Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust: About the Museum: Collections and Exhibitions
About the Museum: Collections and Exhibitions
Located on the waterfront at 36 Battery Place in Manhattan’s Battery Park City, the Museum occupies a 112,000-square-foot structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche. The unique architecture of the original building (completed in 1997) with its six-sided shape and tiered roof, evokes the six points of the Star of David and is symbolic of the strength of the Jewish people and of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The Robert M. Morgenthau Wing was begun in November 2001, and opened in 2003.
Drawing from a collection of more than 15,000 artifacts, photographs, testimonies, documents, and historic films, which have been gathered over nearly two decades, the exhibition opens new doors of understanding for people of all backgrounds about both the devastation wrought by ethnic and cultural intolerance and the power of hope.
Throughout the exhibition’s three floors, organized around the themes of Jewish Life a Century Ago, The War Against the Jews, and Jewish Renewal, the voices of Jewish people from all walks of life reverberate, telling their stories of survival and hope. Documentary films cover the full span of modern Jewish history, including testimonies from Museum Trustee Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and uplifting tributes to Jews who have made their marks in the worlds of entertainment, culture, and politics.
Many visitors choose to take the Museum’s award-winning audio tour narrated by Meryl Streep and Itzhak Perlman, which is available in English, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. Groups can arrange tours in advance with a Gallery Educator, many of whom are Holocaust survivors who volunteer their time and share their experiences, memories, and wisdom.
The Museum’s special exhibitions provide an opportunity to complement the themes of the Core Exhibition. They examine the multifaceted experiences of Jews in the 20th century. Over the years, special exhibitions at the Museum have included: New York – City of Refuge: Stories from the Last 60 Years about Jewish immigration to New York City following the Holocaust; Yahrzeit, commemorating the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; and Kippur: Three Weeks in October, a photographic exhibition of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Current special exhibitions include "Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust" on view through July 4, 2008. "Sosuia: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic" ("Sosua: Un Refugio de Judios en la Republica Dominicana"), and ""To Return to the Land..." Paul Goldman's Photographs of the Birth of Israel" will open on Feburary 17, 2008.
Andy Goldsworthy's Garden of Stones is a contemplative space dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honors those who survived. For the Garden of Stones, Goldsworthy’s only permanent installation in New York City, he worked with nature's most elemental materials – stone, trees, and soil – to create a metaphor for the tenacity and fragility of life. Eighteen boulders form a series of narrow pathways in the memorial garden’s 4,150-square-foot space. A single dwarf oak sapling emerges from each boulder. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk widening and fusing to the base.
MacArthur Award winner James Carpenter’s Reflection Passage, (Gift of The Gruss Lipper Foundation), creates a transitional space between the Core Exhibition and the Morgenthau Wing. Through the perception of light, Reflection Passage instills in visitors a heightened awareness of the present – which is at the essence of the institution’s mission as a history museum.
Drawing from a collection of more than 15,000 artifacts, photographs, testimonies, documents, and historic films, which have been gathered over nearly two decades, the exhibition opens new doors of understanding for people of all backgrounds about both the devastation wrought by ethnic and cultural intolerance and the power of hope.
Throughout the exhibition’s three floors, organized around the themes of Jewish Life a Century Ago, The War Against the Jews, and Jewish Renewal, the voices of Jewish people from all walks of life reverberate, telling their stories of survival and hope. Documentary films cover the full span of modern Jewish history, including testimonies from Museum Trustee Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and uplifting tributes to Jews who have made their marks in the worlds of entertainment, culture, and politics.
Many visitors choose to take the Museum’s award-winning audio tour narrated by Meryl Streep and Itzhak Perlman, which is available in English, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. Groups can arrange tours in advance with a Gallery Educator, many of whom are Holocaust survivors who volunteer their time and share their experiences, memories, and wisdom.
The Museum’s special exhibitions provide an opportunity to complement the themes of the Core Exhibition. They examine the multifaceted experiences of Jews in the 20th century. Over the years, special exhibitions at the Museum have included: New York – City of Refuge: Stories from the Last 60 Years about Jewish immigration to New York City following the Holocaust; Yahrzeit, commemorating the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; and Kippur: Three Weeks in October, a photographic exhibition of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Current special exhibitions include "Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust" on view through July 4, 2008. "Sosuia: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic" ("Sosua: Un Refugio de Judios en la Republica Dominicana"), and ""To Return to the Land..." Paul Goldman's Photographs of the Birth of Israel" will open on Feburary 17, 2008.
Andy Goldsworthy's Garden of Stones is a contemplative space dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honors those who survived. For the Garden of Stones, Goldsworthy’s only permanent installation in New York City, he worked with nature's most elemental materials – stone, trees, and soil – to create a metaphor for the tenacity and fragility of life. Eighteen boulders form a series of narrow pathways in the memorial garden’s 4,150-square-foot space. A single dwarf oak sapling emerges from each boulder. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk widening and fusing to the base.
MacArthur Award winner James Carpenter’s Reflection Passage, (Gift of The Gruss Lipper Foundation), creates a transitional space between the Core Exhibition and the Morgenthau Wing. Through the perception of light, Reflection Passage instills in visitors a heightened awareness of the present – which is at the essence of the institution’s mission as a history museum.