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I JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
Weitzman to Reopen
with New Exhibit
n May, the Weitzman National
Museum of American Jewish
History will reopen for the fi rst
time since the pandemic broke out two
years ago, according to Misha Galperin,
the museum’s president and CEO.

And it will do so with a new exhibit
about an event that just happened: the
January synagogue hostage crisis in
Colleyville, Texas.

Th e exhibit will use the Colleyville
crisis, in which an armed British-
Pakistani man held four Jews hostage,
as anecdotal evidence of the larger rise
in antisemitism in the United States
since around 2015.

Antisemitic incidents in the U.S.

have reached record highs during
this period, according to the Anti-
Defamation League. The stretch
includes the 2017 white supremacist
rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; the
2018 Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh;
and the 2019 synagogue stabbing in
Monsey, New York.

Brandeis University professor and
American Jewish historian Jonathan
Sarna is also the chief historian at the
Weitzman, and, in that role, he has
pushed the museum to start empha-
sizing modern history. According to
Sarna, many American Jews forgot
that antisemitism was a potent force
and still need to be reminded that it
has long been a part of the American
Jewish experience.

Museum offi cials, led by Galperin,
agreed and wanted to time their fi rst
such exhibit with their reopening.

So aft er the January crisis, in which
all four hostages escaped unharmed,
Galperin and company reached out
to the synagogue, Congregation Beth
Israel, to procure some materials.

“We thought it was an important his-
torical event and that it was important
to tell the story,” the CEO said.

Th e formerly named National Museum
of American Jewish History fi led for
8 MARCH 3, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia
Photo by Barry Halkin/Halkin Photography
Professor Jonathan Sarna
Courtesy of Brandeis University



bankruptcy in March 2020, around the
same time that it closed due to COVID.

But in December, an eight-fi gure gift
from Philadelphia shoe designer Stuart
Weitzman helped it survive and, ulti-
mately, reopen to the public.

Its new core exhibit will consist of a
series of artifacts from that frighten-
ing day in Texas, including the cup in
which Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker
made tea for the terrorist, who was pos-
ing as a homeless man, and the chair
that the rabbi later threw at the man to
help the hostages escape.

Sarna is also going to interview
Cytron-Walker and two other hostages
in a video to accompany the artifacts.

Sarna’s scholarship and lectures focus
on a similar theme. Th e professor oft en
refers to Jewish historians in the 1990s
who proclaimed “the end of American
antisemitism,” he said.

But in the 2010s, thanks to a variety
of forces like changing demographics,
hollowing towns, reeling elites and the
rise of social media, antisemitism came
roaring back, according to Sarna. Now,
Jewish historians and museums need to
bridge those eras so that American Jews
understand their connection.

Before the new exhibit, the Weitzman
was not doing that. It last updated its
building and core exhibition in 2010,
according to Galperin.

“You want a historical exhibit to reach up
to the present. Life has changed.

You can’t freeze time.”
JONATHAN SARNA
Museums, as both Galperin and
Sarna explained, function best by using
symbols. Th ey aren’t books or ency-
clopedias; they aren’t going to tell you
everything. So they use big examples to
refl ect a larger context.

In this case, the Colleyville crisis will
lead museum visitors into the modern
story of antisemitism. It will then be
complemented by programs, both vir-
tual and in-person, and statistics that
explain the larger context, including
this one, cited by Galperin: 58% of reli-
giously based hate crimes are against
Jews, even though Jews are less than 2%
of the population.

“Antisemitism, including its newest
form, anti-Zionism, seems to be toler-
ated easier than other forms of racism,”
he said.

Galperin moved to the United States
from Ukraine in the 1970s to escape
antisemitism and, for a while, he did.

He quickly realized that American Jews
weren’t worried about it like he was.

“You want a historical exhibit to
reach up to the present,” Sarna said.

“Life has changed. You can’t freeze
time.” Th e Weitzman is the nation’s only
institution whose focus is on the entire
history of American Jewry, per the
CEO. And with the Colleyville display,
the museum sees itself as taking on a
national leadership role.

Museum offi cials are rolling out the
exhibit in May to align with Jewish
American Heritage Month, a recog-
nition that dates to George W. Bush’s
presidency. Today, more than 100 orga-
nizations and institutions across the
nation participate, Galperin said.

Once May ends, the Weitzman will
keep the Colleyville artifacts on display
for at least a year. Th en it may set up a
traveling exhibition as it has done with
past exhibits.

“If you don’t know your history,
you’re bound to repeat it,” Galperin
said. JE
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