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NMAJH Continued from Page 1
well as create an additional
eight-figure Stuart Weitzman
Endowment to fund future
endeavors. “This was a way for him
to not only help, but also to
lay a very strong foundation
for a secure financial future,”
WNMAJH CEO
Misha Galperin said.

On Sept. 17, WNMAJH
emerged from a March 2020
bankruptcy after former
trustee Mitchell Morgan made
a $10 million commitment to
the museum, offering to buy
the building and loan it to the
museum for $1,000 a month for
three-and-a-half years until the
museum could find the means
to buy the building back.

The museum’s bondholders,
many of whom are board
members, agreed to collec-
tively forgive the $14 million
of WNMAJH’s debt accrued
after the construction of its
Independence Mall location.

Galperin reached out to
several friends of the museum
in September in hopes of
them helping the WNMAJH
repurchase its building, and
Weitzman was the first to
respond, Galperin said.

“He is himself a Jew, an
American — that’s very much
part of his story,” Galperin
said of Weitzman’s interest
in the museum. “He was first
attracted to the museum, in
part, because of the George
Washington letter [in the 2012
“To Bigotry No Sanction:
George Washington and
Religious Freedom” exhibit],
which truly legitimized the
entire concept of freedom of
religion in this country.”
Weitzman, a graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School, was featured
in the museum’s 2013 Dreamers
and Doers Speaker Series and
contributed financially to the
2018 “First Families” Gallery,
which profiled American
Colonial-era Jewish settlers.

Weitzman also attended the
December 2019 induction of
Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg in the Only
in America Hall of Fame. He
periodically designed shoes for
Ginsburg. “I have been inspired by the
NMAJH since my first visit in
2012,” Weitzman said in a press
release. “I was drawn to their
iconic artifacts that demon-
strate the very foundations of
religious freedom in America.

We are truly thrilled to be able
to make this gift to the museum
and humbled that this support
will help to ensure that stories
of American Jewish history are
told and preserved for genera-
tions to come.”
In addition to buying back
its building with Weitzman’s
gift, WNMAJH will be able to
fund a host of new programs
and initiatives.

Galperin touted WNMAJH’s
online fundraising efforts
during the pandemic, which
attracted 180,000 audience
members to a single event, he
said. Their virtual program-
ming has brought in 4 million
people to the museum’s site in
20 months.

Most recently, the museum
digitized its core exhibits
and made them available for
free online, by virtue of a gift
from philanthropist George
Blumenthal with digitization
work by Israel-based photogra-
pher Ardon Bar-Hama.

The museum will expand
the virtual tour with auditory
guided tours along specific
routes. It is considering
installing screens in the facade
windows of the building that
face Independence Mall.

Galperin also hinted at a
potential collaboration with
the newly-renovated ANU
Museum of the Jewish People
in Tel Aviv, ultimately to make
the museum more interactive.

“It’s a concept where the
visitor becomes not a passive
participant and observer, but
a co-creator of the experience
by putting themself and the
family into the museum,”
Galperin said.

Though only open for
private events, the museum,
which is operating under
“strict and very conservative
COVID-19 precautions,” will
be open to the general public
in the spring.

Miracle on the Mall was
WNMAJH’s first in-person
event since the pandemic began.

At the sold-out event, Galperin
announced Weitzman’s gift
and the museum’s new name
to WNMAJH’s board and
benefactors. It took place on the last
night of Chanukah, which was
no coincidence.

“Chanukah is, first of all,
a holiday celebrating religious
freedom and throwing off the
yoke of oppression,” Galperin
said. “In our case, the oppres-
sion was the debt.”
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As the museum makes
plans to reopen to the public,
Galperin is looking forward to
new beginnings.

“I have a personal connec-
tion and affinity for the
museum because it’s the story of
American Jewish immigrants,
and I am one of them,” Galperin
said. “For me to be part of the
turnaround from being in deep
financial trouble to being on
a solid footing with a bright
future has just been one of the
most joyous moments of my
career.” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
Chanukah Around Chester County
L OCA L
THE CHESTER COUNTY
Kehillah celebrated Chanukah
with menorah lightings at
the Historic Chester County
Courthouse and Wilson Farm
Park. l
Right: Dave Gold, chair of the
Chester County Kehillah, and
Scott Zukin, along with Rabbi
Yossi Kaplan of Chabad of Chester
County, light the first candle
at the Historic Chester County
Courthouse. Far Right: Chester County
Kehillah members light a
menorah at Wilson Farm Park.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM JEWISH EXPONENT
DECEMBER 9, 2021
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