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Leo Baeck Institute Collections

Death Masks at the Center for Jewish History

Death masks, molded from plaster in the first hours after death before the features have stiffened or atrophied, were used for centuries to preserve the appearance of nobility and other eminent persons as models for posthumous sculptures or painted portraits. In the 19th century, these unnervingly accurate impressions came to be prized in their own right, and the practice of creating death masks as…

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Struggling Against Tyranny: The Gertrude Goldhaber Collection

“The vicious cycle which was originally created by the overt exclusion of women from mathematics and science must be broken… [I]t is of the utmost importance to give a girl at a very early age the conviction that girls are capable of becoming scientists.” Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911-1998) was a German Jewish nuclear physicist who made several significant discoveries in physics, particularly in the…

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The NYPL Librarian Who Spied on the Nazis

Florence Mendheim was a Jewish librarian for the New York Public Library, and in 1933 she went undercover to spy on Nazi-associated groups in the United States. Her collection, featuring a large amount of antisemitic propaganda, is held by the Leo Baeck Institute, and is an invaluable window into the spread of fascist propaganda in America leading up to World War II. Florence, the…

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Echoes and Reflections at the Center for Jewish History

by James Nadel, Communications Outreach Associate A month ago, the Center for Jewish History hosted “Echoes and Reflections,”  a traveling program for educational professionals that focuses on Holocaust pedagogy. Echoes and Reflections was originally co-designed by three of the world’s most significant Jewish institutions: the Anti-Defamation League, Yad-Vashem (the Holocaust museum of Israel) and the USC Shoah Foundation. Since 2005, the program has traveled all over…

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Chasing history: the allure of the object

By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator, Center for Jewish History Michael Simonson, Archivist and Registrar, Leo Baeck Institute Post 3 In the previous blog post, the Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman Conservation Laboratory had received the Leo Baeck Institute’s Metz Jewish Community Collection for assessment and treatment. The Conservators in the lab were captivated by these artifacts; we felt there was something truly…

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Chasing history: the allure of the object

By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator, Center for Jewish History Post 2 In the previous blog post, the Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman Conservation Laboratory had received the Leo Baeck Institute’s Metz Jewish Community Collection for assessment and treatment. The Conservators in the lab were captivated by these artifacts; we felt there was something truly important about them, yet none of us could…

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Chasing history: the allure of the object

By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator Post 1 What is it that attracts us to certain objects? What makes one artifact more compelling than another? These answers can often be obvious, but occasionally an object can take us on a winding journey before it reveals the secret to its appeal. This was our experience with the Leo Baeck Institute’s Metz Jewish Community Collection. As…

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Into the Woods: Blau-Weiss, the German Zionist Hiking Group

Image: Courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute By James Benjamin Nadel, Communications Outreach Associate As the summer ends, and opportunities to explore the great outdoors grow fewer, I wanted to draw attention to the little discussed history of Jewish hiking organizations. Several of these youth groups existed in pre-World War II Europe, but one stands out in particular for its unique engagement with various cultural…

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Nourishing Tradition: Jewish Cookbooks and the Stories They Tell

Exhibition Opening Wednesday, June 29 at 6 pm To celebrate the exhibition Nourishing Tradition: Jewish Cookbooks and the Stories They Tell, the Center for Jewish History is excited to welcome Bonnie Slotnick, owner of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. Bonnie will share some of her experiences with Jewish cookbooks over many years of selling rare and out-of-print cookbooks, and bring a fresh perspective to the real…

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After the War:  Recovery, Relief, and Return, 1945-1949

After the War:  Recovery, Relief, and Return, 1945-1949 on view through January 31, 2016 The far-reaching impact of World War II resulted in massive destruction, decimation, deprivation, and the unparalleled displacement of people across and far beyond the European continent. In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, After the War uses photographs, artifacts, and archival material to document and…

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