing narrative about the experience of an immigrant group assimilating into a developing United States society.

The story starts with Foundations of Freedom, which looks at the earliest settlements of Jews in Colonial America from 1654-1880, one of the highlights being an original letter from George Washington to the Jewish community which addresses principles of religious freedom. The next gallery, Dreams of Freedom, looks at the immigration boom around the turn of the century through to the tragedy of the Holocaust and how it affected the Jewish community here in the United States. Before you venture into that heavy part of the gallery, be sure to stop in the Entertainment Theater where you can see examples of Jewish representation in the early days of Hollywood, like Betty Boop and the Three Stooges. Lastly, the museum takes you through Choices and Challenges of Freedom, which looks at Judaism’s integration into mainstream culture in the postwar years, the pioneering of suburban communities, and the establishment of the State of Israel. This gallery ends with the Contemporary Issues Forum, where you can share your thoughts on questions of current issues of freedom.

There were several themes that struck me as I wandered the museum. How long it took just for Jews to be able to worship publicly in this country despite their growing population, and how long it took for Judaism to be accepted as a mainstream religion. How hesitant we were to open our borders to immigrants seeking asylum, even in the throes of the crisis of humanity that was the Holocaust. How easily in times of tension we can drift from the principles that our nation was founded on.

What I expected going into the NMAJH was an afternoon immersed in history. What I didn’t expect was to get lost in thought about what freedom means in this country and how much we can learn from the past. The National Museum of American Jewish History tells a story filled with messages relevant to issues that our nation faces to this day and that we all could learn something from.