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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Castle Garden and Ellis Island: Ports of Immigration
part of the Museum's "How Our Families Came to America" exhibition

Shabbat and the Jewish Holidays

The Russian Jew in the United States
(Philadelphia, New York and Chicago)
part of the Living in America: The Jewish Experience exhibition