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A Visit to the Center for Jewish History

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Last Sunday my parents and I headed downtown to the Center for Jewish History on West 16th Street. We had two goals: to visit the exhibit on “Alfred Dreyfus: The Fight for Justice,” and to see the one on “Jewish Chaplains at War: Unsung Heroes of the ‘Greatest Generation,’ 1941-45.”

For those new to it, the CJH is, according to its Web site, “a unique partnership of five major institutions of Jewish scholarship, history, and art: the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.” The Dreyfus exhibit belongs to the Yeshiva University Museum segment; “Jewish Chaplains at War” is linked with the AJHS.

Since the exhibit on the chaplains was on the main floor, we started there. The story of Jewish chaplains in World War II is not entirely new to me. Still, I was incredibly moved by the photographs and objects on display. One photograph of a Jewish chaplain leading services for Buchenwald survivors was overwhelming. (Although much of the exhibit appears to be online, that piece of it does not seem to be.)

Then we continued on to the Dreyfus exhibition. According to the brochure I picked up there, the exhibition was organized by the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris. Which might explain the fact that I was able to read/understand much more of what was on view than were my (non-French-speaking) parents.

I’ve known a lot about this historical episode for a long time. And yet, it still affects me profoundly. Maybe it affected me even more this time, seeing some of the actual fabric ripped from Alfred Dreyfus’s uniform during his dégradation in January 1895.

It’s an extensive exhibition, one that will take you much more time to absorb than you’ll need for “Jewish Chaplains at War.” You can catch it until February 17. And while it will help you to have some facility with French, that’s really not required. Je vous le promets.

Notes from Around the Web

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

This week PBS debuts a new series on “The Jewish Americans.” Look for more information on the series Web site.
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I’m grateful to Gershom Gorenberg and Hadassah magazine for introducing me to Israeli poet Haim Gouri, in a profile published in the January 2008 issue.
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Last month AJC Executive Director spoke in Berlin about “The U.S.-Israel Relationship: Fact and Fiction.” We can now read the text of his speech online.

Wishes for Tom Lantos

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Sad news broke today:

“U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the only Holocaust survivor elected to the U.S. Congress, is retiring because he has cancer.”

Read the entire story here.

I remember well Congressman Lantos’s visit to our Temple in New Jersey back when I was in religious school. He was inspirational. I wish him all the best, and will recite a Mi Shebeirach for him.

Sami Rohr Prize Nonfiction Finalists Named

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Faithful readers of my other blog may recall my enthusiastic mention of last May’s ceremony celebrating the fiction winners for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. The Jewish Book Council, which administers the prize, has now selected five finalists for the prize in nonfiction (the genres alternate).

The nonfiction finalists are Ilana M. Blumberg, for Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books (University of Nebraska Press); Eric L. Goldstein, for The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity (Princeton University Press); Lucette Lagnado, for The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Ecco); Michael Makovsky, for Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft (Yale University Press); and Haim Watzman, for A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel’s Rift Valley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

To learn more about the prize, which awards emerging authors in the field of Jewish literature who have written books of exceptional literary merit stimulating interest in themes of Jewish concern, please click here.