National Museum of American Jewish History

In this extraordinary cookbook, chef and scholar Hélène Jawhara-Piñer combines rich culinary history and Jewish heritage to serve up over fifty culturally significant recipes that are steeped in the history of Sephardic Jews and their diaspora. Order an autographed copy today from our Museum Store: https://on.nmajh.org/3iyJZkG If you want to learn more about Jawhara Piñer and how her cookbook came to be, join us on 6/30 at 1 pm ET for a special livestream program all about her cookbook. Tune in on our Facebook page or our website: https://on.nmajh.org/3gn6Ht7

Don't miss your chance to vote for this year's "Only in America" inductees! We're proud to be inducting two notable Jewish American figures, along with a Jewish American Hometown Hero into our "Only in America" Gallery/Hall of Fame. You can vote for as many individuals as you like, once every 12 hours until June 21st. Let us know who you think deserves this recognition by placing your vote here: https://on.nmajh.org/2RHNA4J

Planning a special event? We've got you covered! With 20,000 square feet of multi-purpose event space, our Museum’s many unique spaces are perfect for a variety of events, including corporate dinners and nonprofit galas, private parties, weddings, and more! Head to our website to learn more about our event spaces and our catering partner, Neuman's Kitchen - Events & Catering: https://on.nmajh.org/3iyheVe : Cliff Mautner

We’re teaming up with hundreds of history museums and sites across the country through Made By Us, in partnership with the next generation shaping our democracy at Civics Unplugged, to launch an annual tradition that makes room for all of our stories and write the next chapter together. From Juneteenth to the 4th of July, we invite you to participate in the first-ever #CivicSeason. This is our chance to redefine how and what we celebrate as we look back at the past, and join in shaping the future! Get started at TheCivicSeason.com to explore programs and resources near you.

Have you voted for your Hometown Hero yet? This year, we're excited to induct our first-ever Jewish American Hometown Hero into our "Only in America" Gallery/Hall of Fame, alongside two notable Jewish Americans. You can vote for as many individuals as you like, once every 12 hours up until June 21st. Cast your vote here: https://on.nmajh.org/359pt2a

In Jake Cohen's debut cookbook, "Jew-ish," he reinvents the food of his Ashkenazi heritage and draws inspiration from his husband’s Persian-Iraqi traditions to offer recipes that are modern, fresh, and enticing for a whole new generation of readers and eaters. Grab your autographed copy from our Museum Store here: on.nmajh.org/3vRAwsh Make sure to join us on 6/23 at 1 pm ET for a livestream program with Jake, where he will cook a special recipe from his book and offer personal insights into the recipes, as well as the relationships and stories behind them. Tune in on our Facebook page or website here: on.nmajh.org/3uR1xef #PrideMonth #Pride

Carrying a multi-layered identity can be complicated. In this episode from our friends at Lunar: The Jewish-Asian Film Project, Jewish Asian-Americans discuss the challenges of navigating different communities, the joy of finding real connection, code-switching, microaggressions, and what they hope to see in future generations of young Jews of Color. Watch on their YouTube channel here: https://on.nmajh.org/3vTypEj

Today's the first day to cast your vote for this year's "Only in America" inductees! This year, we're honoring our first-ever Hometown Hero for their outstanding service to the community during the Covid-19 pandemic. You are invited to vote for the Hometown Hero inductee as well as two notable Jewish Americans. Check out the finalists and vote daily here: https://on.nmajh.org/3zeTHOP

Today marks the 77th anniversary of D-Day, the 1944 invasion of Normandy that proved decisive in securing the Allied victory during World War II. As a teenager, David Levitt (1907-1986) traveled the world in the Merchant Marine, but by the 1940s he was a family man, working for a butcher. Yearning to serve his country, Levitt left his wife and young son at home with her parents in Philadelphia and rejoined the Merchant Marine as an officer. On the morning of June 6, 1944, onl...y a few months after his ship came under fire off the Italian coast during the Battle of Anzio, Levitt was on one of the over 5,000 Allied ships sailing through the English Channel toward Normandy. Today, we honor the brave soldiers and civilians who fought so that the generations that followed could live in peace. : Photo 1: David Levitt’s US Maritime Service ID card, 1943; Photo 2: Photo of David Levitt and his son, Arthur, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ca. 1941. National Museum of American Jewish History, 2010.74. Gift of Marc Levitt and Karyn Levitt Davis.

It’s time to take a midday breather! Sit back and enjoy our 2020 Lunchtime Concert with Asher Shasho Levy, a Syrian Jewish oudist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist of Sephardic heritage whose mission is to spread the beauty of Sephardic tradition to others through his writing and music. During this livestream, Asher discusses the history behind Sephardic music and performs a variety of soulful songs for you to enjoy. Watch this special concert here: on.nmajh.org/34gYQrl

Last week, President Joe Biden released a statement about the terrifying rise in antisemitic acts in the U.S., many of which took place during Jewish American Heritage Month. We, too, "pledge to give hate no safe harbor" as we worry for the safety of the American Jewish community and speak out against antisemitism. Read the full statement here: on.nmajh.org/3wP6m96

When you shop at our Museum Store, your purchase directly supports our Museum and our mission to preserve Jewish American history. Plus, we carry thousands of unique products for every occasion! Check out this great feature from 6abc Action News on our Judaica Shop and a handful of other great local Philly museum stores to support this holiday season: on.nmajh.org/37p01aw Start shopping right now at our online Museum Store here: on.nmajh.org/2K3kitL

One year ago today, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the 21st inductee into our Only In America Gallery/Hall of Fame. We were honored to count her among our Museum members, and are grateful to have hosted her at the Museum for her induction ceremony. As one of our staff proudly recalls, it was a thrill to say, "Welcome back to the Museum, Justice Ginsburg." Watch a recording of the full event here: on.nmajh.org/3qKhKB5 : Jessi Melcer

Come one, come all to our annual "Being ___ at Christmas" event on 12/25! Starting at 10 am ET, we'll kick things off with a live performance from Alex Mitnick of the hit children's band Alex & the Kaleidoscope. Then, you're free to enjoy on-demand activities throughout the day at your leisure, including art lessons, a mindfulness activity, and more. Learn more about this virtual event here: on.nmajh.org/3ftBxzy

We're pleased to share that we will be partnering with the Shalom Hartman Institute - for three livestream events tonight, tomorrow, and on Wednesday as part of their "Judaism, Citizenship, and Democracy" symposium. Join us tonight for "A Time to Build: Strengthening American Democracy" with Rivka Press Schwartz and Yuval Levin at 8 pm ET, and make sure to tune back in at 8 pm ET on 10/27 and 10/28! Register here for more information about these livestream programs: on.nmajh.org/2HBBFQI

"My job is to unite people in a sense of wonder and discovery." - David Copperfield We're still reveling in the excitement from our Only In America Induction of Harry Houdini and David Copperfield this past Saturday! Read more about David Copperfield's most famous illusions and how his Jewish heritage impacted his career from the Philadelphia Inquirer here: on.nmajh.org/2LF21Df

Join us along with Penn's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies on 10/29 at 7:30 pm ET for their livestream program, "Caught in-between: Jews, Power, Powerlessness, and Intersectional Movements." In this talk, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the Executive Director of T'ruah, will reflect on the Jewish community's role in America's ongoing and mounting struggle with economic inequality. Click here for more details and to register: on.nmajh.org/3odurDa... : Marc Chagall, "La Vie," 1965, held in the Fondation Maeght.

From all of us at NMAJH, we wish you a happy last night of Hanukkah! We hope you've had a joyful holiday filled with magic and light. Make sure to check out our Hanukkah playlist featuring Leslie Odom Jr., Adam Sandler, Flory Jagoda, The Maccabeats, Steven Page, and more! Start listening here: on.nmajh.org/3qJOiv5

Can't get enough of Herman Berman? Check out his #ArtsAcrossAmerica Winter Tradition below!

Today is Vote Early Day! Have you voted early yet? Vote Early Day is a movement of nonprofits, businesses, election administrators, and creatives working to provide all Americans with the information they need to vote early. When you vote early, you ensure that school, work, long lines, or a bad commute on Election Day won’t stop your ballot from being counted! If you're a local PA voter, you're in luck! Click here for more information on how to vote in PA from the Jewish Ex...ponent: on.nmajh.org/317pYrD : A sign near City Hall encourages civic participation. | Photo by Sophie Panzer

On this day in 1915, thousands of women marched in New York City to advocate for women's suffrage. At that point, this battle had been ongoing for more than 65 years, and would not be successful for another 5. In 1917, New York State became one of the first states to grant women the right to vote. This eventually led to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted women the right to vote across the United States. Check out our online exhibition "100 Years of Suffrage" to learn more: on.nmajh.org/3gRnUKf Read more about this significant event from the New-York Historical Society here: on.nmajh.org/3j013fU : Women’s Suffrage Parade, PR 068, New-York Historical Society Library

We are so excited to announce that we will be honoring the two most famous illusionists of all time, Harry Houdini and David Copperfield, in a special livestream program on December 12th! We will be inducting both magicians into our Only in America Gallery/Hall of Fame, which illustrates the choices, challenges, and opportunities that extraordinary Jewish Americans encountered on their path to remarkable achievement. Stay tuned for more details and ticketing options! Click here to read the full press release: on.nmajh.org/3kltoyP

Newton Minow, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the John F. Kennedy administration, is best known for his 1961 speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in which he referred to TV as a "vast wasteland." But did you know before he became chairman, he served in Burma during World War II? We even have his Army uniform on display in our Museum! Learn more about Newton Minnow's interesting life by listening to his episode on the "Awards Chatter" podcast from The Hollywood Reporter here: on.nmajh.org/2GuX91v : National Museum of American Jewish History, 2015.10.1, Gift of the Minow family

Sadie Silver is here to remind Pennsylvania residents that today is your LAST DAY to register to vote in this year's election! To learn about suffragists’ decades-long struggle to gain the right to vote, click here: on.nmajh.org/3dHBM9h : Sadie Silver, ca. 1900 National Museum of American Jewish History, 1989.25.1 Gift of Sadye Rosen

Today, we're continuing our virtual tour of NMAJH with our 2017 special exhibition, "1917: How One Year Changed the World." This exhibition looked back 100 years to explore how three key events of 1917America’s entry into World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, in which Great Britain indicated support for a Jewish homeland in Palestinebrought about political, cultural, and social changes that dramatically reshaped the United States’ role in the world. Click here to take a virtual tour of the exhibition via our Google Arts & Culture page: on.nmajh.org/35FUvQz : Uncle Sam costume Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, 1971

To conclude our week of highlighting Jewish Nobel Laureates, we're featuring Gertrude Belle Elion, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1988, which she shared with her mentor, Dr. George Hitchings. Today marks the 32nd anniversary of her Nobel award. Elion was also the 20th inductee into our Only in America Gallery/Hall of Fame, posthumously. I was told women didn’t go into chemistry, Elion once recalled. I saw no reason why we couldn’t. Photo 1: Vial, Zovirax clinical ...trail, 1978 Estate of Gertrude B. Elion Photo 2: Nobel Medal awarded to Gertrude Elion, 1988 Estate of Gertrude B. Elion Photo 3: Nomination for the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, January 25, 1988 GlaxoSmithKline Heritage Center

Rounding out our spotlight of the 2020 Jewish Nobel Prize laureates this week is Paul Milgrom, who won the Nobel prize in Economics with colleague Robert Wilson. Milgrom and Wilson received this honor for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats. Milgrom was born in Detroit to Jewish parents. He became the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, and frequently lectures at Israeli universities. Read mor...e about Milgrom's work from The Times of Israel here: on.nmajh.org/30ZC06A : Stanford University

Today, we're recognizing American Jewish poet Louise Glück, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Born in New York in City 1943, Glück’s paternal grandparents were Hungarian Jews who emigrated to the United States. Her father, Daniel Glück, was in business with his brother-in-law and invented the X-Acto brand of precision craft knife which is still in production to this day.... In a 2012 interview with the American Academy of Achievement, Glück spoke about how, at a young age, she and her sister would write books together that her father would then print so they could illustrate them. Read more about Glück’s impressive career from The Times of Israel here: on.nmajh.org/33Rqvjc : US President Barack Obama embraces poet Louise Glück before awarding her the 2015 National Humanities Medal during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, in Washington, September 22, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Continuing with our spotlight series on this year's Jewish Nobel Prize laureates, today we're featuring Sir Roger Penrose, who won the Nobel Prize in physics along with Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel. Penrose received half of this year’s prize for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity." Penrose, who was knighted in 1994, comes from a family with a long and broad association with academia. His grandmother, Sonia Ma...rie Natanson, was a Jewish concert pianist who left Russia at the end of the 19th century. She married physiologist John Beresford Leathes, the son of Hebrew scholar Stanley Leathes. His family has a Jewish story although he does not personally identify with Judaism and is an avowed atheist. In a 2007 interview with The Jerusalem Post / JPost.com, he said his grandmother hid her origins and dissociated herself from her family, but we learned that she came from Russia and that her family name was Nathanson. Thus, according to your rules, I guess I could be considered Jewish, even though I do not identify myself as one. Read more from The Times of Israel here: on.nmajh.org/2SMA0Ka : Mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, June 26, 2015. (Danny Lawson/PA via AP)

Today we're highlighting Andrea Ghez, another American Jew who has won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics along with Britain's Sir Roger Penrose and Germany's Reinhard Genzel. Penrose, a descendent of a Hebrew scholar and of Russian Jewish heritage, was awarded half of the prize for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity." Meanwhile, Ghez, who also has Jewish heritage, and Genzel collectively received the other half of... this year's prize for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy." Ghez's grandfather on her father’s side, a Jew of Tunisian origin, fled Italy for the US after the Fascists passed anti-Jewish laws in 1938. Ghez is the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, after Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963, and Donna Strickland in 2018. I hope I can inspire other young women into the field. It’s a field that has so many pleasures. And if you’re passionate about the science, there’s so much that can be done, says Ghez. Read more from The Times of Israel here: on.nmajh.org/2SMA0Ka : Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, poses during an interview at the university in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. (AP/Aron Ranen)

This week, we’re recognizing the five Jewish 2020 Nobel Prize recipients! Their personal stories and monumental achievements embody the Dream. Dare. Do. spirit of the Only in America stories in our Museum. American Jew Harvey J. Alter was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine last week in partnership with Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton, for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus. The Nobel Committee noted that their work identified a major sour...ce of blood-borne hepatitis that couldn’t be explained by the previously discovered hepatitis A and B viruses. Their work has helped save millions of lives. In a 2013 article, Alter credited his medical career to his Jewish upbringing, saying his father aspired to be a doctor but was held back by financial constraints. In any event, my father had a strong influence on my road to medicine, though I think I would have chosen this path even without his inspiration; the biologic sciences always seemed more interesting to me than any other discipline. except, of course, baseball. I would have dropped medicine in a millisecond to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. There were, however, certain impediments to my becoming a professional baseball playerI couldn’t hit and I couldn’t field. Thus, I sublimated my ‘field of dreams’ to become a doctor, he wrote. Read more from The Times of Israel here: on.nmajh.org/3jQwlHq