Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Warfare of Art and Law Podcast sparks conversation about the intriguing – and sometimes infuriating – stories that arise in the worlds of art and law with artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy.
Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Curator Michael Jacobs on the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience
Cover photo by Rhonda Dumas, Pieface Photography
Show notes:
2:00 Museum of Southern Jewish Experience beginning
2012 MSJE moved to Jackson MS and became part of Institute of Southern Jewish Life
3:30 4th year in New Orleans
4:50 MSJE’s mission
5:45 Chapman Family Research Center
6:00 archival vault – over 375 collections and over 4,000 artifacts
7:20 genealogy workshops
10:00 artifacts from southern Jewish general stores, e.g., 1890s saloon’s whiskey jug
12:30 collection digitization
13:35 Jewish orphans’ home exhibition
14:30 MSJE’s film
15:20 A Better Life for Their Children exhibition
18:00 Greetings From Main Street exhibition
22:00 French Jews from Alsace-Lorraine
23:00 Central European Jews
23:55 Galveston Plan – Rabbi Henry Cohen
26:00 New Americans exhibition at St. Charles Parish Library
26:30 love story of Joseph Sperling and Anni Frind
36:00 New American Clubs
38:00 relevance of Holocaust survivors’ stories
39:45 rapid response collecting
41:00 view of justice
42:00 lynching of Leo Frank and southern Jewish mayors
44:00 social justice
44:50 Howard Turner – rapid response collecting
45:00 Emily Gould – slave trader memorials, e.g., Colston Statue in Bristol
48:00 Confederate statues built often by the Daughters of the Confederacy
50:45 future exhibition by MSJE on current war
52:00 Turner: school visits at MSJE
53:45 MSJE hours
54:35 Shalom Y’all video, etc. on MSJE site
56:00 visit to MSJE
56:55 interactive map on St. Charles streetcar line
57:30 New Americans - upcoming MSJE exhibition
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
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Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
And I think particularly now that's as important as ever, is showing how impactful history can be and also how telling it can be.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Warfare of Art and Law, the podcast that focuses on how justice does or doesn't play out when art and law overlap. Hi everyone, it's Stephanie, and that was Michael Jacobs, curator at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, based in New Orleans. In the following conversation, michael shares how the museum explores the evolution of Jewish culture in the South and how, through its many exhibitions and permanent collection, the museum can speak to historical and social justice. We also discuss the relevance of the Holocaust today and Michael highlights the importance of rapid response collecting to document history in the making for future generations. Michael Jacobs, welcome to Warfare of Art and Law and Second Saturday. Thank you so much for being here, of course, thank you so much for having me so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:We met when I was visiting the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience and I was surprised to even find this institution and it was wonderful. So if you would kind of share how you came into it and a bit about the museum.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, I guess I can start a little bit about the history of the museum, kind of like where we started. So we started back in Utica at the Jacobs Summer Camp in Utica, mississippi, back in 1989. We originally kind of started out with our founder, macy Hart. Macy was running the camp at the time and around the late 70s to 80s there was a massive depopulation in the southern Jewish community which involved many synagogues closing. And when the synagogues were closing, a lot of the people still there didn't know what to do with these artifacts, with the things that were on the Bema, whether it be the chairs, the torahs, the prayer books, um, and they called macy, saying macy, we don't know what to do with all this stuff. Can you help us? Because you was, even at that time, a pillar in the southern jewish community and, luckily for them, uh, the camp just opened up their first air-conditioned building and macy said we can take it, we can take your stuff from your synagogues to make sure that they're protected. So over the the course of 20 years, the museum started amassing all of these collections from synagogues and then eventually, around 2012, the museum was picked up and moved from the camp and taken to Jackson, mississippi, and became part of the ISJL. Now the ISJL is the Institute for Southern Jewish Life that is still in operation today and then the museum kind of was really living at the center kind of more and as a repository and storage and not really being still accessible to the public. And then the decision was made, unfortunately right before COVID, to move all of the artifacts to a new site and build a separate museum in New Orleans. So we are about to celebrate our fourth year open, which has been wonderful, and luckily around the time that the Museum of Virginia was going to open back in 2019.
Speaker 1:I was lucky enough, my mother being the amazing woman that she is, told me about this museum opening up.
Speaker 1:She's like I was finishing up grad school at a university in DC and I knew I wanted to be in the museum field. I knew I wanted to do Southern Jewish history, but she told me about this museum opening and I was like, oh you know, maybe five, ten years, maybe I'll be able to work there. That would be my dream. But I had no idea that within a couple, within two years, I would be getting my dream job, which is being the curator of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience and it's truly. I am so happy and so lucky to be here. This is just an amazing institution and I really think the stories that we're telling here are so impactful and tell upon such a unique part of the American Jewish experience that I really think is ignored by a lot of the American Jewish institutions. And we get to tell this incredible and unique story in one of the most fun and probably one of the most fun cities in America, new Orleans.
Speaker 2:So true, the focus that the museum has.
Speaker 1:they had the research center and I don't know if maybe now might be a point where you want to introduce that as part of what the mission is explores the many ways that the Jews in the American South influenced and were influenced by the distinct cultural heritage of their new homes. Through exhibits, collections and programs focused on the unique and remarkable history of southern Jews, the museum encourages new understanding and appreciation for identity, diversity and acceptance. And that is our mission statement and I really can now talk a little bit more about how we and that is our mission statement and I really can now talk a little bit more about how we explore all those incredible cultural distinctions through our exhibits and now through our new third floor. So back in November we were able to expand to the third floor of our building, which now includes our new temporary exhibit space, and then to the the left side, our new Chapman Family Research Center, and within the Chapman Family Research Center we have the Ben May Reading Room, which includes a reference library and then a place where we can do genealogy workshops and have patrons interact with our archive, which is right next door, which is the Joanne B Freed archival vault I love the name and in our vault we have over 375 collections Now.
Speaker 1:In those 375 collections and boxes we have over 4,000 artifacts Now on display.
Speaker 1:We only have about 1% already on display and we have such an incredible growing collection. On a weekly basis I'm getting new donations and because of how many donations we're getting and how many actual items we're needing, we have just hired a new archivist who works in our Perlin Family Digitization and Conservation Lab who helps me kind of work with just the incredible amount of artifacts and material that we have, and we really have a little bit of everything from traditional Judaica to prosthetic limbs, to military uniforms, to Confederate Jewish diaries, and we have really a little bit of everything. That really just shows how diverse the southern Jewish community really is, and I really think that having this new third floor space where we can interact with our patrons is really incredible. One of the big things that we're pushing is doing genealogy workshops and helping people trace their southern Jewish roots. We have access to ancestrycom, newspaperscom, find a grave, and we've started to help patrons and set up meetings with people who wanna kinda learn how to do that kind of work.
Speaker 1:We're also collecting unpublished family histories, which are vital in helping us kind of connect the dots of all these southern Jewish families, and one of the great things about that is we have such incredible interns that we get to work with.
Speaker 1:This summer we had five interns working with us.
Speaker 1:One of their projects was working on a Texan Jewish family and their genealogy tracing back over 200 years. She was able to connect over 200 family members and create an incredible family tree showing just how diverse this family has gone and how many different directions. And in that collection we actually have some original doilies done by some of the daughters of the family patriarch who came to Texas, in Corsicana, in 1860. And we have their doilies that were made during that time, as well as multiple items of cutlery, porcelain, glassware. We have a collection of ice cream dishes that were just given to us that are gilded in incredible condition, and it just kind of shows we never know what we're going to get until we get the top of the donor and then we are just shown this incredible world um that some people really just don't know much about, and that's what I love about like this museum and what we can do here for these items that you're gathering and receiving, will you be putting them into a space where people can interact with them, or how will that go forward?
Speaker 1:So whenever we get a new donation, I always tell donors there is no guarantee that any item you give us will be on display, because that's a promise that I could never fulfill with everyone. We just don't have the space as much as I would love to do that. There is just no guarantee. But what I do tell every donor is that every item you give to us will be processed, digitized and protected in a climate-controlled, sealed vault that will help preserve your family's history for the next 20, 50, hopefully 100 years, 50, hopefully 100 years. Um, but when I do get the chance to put something new on display, I always get to tell the donor. Um, for example, great timing. Just this week I'm working with one of our great local vendors on adding a couple new additions to our permanent exhibit downstairs. Um, we are working on one, two, three, four, five actually wow, yeah, five new items that we're putting on display. Some of those items are actually from early general stores by some Jewish patrons. And then I think one of the most interesting items is actually a moonshine, I guess a whiskey jug from a Jewish whiskey family who owned a saloon and whiskey company out in Bayou Sarah, louisiana, and Bayou Sarah doesn't actually exist anymore because they changed the way the river went and it dried up the bayou. But this family had a whole industry and ran a whole whiskey company. And then we have a photo of the saloon and the man actually holding the whiskey jug in front of it, circa maybe 1890s, and it's really cool.
Speaker 1:We get to tell these really incredible little stories that really tell of just such an interesting life for so many of these southern Jews who started out, just like many other people in America, as immigrants. This is an immigrant story, just like so many other people that come to this country. This is just another example of immigrants coming to this foreign land not knowing the language, not knowing the culture Definitely nothing kosher for most of them in the South, that's for sure and then coming here and then being able to succeed, it's truly a success story. Now, of course, not everyone was able to succeed, but for many of them they started out as peddlers, ran a general store. That general store turned into a department store and that department store might have turned into an entire empire. And that's truly what I think is so incredible about what we do here we get to tell these wonderful stories that were really impactful to the South and particularly to the built environment.
Speaker 1:When we talk about Southern Jewish life, it's really not just the big cities but the small towns, these small little towns that you may never have heard of Oxford, mississippi, port Gibson, mississippi as well and these smaller, not as big towns as Birmingham, alabama or Atlanta, georgia, but just as important to the southern economy for these ideas of the Jew store. These Jewish stores were the first stores in a lot of these towns, and these towns were built around these Jewish stores that were vital to these towns' existence.
Speaker 2:So I guess I would ask you then too, how you're merging technology, how are you weaving that in with this history?
Speaker 1:The past two years that I've been here at the museum I've definitely made a concerted effort into digitization, digitizing our collection, having it more accessible online and one of our exhibits in the last gallery we have the interactive quilt as well as the state-by-state panels, and one of my past interns uh, last summer digitized 200 artifacts and they made 200 entries into that state-by-state exhibit, which allows patrons to look at items in our collection that are not on display, connected to different southern towns.
Speaker 1:So we have these artifacts, like you said, from these tiny little towns that no one would ever hear of Morgan City, louisiana, we have these items from that one city that may not be on display but because we have it photographed in descriptions, now patrons can see, kind of get a look behind the scenes into our archive and see images that are digitized and they can interact and explore throughout the South, particularly on the third floor.
Speaker 1:Now as well, with our new exhibit, a temporary exhibit on the Jewish Orphans Home, we have two kiosks open up with oral histories and alumni profile. So the Jewish Orphans Home, opened up in the mid-1850s, closed in 1946. And throughout that time we actually were able to have people have recordings of the alumni of the home which were orphans, and we have dozens of these interviews for patrons to explore, as well as just profiles on famous alumni and talking about their stories, photographs, talking about their experiences in the home and then how they were able to succeed outside of the home because of the tools given to them in the home, particularly the wonderful education they got at Newman High School, which started out as Isidore Newman Manual Trading School for Orphans.
Speaker 2:When you first go. In my memory is there's a film going. Yes, and is it from Shalom Y'all?
Speaker 1:So the film actually was created specifically for the museum. It actually includes audio from some Southern Jews, some people from our board, talking about their experience overlaid with images from our collection people from our board talking about their experience overlaid with images from our collection. But we do actually have the Shalom Y'all photography run on our second floor when you come into our rental space on the back brick wall. We have Shalom Y'all actually on there as well. But no, the downstairs video was actually created specifically for the museum and it actually won an award, which I think I have to give credit for.
Speaker 2:That is, it's an incredible, eight minute impactful video and then one of the prior exhibits that I read about was a better life for their children. Yes, would you kind of describe a bit about that exhibit and the connection that was being made with the communities Jewish and non-Jewish?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. The exhibit you're talking about was a exhibit that we got. That was a traveling exhibit that was created by photographer author I call him historian as well Andrew Feiler. Andrew Feiler wrote a book describing the very unique experience between Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish vice president of Sears and Roebuck Company, around 1912 with Booker T Washington and them working together to build almost 5,000 schools for African American children in the South. It really showed that early kind of, I guess, collaboration with Jewish and Black relations decades before the Civil Rights Movement I mean, this is before World War I. We're talking really early 20th century and we're showing this connection between a very wealthy, affluent Jewish entrepreneur with at the time one of the most prevalent activists for African American rights, booker T Washington, collaborating together in what's really not well known today by many people. There are over 500 of these buildings still standing throughout the South, many of them still functioning up until the 1970s in some capacity. And it really shows that early black Jewish relations and that strengthening and showing that there should be cooperation between these two groups.
Speaker 1:And I think a really important quote from Julius Rosenwald that kind of encapsulates this importance of social justice before the idea of social justice was really popular, and I'm quoting this from him. I am interested in America. I do not see how America can go ahead if parts of its people are left behind. So of course he's talking about the African American community. I mean, he believes that if we do not pick up everyone in this modern country, we'll all be left behind and we have to support one another to make America great for everyone, to be inclusive, and so education is able to have a side. Education can be won by everyone, and that's really what's important is that this is a push for the education gap that was plaguing the South, particularly in African American communities, and he wanted to give them the same tools that he had already um for them to succeed yeah, and then uh also an exhibit that uh was going on when I was there I think was also showing this connection between jewish and non-jewish communities, and it was told through postcards.
Speaker 2:Would you share a bit about that one?
Speaker 1:yeah, sure. So that was our past exhibit, um called greetings Main Street Southern Jewish Postcards from our collection. So we had over 50 postcards put on display from all of the 13 southern states that we highlight. And what's really cool about these postcards is when you first look at them, a lot of them just show like a main street of a town, the cultural district or the business district, but within each of these postcards there's a Jewish business hidden through them. Sometimes there's two, three or even four. I think was the most I found in one postcard. And, of course, when these were being sold, they were not being sold with the intention of showing Jewish businesses.
Speaker 1:But it was really after a couple discussions with our director, kenneth Hoffman, that we were looking at these postcards and saying, wow, what an incredible way to tell little mini stories throughout these postcards is showing how Jewish life is part of southern life in its built environment. We are part of the built businesses and the main streets of all these southern towns and I show that through showing the bigger cities, the smaller towns, and I think particularly for one example is Greenville and Greenwood, mississippi, which are right by each other. Both of these postcards have four Jewish businesses on the main street and I was able to tell a story about each of them and for a lot of them there isn't the building is gone. Um, for 90% of these postcards, those streets, those distances, they've all been taken down, they've been demolished, they've been rebuilt, um, but these postcards are part of that legacy, um, and for the few cases that that so many buildings still exist the businesses are not, but the buildings are still part of that testament of the southern Jewish experience in this town that Jews were there, we helped build it, we helped maintain the town and we helped it rise up and usually to prosperity. And I think that really kind of shows kind of this parallel society that lives in the south and many people when they drive through these southern towns, don't really think, oh, wow, look at all these Jewish businesses that used to be here, but they're still.
Speaker 1:But I think these postcards really show that legacy and also they are extremely beautiful. I think they are works of art and being able to expand them into larger, more visually easier to look at foam core boards, you get to see all these hidden details. A couple times when we would do a scan and I would kind of blow up the image, I would see something I didn't see before. That's how we found Hoffman's store in Northfolk, virginia. Mr Hoffland actually helped create one of the trendiest fashion statements of the time, which was the Hoffland suit for young girls. It was a type of dress that was overpriced at the time and sadly his business failed within 20 years. But part of that legacy is that this postcard was taken of Church Street looking north from Main Street by night, and his store is smack dab on the middle of it. His store is right there in front and without, I think, the exhibit, a lot of people would not have known about many of these businesses that flourished throughout the South from the early 1900s up until the 1970s 80s.
Speaker 2:Talking earlier about the immigrant experience of these families deciding to come to America and facing all the challenges to create businesses like that. Do you see also insight into what brought certain families to like where they often leaving the pogrom situation, or what was it that pushed them into this situation in order to start fresh?
Speaker 1:I think that really depends on the region. So I think one of the easiest examples I can pull from is, particularly in the South we have a large group of French Jews from all states of the region and when I point out that this is one of the first groups to come from Europe, people say, well, why would they come to New Orleans? Why, of all places I'm like, well, they speak French. Right, this is the only place that speaks French in America. Of course they're coming to New Orleans. That's the place where they feel like they could actually communicate with people and have an easier leg up compared to some of their brothers and sisters from where I come from. My family comes from the pale settlement, speaking Giddish, speaking Russian, coming over here not knowing the language, not knowing the environment and coming here really with nothing. I think for a lot of those French Jews coming here, they definitely picked New Orleans, knowing that this would be maybe an easier chance of succeeding. And then we have another group of Jews coming from kind of the German Jews from Central Europe, and a lot of them were escaping a lot of the like the unification wars, the German pressure war, the German unification wars and a lot of them were escaping, being conscripted into the military. So they didn't want to fight for the Tsar, they didn't want to fight for the king, they wanted to leave. So they had to come and had to escape. To fight for the king, they wanted to leave. So they had to come and had to escape.
Speaker 1:And then for many of the Jews living in the Pale Settlement and the shtetl it was the pogroms from the Tsar and the Cossacks and a lot of them they just had to go. They had to leave. They didn't know where they were going, but it was anywhere is better than here. And for a lot of Jews coming to the south, particularly through Galveston, there was actually something called the Galveston Plan which was an organized effort to get around 10,000 Jews to come over from Eastern Europe and resettle through Galveston, with the help of Rabbi Henry Cohen and it was kind of his brainchild to bring all these people and then kind of set them off into the South where there was more of a need, there was more space, compared to a lot of the Jews going through New York, going to New York City. There were tenements, there was still kind of the ghetto experience there.
Speaker 1:They, at least in Rabbi Henry Cohen's mind had a chance to kind of spread out and flourish into areas that did not really have manyedicts, which had a lot of, had positives and negatives. But for example, when you, if you are a shoemaker, you would tell the rabbi you're a shoemaker, he would go up to his wooden box, his Rolodex, and say, ah, they need a shoemaker in Jackson Mississippi. And then he would pin that little tag to you and send you on your way and you would go on by railroad to Jackson Mississippi to become the new cobbler for the new, for the shoe store and a lot of these people. They had no idea where they were going. They have no idea what this place would be like.
Speaker 1:They heard stories but I could not imagine some poor Jew from the Stead of coming to Louisiana and experiencing humidity Same thing with Galveston experiencing the heat I wish there'd be something surreal and then coming to this massive foreign land where no one speaks your language and then being told this is where you work now and then. For them to succeed truly is a gamble and for many of them it was a good gamble and they were able to succeed.
Speaker 2:We've given us so many little examples and stories, but I would ask are there certain artifacts, judaica or anything, stories that you wanted to especially highlight that resonated with you? Perhaps something from your family story?
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually. So there's one collection which I'm excited that's actually going to be on display at the St Charles Parish Public Library coming up this fall. It has to do with Holocaust survivors. New Orleans actually had a group of Holocaust survivors come, just like many other cities called the New Americans. New Orleans was not unique in this aspect but for the New Orleans experience, a couple dozen Holocaust survivors were sponsored by the Federation down in New Orleans to come here and emigrate and then to kind of live in New Orleans. And then one of those couples was Joseph Sperling and his wife Ani Freed, who escaped the Holocaust Joseph's family.
Speaker 1:So I guess this is just such a big story and I'm trying to think how I could tell it in a short time and it's really, I guess the first thing I'll say it's a love story. This was trying to think how I could tell it in a short time and it's really I guess the first thing I'll say it's a love story. This is a true love story and something that when I was given to by the donors I was told I had to make a promise that I would tell this as a love story and not as something sad, and I always have to make sure that I tell people that that this is truly a love story and that they found each other in one of the worst circumstances, starting off with Joseph Joseph Sperling. His family comes from Poland. Joseph was in school at the University of Austria, I guess not University of Vienna, trained to be a lawyer. When the war broke out, him and his family were taken by the Nazis, taken to Bergen-Belsen. His whole family was killed in front of him. The Nazis kept him alive for the sole purpose of being a translator. Joseph spoke five languages and the Nazis wanted to use that. They used him as what they called a scribe, which is a translator, and they took him all throughout Nazi-occupied Europe to multiple camps throughout the war, transcribing interviews with concentration camp victims, as well as forging death certificates for the gas chambers. He would change death certificates to say, instead of dying in the chamber or crematoria, heart attack or something like that, which I could not imagine, the trauma of having to do that. He was able to survive 32 months in captivity and then, with the war pushing the Nazis back, he landed all the way in the Czech Republic and then was liberated by the Soviets. After being liberated by them, he was allowed to leave and go to a local doctor to seek aid and, lucky for him, right down the road was Dr Fried, and that's where he met Ani.
Speaker 1:Now Ani was working for her father as a nurse, but before the war, ani was one of the most famous soprano opera singers in pre-war Germany. Now Ani is not Jewish but, as a form of passive resistance, decided to stop singing for the Nazi's, rose to power and left to become a nurse with her father during the war for safety. Now, when Ani and Joseph met, I am told within six months they married and decided they had to leave Czechia because of the Soviets pushing in and then occupying it. So they decided to leave Europe and head to America and then, in the early 50s, they emigrated from Europe, come to New Orleans and then, when they live here, from what I've told by the donors, ani Fried was actually a music teacher and professor at Tulane and, even though she was not Jewish, was known to sing at Temple Sinai all the time, because, again, when you have a soprano opera singer, you're gonna use her, because we actually have recordings of her operas as well. Incredible voice. And then, when Joseph got back, he actually worked at Perlis's as a bookkeeper and they lived a happy life until both their passings in the late 80s and 90s.
Speaker 1:But how I came about this collection was actually they never buy to adopt. They kind of adopted two local children. They were in there. They weren't like children children but they're like in their early 20s. They became friends. These kids, these young men, didn't really know the whole story until they find out that they're Holocaust survivors and this friendship kind of grows. They both have a love for opera and they fall in love with the singing of Ani Fried. They become lifelong friends.
Speaker 1:And then, fast forwarding to a year ago, one of them comes to the museum, talks to me about that they have this collection, and then they show me this steamer trunk, a massive trunk with the name Joseph, spurling on it, with the old address for the Federation building, and he says I have all this stuff from them. I have this trunk, I have a menorah, I have all of Ani's personal albums. But there's another person who has Joseph's concentration camp jacket and I was like what do you mean? There's more? And he was like yes, out in northern Louisiana there's another man who has stuff from Joseph's past and over the course of three months I'm able to communicate with this person, find them travel to northern Louisiana and he takes me to their house and he takes me to a closet, pulls out a wooden plaque and then takes me to their house. And he takes me to a closet, pulls out a wooden plaque and then pulls out a bag. In that bag is a concentration camp uniform along with multiple other personal items.
Speaker 1:After I open up the package, I find a uniform in there, as well as a purse made with the same material and inside of that purse a bottle of cologne, a tin cup, a toothbrush, along with multiple patches from multiple concentration camps and a couple other personal items. And after talking to the donor, he tells me these are all Joseph's. He kept all these items after the war and because of his special treatment by the Nazis, because of his, because of his ability to be a translator, he was allowed to keep a personal bag with him with that bottle of cologne in the tin cup. The toothbrush came after was given to him at a DP camp because it has English written on it. But as well.
Speaker 1:But after finding all these items, I looked at the jacket and I find in the pocket of the jacket a note. I pull out the note and on that note is Joseph's writing saying I will this item to donor's name and I have his signature and Ani's signature written on this piece of paper Deeding these items to the donor. And he didn't know that that was in the jacket. He hasn't touched the jacket in 30 years years. And I pulled it out and I'm like this is yours and it's Joseph's handwriting and he begins to cry and it was such a touching moment and the fact that I was able to have it bring this collection together for the first time since the passing of the donors. It's truly incredible.
Speaker 1:I talked about the story for the first time since the passing of the donors. It's truly incredible. I talked about this story for the first time at the opening of the third floor back in last November and then I'm gonna put this on display at the St Charles Parish Library this coming Thanksgiving fall for a short special exhibit. It's all gonna be about the Sperlings and their life here, but I think that for me, is one of the most impactful collections I've been able to work with and save.
Speaker 1:I think Particularly the steamer trunk, because that was actually going to be sold off in an estate sale and I stopped it from happening. Once I saw the writing on it I was like no, that can't happen, we will take it. I don't know where we're going to put it, but I want it and it's important. Um, and I'm so happy I did Um because I think that trunk really encapsulates everything, because it all all the items originally were in that trunk. That's what he brought over. He brought over all of that trauma, all that history with them and decided to keep it. Um, and decided to keep it. There are photos of him wearing the jacket, giving speeches, talking about his experience with people, and I think it takes a certain type of person to be able to put on that kind of jacket after I couldn't imagine the experiences that he had to live through and then talk about it and then still have it after all those years.
Speaker 1:It's really incredible and truly it's one of the reasons why I think this work is so impactful. It's what telling these really touching stories and again, this really is true love story. One of the things I just got recently was actually a video the only video we have of both of them together at their house on Magazine Street. Ani seems to be acting at one of her operas and they are dancing and holding each other, smiling and kissing, and they just look so happy and I'm so happy we were able to find that. I'm digitizing that and trying to get it enhanced and I'm going to try to at least get it out there for the exhibit, having it maybe running on like a little iPad, just something to show them together. Moving, these moving images that are in color, is so much more. It's so impactful, instead of just a black and white image, people to see them moving, smiling, dancing, holding each other it really, I think, encapsulates that love, that really triumph.
Speaker 2:Would that exhibit also make its way to the museum itself?
Speaker 1:So this is just going to be an off-site exhibit and then maybe in the future, if I do an exhibit on the New Americans as a whole, I would be able to bring that on display again, but currently we don't have anywhere to show it. So I'm happy that they're giving us opportunity and the space to show this very special collection that we have.
Speaker 2:And that term New Americans I mean. That in itself is something that is completely worthy of an exhibit, so can you expand a bit on that?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah. So the idea of these New American clubs is what they were called are. They were organized wherever Holocaust survivors kind of grouped and like met. It would be in all these cities all across America and a lot of these new American clubs turned into the Holocaust museums we see today. So a lot of them can base their origins with these new American clubs, these groups of Holocaust survivors who would meet up, whether it be at someone's house or at a store, anywhere. They would have these meeting rooms here in New Orleans. It was in someone's house, but they would just meet and be together. Sometimes they would share stories, sometimes they wouldn't share anything.
Speaker 1:From what I was told about the one in New Orleans, it really was a social club. We have a couple of their directories. We have a list of activities that they would do together. From what I was told about the one in New Orleans, it really was a social club. We have a couple of their directories, we have a list of activities that they would do together and I really like to think of it as a support group of the time. But also it's just a way who else would be able to share those experiences with, or you would have the trust to talk to about or not talk at all about it, and a lot of times, from what I was told, some people just would never talk about it, but they would want to be there in the present, in the moment, with everyone else who had that kind of shared trauma and that experience.
Speaker 1:Um, but it is really fascinating. Again, this is the idea of these groups of people collaborating together and building all of these memorials throughout the country, and I think for a lot of us we don't really think well, who built these Holocaust museums? Who were the ones that were pushing to have these built? Well, of course, it was the survivors themselves that organized their own groups all over the country, but here in New Orleans we particularly have a very—we had a very active one and well-documented, and I think it will make for an excellent exhibit in the future to tell the really important story that I think is very unknown to many people.
Speaker 2:The relevance today of telling these stories all the ones you're talking about, but specifically the stories of Holocaust survivors and their experiences.
Speaker 1:How do you see the relevance of that currently? I think it's important that we I think it's really tough, I think, because of just how much pain and suffering is happening right now in the world and I think how divided the Jewish community is today and I think it's important that we understand and look back and look back at our own past and kind of see where we can look for sites of unity, places where we can kind of work together and fight through a really tough time in history, just like they did. I think we all feel that we are being attacked right now one way or the other. I think it's important for us, instead of being divided, we work together because we know in the past what happens when we are divided. We are stronger together and I think it's important that we get these stories out there and we highlight how impactful and important they are and how history is. History isn't in the past. History is happening right now. And I think that's important just with the name of the museum Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, not the Museum of Southern Jewish History, because the experience happened in the past, present and the future and I think that's why our museum can tell such important, impactful stories is because we're not talking about the past. We're talking about what it is now and then what it could be in the future, and I think being able to tell stories that are happening now is really important.
Speaker 1:There's actually a term that I think most people don't know.
Speaker 1:It's called rapid response collecting. That's a newer term in the museum field that basically tells curators, anyone in the field, to go out and collect the things that are happening now, whether it be protests, whether it be things that are happening now. We are recording what is happening in the present, gathering information, artifacts, whether it be signs, whether it be oral histories, t-shirts, banners, anything. Because if we realize that, well, collecting stuff from the past is great, collecting for the now is also important, because 50 years from now, those same items are going to be what we wanted. So if we collect it now with the thought of the future and what future generations will look back and say wow, they would reflect all this stuff currently in possibly one of the most dividing times in our country's history and the American Jewish population, I think most recently and it's kind of showing that impactful moment in history. I would love to see, years from now, what they're talking about and how our times right now are being discussed and what artifacts they're bringing up being discussed and what artifacts they're bringing up.
Speaker 2:Everything that you're saying now, then, prompts me to ask your perspective, and how it's evolved, on this term justice.
Speaker 1:I think when I think about justice, I think particularly about our museum and how we give justice to the whole picture and not just the positives. Now, when people go to museums they particularly some museums they feel like, oh, they're being judged or that the museum is making judgments on one group or the other. We are just trying to tell the story. We're trying to tell these individuals' experiences, particularly for Southern Jews. When we have people coming from the North, we talk about southern Jews involvement in the Confederacy, an institution of slavery. Now, for many people that come here, they are shocked by that. They say, oh, how could you show such things? That's bad, that makes us look bad. Well, that's not the point of any of that. We're not trying to make anyone look good or bad. We're trying to tell the whole truth. I think that's justice. For me it's showing the entire truth, whether it be positive or negative.
Speaker 1:In gallery one we have in the back corner of the exhibit on one panel, we have it talking about the lynching of Leo Frank and that was one of the most, I think, outwardly anti-Semitic events that happened during that time. But of course it was not the only lynching of a southern Jew but was one of the most well-known, but next to it we have a map of southern Jewish mayors and showing just how many southern Jews became mayors in the south, not once, but more than twice, throughout the south, so right next to each other. We have two different stories that are parallel, one of acceptance and one of intolerance, but it shows just how complex, not only for the Jewish experiences but the South as a whole, how could these Jews that are not Christian come into a heavily Christian community and thrive. It just shows that complexity of what it is to be Southern and what it is to be Southern and Jewish, and I think the museum does it justice because we show all sides of it, the good and the bad, and I think our exhibits we give a very unique opportunity to talk about the civil rights movement as well, talking about how, again, jews are not a monolith.
Speaker 1:We have we're independent thinkers, we're on both sides of anything like any event, and then showing that southern Jews were on both sides of anything like any event, and then showing that Southern Jews were on both sides of the ticket line, whether it be the department store owners not wanting to integrate with their lunch counters or Southern Jewish rabbis being on the front lines and being arrested and attacked by the White People's Council. Jews were on both sides because we are everywhere. We can be on both sides of any conflict because we're individuals. We're not all have the same idea and I think justice is showing that we're independent and we can think for ourselves and make up our own decisions. And I think our museum shows that Southern Jews as a whole, I think, have developed and grown, as the South has grown and changed. The idea of social justice and the ideas of the civil rights movement have progressed and shown that the idea of justice has changed as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I appreciate your emphasis on this idea of historical justice and showing all sides of such a complex conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's really important. I think it's important that we're not pointing the finger or blaming anyone. We're not shaming. It's just showing that there is more to the story that you may not know.
Speaker 2:And as we're wrapping up the hour, we're getting close to it. Please, if there is anyone who has questions or comments, please feel free to jump in. Yes, howard, go ahead, I have a few actually, michael.
Speaker 4:the first one was what was that term you used for collecting stuff from the present again, oh, rapid response collecting collecting stuff from the present.
Speaker 3:Again, oh, rapid response collecting. Maybe I'll quickly sorry, I'll quickly jump in there because I was really interested, um, to hear what you had to say about that. I just wanted to say firstly, thank you so much, michael. It's been totally fascinating to hear about um, your museum, and you know it was completely new to me and, um you know to hear about the artifacts you have and the collecting you've been doing and you know your relationships with the donors and the communities. It's really fascinating and the that, that idea that um you brought up about that, that rapid response collecting, um, and it being important for your museum to be showing, you know, the experience.
Speaker 3:As you say, it's not just a history, it's how that history impacts on the current day and you know current conversations and understandings of communities and the world.
Speaker 3:And I think that that idea of sort of collecting today's history, if you like, is also important in that it helps to understand and to contextualize a lot of the historical artifacts and where, where I fit not, I think, maybe not first came across, but where this, this notion was discussed quite a lot recently in uk history was all around the protests about um slave trader memorials in the uk. So you know, several years ago um, about 2020, wasn't it? And there was a particular incident that always sticks in my mind, where there was a protest in the city of Bristol, in the southwest of the UK, about a statue to a man called Sir Edward Colston, who was a prolific slave trader in Victorian England, and as part of that protest, this statue was just pulled off its plinth and sort of dumped unceremoniously in the local port, in the harbour, and then there was a huge discussion about what should happen to this statue within the local community and eventually it was decided that and it was all. It was decided that and it was all. It was very democratic.
Speaker 3:You know everybody's voice was heard and it was decided that it would be kept as such, but it would be shown in one of the local museums, um, on its, on its side, with all of the graffiti and all of the damage that was done to it during its sort of toppling, along with all of the placards and flags and everything else that was collected, you know, as part of and as a result of that protest. And so, yeah, I think that's a really interesting example of a lot of those things about kind of content, looking at things through contemporary eyes, but, um, you know, thinking about how they sort of tell the full story really, um, yeah, so that was a little a lot for me yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 1:When you said statues, I go back to the confederate statues that were taken all over, taken down all throughout the country back in 2020 during the protests, and I think similarly to that and understanding how they could reinterpret that history, because for a lot of Confederate statues, they were built way after the Civil War by the Daughters of the Confederacy. They weren't built, they had a political mindset. They were built to put a certain mindset and put down the African American community and remind them An idea of the lost cause mentality, glorifying the soldier, all of that stuff. And I think it's important, especially now that we're thinking about well, instead of just how can we reinterpret these monuments and where can we put them Whether it be a cemetery or a museum, which I think they belong in, and it's a place that people can interact with them, discuss and talk about their history and why and who put them there. I think it's an important part of who helped put them there and why. I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:I think, emily, you bring up a really good point of that rapid response, collecting and how impactful it can be to collecting the moments now and capturing that now, whether it be oral histories as well, doing video recordings, interviews or collecting those posters, banners and flags or graffiti that are written on statues as well.
Speaker 1:So I think it's really important and I think clearly now in the Jewish community the rapid response collecting looks like for the protests for the Israel-Palestine war right now. I think that's where the rapid response collecting really happens for us particularly, and the Jewish Museum in DC they actually had an exhibit on that back a couple years ago, which was where I first heard about this rapid response collecting in the Jewish museum field was actually at a CAJM conference held at the museum in DC before the shooting, and I think it's really fascinating that we talk about that and how we put ourselves curators or archivists or museum professionals in places of active protest or civil unrest and being there, and I think it's interesting to put a museum professional in those places and being well, what do they think what's important? What would they take from these places? I think it would be very fascinating and I think for the future generations, it's important for us to collect now.
Speaker 2:Will the museum be addressing the current war in a future exhibition, or how do you see that going?
Speaker 1:I think that's a matter of the artifacts and material that we have and that's what people always say oh, why don't you do an exhibit on this? Or why don't you have stuff on this? That's a matter of the artifacts and material that we have and that's what people always say oh, why don't you do an exhibit on this? Or why don't you have stuff on this? I'm like well, because we don't have some, we don't have the physical items. We can't do an exhibit on something if I don't have the material culture to go along with, I just won't do it because that doesn't do anyone justice. That's not very fair, I mean. I think it depends on what we could gather. We are currently looking and trying to collect items, but it's a little bit harder to do now, after these events have happened and after some of these initial protests have happened. But I think it would be interesting for us to gather that, because I think Southern Jews historically actually have a very unique viewpoint on this and we do talk about that at the museum. We talk about Zionism, we talk about the idea of dual loyalty to the Southern Jews. So I think that our museum actually puts in a very unique situation where we could talk about this in a future exhibit, if we so choose and if we had the items to allow us to tell that story.
Speaker 2:And thank you, emily, for the comments and also Howard. I just want to circle back to you. Did you have any more comments or questions that you wanted to share?
Speaker 4:we have a couple more do non-jewish schools come to the museum?
Speaker 1:yes, actually we, we do um, particularly for the julius rosenwald on brooklyner T Washington, on the African American schools, we actually had quite a few non-Jewish schools come, but we try to get anyone. Anyone who wants to come can come. It's just a matter of getting the communication and transportation. But yeah, no, we try to get anyone who wants to come to the museum. All are welcome.
Speaker 4:Are you busy enough that there's tours like every school day or close to every school day?
Speaker 1:It depends on the time of year. So, for example, with Tulane coming back and students coming, we're going to have a couple hundred students coming through our museum during the first couple weeks of school. So we're going to have hundreds of incoming freshmen come to the museum and do tours. So it depends on the time of year. The summertime usually we don't have as many tour groups, but during the fall and the winter month, definitely monthly, not every week, but definitely monthly depending on availability. We definitely have different school groups, also different church groups, synagogue groups as well, anyone who wants to come again. We have plenty of community groups as well. We always are trying to get different types of people into the museum. You do not have to be Jewish, you do not have to be even interested in Jewish history to come to the museum, and that's what I like to tell people.
Speaker 4:It's a museum for everyone and I think everyone can take something away from it, and I'm also curious about you being open on Saturday where, like lots of Jewish sort of themed places are not.
Speaker 1:So I think that's where we have to think of it as a business still. So most people, when they go to museums, go on the weekends. That's just a business. That's tourism. I will say, though, after spending some time in Europe when I was younger, I'm learning about me being closed on Tuesdays. I found that interesting, and now here we also do that. Every museum, every business today, off. So we've decided and it's funny enough, just like many of the museums that I travel to in Europe closed on Tuesdays. It just worked out that way. That's a day with the least amount of traffic, but we have to stay open on the weekends to really be a business that allows people to come in when it's available to them. Most people are free on the weekends, so we're also free on the weekends.
Speaker 4:Good. And then one more Are the Shalom Y'all video and the digitized collections on your museum webpage.
Speaker 1:yet no, not yet, but that actually is a great question, because we are actually currently working on updating our website and one of the things we are looking at is how we can add more content to our website. How can we have more things for the museum patron to interact with when they're not at the museum? So one of the things that we're looking at is different ways of including different items. So Shalom Y'all is definitely a possibility, because we don't have that on display anymore unless you come to our second floor and then we have it displayed on our brick wall, but that would definitely be a great idea. We also do have multiple copies of the Shalom Y'all book as well that we could as well digitize and put on the website. It's really just a question of getting everything on there.
Speaker 1:I think you're right. I want to have patrons be able to explore our collection. We're currently working on getting our museum collection and archives public, so that's a big push right now at the Archivist is that you can explore our collections virtually. That's the big thing about accessibility, and that that's really what I want people to do is access their own collections or possible, just any collection whenever they want to and feel free to explore all the wonderful items that we have and truly we have some incredible items that I voted to work with that I want to show the public.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sure, yeah, as we're closing up, is there anything I have not asked you that you wanted to share, michael.
Speaker 1:I think just the only thing I would just say is please come to the museum. And I mean like the only thing is, I think, come to the museum with an open mind and be ready to learn possibly something that you didn't know, and be ready to maybe challenge some that you didn't know, and be ready to maybe challenge some misconceptions that you may have had before you came to the museum and then just tell your friends I would like the best way to get the word out about our museum is just telling people about how wonderful you got this fun museum in New Orleans. Take a break from Bourbon Street and you know, cooling off. We have great air conditioning as well, so we have great air conditioning in the summer. So that's what I always tell people you go, cool off. You know it's not too big. You know we're waiting for an hour or two. You'll cool off. We have great bathrooms. You can cool off, get out of the sun, you know.
Speaker 1:So we're up a little bit too. We're right on the streetcar line it's. We're actually working on an interactive streetcar map of Jewish sites off the streetcar line. So eventually, something that we will be adding on the website and on an app is, if you take the St Charles streetcar line, you will be able to see Jewish sites along the line. That will pop up on the app or on the website so you can explore their history. And then a lot of them are synagogues, some of them are businesses and some of them are private homes as well. They were built by Jewish architects.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. Are there any exhibits coming up that we could have a little flash news about?
Speaker 1:I think well, I think I gave you guys a little insight on. You guys were the y'all were the first ones that I told about the new items being put on display downstairs that we're putting a bunch of new items on display for our merchandise and our jewish businesses um showcase, as well as a couple of new, actually a couple items of judaica candlesticksicks from Russia from the 1860s that were brought over by a family. They're held on for four generations that are now going to be on display, but one of the I mean we still currently have a wonderful exhibit on the Jewish Orthodox House that's going to be up until January and then the next exhibit. I can give you a hint and maybe it definitely will be on something I actually talked about a lot today with you, um, without giving a full hint at it, but something about the new americans may actually be the next thing, but maybe you have to see and find out.
Speaker 2:I don't want to give away all the secrets, yet there will be links in the show notes to learn more. If you are intrigued by this podcast, it would be much appreciated if you could leave a rating or review and tag warfare of art and law podcast. Until next time, this is stephanie drotty bringing you warfare of art and law. Thank you so much for listening and remember injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.