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The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 106; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/ajh.2022.0013

1086-3141

Golan Moskowitz,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Reviewed by: The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience Golan Moskowitz (bio) The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience New Orleans, LA https://msje.org/ At the new Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience (MSJE), an industrial elegance stands in dynamic tension with an overarching tone of familial intimacy. Housed in a restored 1916 building in New Orleans's Central Business District, the museum's 9,000-square-foot exhibit unfolds amidst clean lines, exposed brick, track lighting, and sizable windows overlooking the luxury apartments of palm-lined Howard Avenue. Responding to Jewish population decline in the rural South and building on a Judaica collection originally displayed at Mississippi's Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the MSJE both celebrates the idea of Southern Jewish belonging and emphasizes the tenuousness of "home" within the varied thrusts of history. Communal participation is encouraged throughout one's visit here, starting with a glittering entrance wall of diverse mezuzot; donors of $1,800 or more are invited to contribute an old mezuzah to this wall in exchange for a limited-edition mezuzah by the New Orleans-based glass artist Andrew Jackson Pollack. Past the admissions area, a fifty-seat panoramic theater shares voices of Southern Jewish history, with anecdotes ranging from Civil War service to fried-chicken Shabbat dinners. A captivating collage of moving photographs, illustrations, archival documents, and video footage is accompanied by musician David Ben-Porat's original compositions. In contrast to Northern Jews' cultural insularities, Southern Jews appear as having negotiated American belonging in more immersive proximity to Christian majorities. Outside this theater, the self-guided permanent exhibit unfolds chronologically from 1585 with timelines chronicling key historical moments, such as the first active participation of women in Jewish American worship services (Charleston, North Carolina, c. 1825). The gallery layout is engaging and sometimes playful, with freestanding archways inviting visitors underneath them to read interior captions. Guests may stand inches away from a reassembled Mississippi store counter with turn-of-the-century whiskey jugs, an 1889 handwritten store ledger, and a 1905 cash register. Other fascinating artifacts include an 1843 prayer book in French and Hebrew with handwritten family records, a Jewish bride's silk wedding dress from 1885, and a Victorian quilt made in the same year by a Jewish women's sewing circle. An inviting peddler's cart [End Page 103] takes center stage, framed with context about the negotiation of kashrut on the road, socializing with non-Jews, and the independence of wives heading households while peddler husbands traveled. The gallery's focus on "push" and "pull" factors surrounding immigration and peddling reverberates with accompanied sensory cues from multiple directions. Audible echoes of the introductory film remind visitors of its framing ideas, and music and light from the next room beckon forward movement through time and space. Connecting the two main galleries, a skylit atrium introduces visitors to (mostly Ashkenazi) Judaism and its foundational values via definitions, digital games, and encased Judaica, including nineteenth-century Torah dressings. One game tests knowledge of Yiddish phrases, featuring a virtual "Bubbe" who offers pronunciations. A listening device also presents chanting, shofar sounds, and contemporary Hebrew singing. Crowd-sourced reproductions of stained-glass window fragments from Southern synagogues suspend artfully from a high ceiling at varied angles, catching the light. Following the atrium, the second gallery begins in the twentieth century, and features debates about Zionism and political advocacy. Larger sections focus on "World War II and the Holocaust" and "Civil Rights and Activism," the latter also spotlighting Southern women such as Ray Karchmer Daily and Suzy Post. Displays of religious artifacts carried to the American South testify to the experiences of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors. A timeline documents Jewish support of desegregation, as well as the anti-Jewish violence that occurred in response to such support. The collection ends in an open space that showcases the vibrancy of Southern Jewish life through artifacts of popular culture and communal activity, including congregational event records, Jewish Mardi Gras paraphernalia, Bill Aron's photographs of Southern Jewish life, and photographed portraits of famous Southern Jews, such as Alfred Uhry, Dinah Shore, Kinky Friedman, and Alon Shaya. A wall of individual computer stations also allows visitors...