LAURA HUCKABY GUEST LECTURE |
ICYMI: SOUTHERN JEWISH STORIES
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Give Early, Give Often for GiveNOLA |
Early giving has officially opened up for GiveNOLA Day (May 2) and we’re excited to launch this year’s campaign. Last year, thanks to your support, we met our goal of $30,000 in donations, so this year we’re shooting for an even higher with a goal of $36,000 - double chai!
Over the past decade, GiveNOLA Day has become a celebrated New Orleans tradition - the perfect time of year to give back to the institutions and organizations that make this colorful, crazy, vibrant and caring city the incredible place it is, and the place MSJE is proud to call home.
Thanks to generous support from two board members, your GiveNOLA Day donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $10,000. Make a gift today to double your impact.
As a Member of MSJE, your donation makes it possible for us to continue exploring and sharing our unique stories – old and new – with the world. Thank you!
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Curator's Corner
A Southern Jew in Israel
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In 1964, Joseph Berman traveled to Israel and the Middle East. He kept a detailed journal of his travels, typed it up when he returned home to Lexington, MS, and shared copies with family members and friends.
Perhaps most importantly, Joe gave talks about his adventures abroad to many civic and social clubs, and churches groups around Mississippi. Joe's son Bob has related how appreciative people were to hear his father's firsthand experience–essentially bringing the Holy Land to them–knowing that at the time, travel overseas was infrequent and travel to the Middle East was quite rare. In an anecdote that speaks to the Jewish experience in the South (and Joe's menschlichkeit, or "humanity"), Bob recalls that after his father presented the slides from his trip at a church, a woman came up to him and stated, "Joe Berman, you are a true Christian," to which he replied, "Thank you for that compliment, and you truly have a Jewish soul."
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Joseph E. Berman was born in Camilla, GA, in 1900, to Russian immigrant parents Israel and Sarah Lubin Berman. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Georgia, having served briefly in WWI and later in WWII in the Judge Advocate's Department. He retired from the Army as a full colonel. Joe began practicing law in Atlanta in 1921 and was elected to the Atlanta Board of Aldermen in 1928. In 1935, he moved his family to Lexington, MS, where he entered the food brokerage business and continued to practice law. At one time or another, he was president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce, president of the Rotary Club, president and lay rabbi of Temple Beth El, and president of the National Food Brokers Association. Joseph Berman was one of 81 people killed in a plane crash over Hendersonville, N.C., on July 19, 1967, and is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery, in Lexington, MS.
May his memory be for a blessing.
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Thanks to Morris "Lew" Lewis and the Berman family for the donation to MSJE of this unique travelogue. With support from Members like you, we will be able to digitize and provide access to Joe Berman's travelogue and other unique examples of the Southern Jewish experience! |
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👉 Do you have an unpublished or self-published family history? We would like to include a copy in our ever-expanding research collection of Southern Jewish families. Send your story to info@msje.org.👈
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Visions from Jewish Texas
Guest Lecture & Reception at the Museum
Featuring Laura Huckaby
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Join us on Thursday, May 11th at 6pm for a free, in-person event at the Museum, featuring guest lecturer Laura Huckaby, Curator and Assistant Director of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts in Texas. The lecture will be followed by a small reception upstairs.
Huckaby's talk will focus on our current Special Exhibition, “God, Goats and Pickup Trucks: Maurice Schmidt’s Visions of Texas.” Schmidt's bold, colorful collection of artworks seeking sparks of holiness in scenes of southern life is currently on loan to MSJE from SAMFA. Huckaby will explore the artistic and historical context of the Jewish artist’s works, sharing the story of her museum’s acquisition of the collection and discussing its place in the canon of southern and American art.
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MSJE is coming to Houston
And we'd love to see you
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MSJE is hosting a small private event in Houston, Texas on April 25. If you're a Houstonian, email Emma Herr at emma@msje.org to make sure you're invited to the reception with Executive Director Kenneth Hoffman.
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Membership Perk
Preservation Hall "Israel Fest" Vintage Poster
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It's Jazz Fest season here in New Orleans! The first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was held in April 1970. But nine years earlier in 1961, the Israel Festival was born. This annual event showcases jazz, theater, visual arts, dance, and more. In 1972, New Orleans' own Preservation Hall Jazz Band delighted the Israeli audience with a concert of traditional New Orleans-style jazz, played by some of our earliest jazz greats.
We love our Hebrew/English Israel Fest poster – it's the perfect marriage of Southern and Jewish. So in dual celebration of two important upcoming events – Israel's Independence Day (April 26) and Jazz Fest (starting April 28) – take 20% off this reprint of the original vintage poster. Makes a great gift!
Don't forget to use code MEMBER20 at checkout!
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Welcome, New Members!
Shalom. Make yourself at home.
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David & Julia Assef (Nichols Hills, OK)
Bob, Roberta & Rebecca Bernstein (Houston, TX)
Lisa & Dore Binder (Baton Rouge, LA)
Carol Anne Blitzer (Baton Rouge, LA)
Bob Boggio (Metairie, LA)
Bettie Minette Cooper (Norfolk, VA)
Cecile & Martin Covert (New Orleans, LA)
Jack Dehovitz (Brooklyn, NY)
Ida Diamond & George Macke (Friendswood, TX)
Amy & Charles Fox (Atlanta, GA)
Julie & Steve Genn (Potomac, MD)
Gary & Carol Gerson (River Forest, IL)
Michael Johnston & Jill Gilbert (Nashville, TN)
Robert & Susan Goldstein (Sunny Isles Beach, FL)
Carl & Sylvia Goodman (Shreveport, LA)
Suzanne & Stuart Grant (Delray Beach, FL)
Roberta Gratz (New York, NY)
Stephen & Susan Greene (Birmingham, AL)
Curtis & Amelia Halstead (New Orleans, LA)
Arnold & Gloria Himelstein (Clarksdale, MS)
Michael & Jill Kantrow (Baton Rouge, LA)
Mara & Stephen Kupperman (New Orleans, LA)
Jonathan Lake (New Orleans, LA)
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Harry & Betty Lazarus (Metairie, LA)
Charles Nelson & Pamela Levy (Belmont, MA)
Paul & Sue Lewis (Metairie, LA)
Carol Masters (Long Beach, CA)
Holly McCollum (New Orleans, LA)
Ashley Mills (Houston, TX)
Susie Moskowitz (Huntington, NY)
Cindy Brownstein Munn & Irv Munn (Dallas, TX)
Mindy Nathan (Birmingham, MI)
Marcy Planer (Metairie, LA)
Kara Rothberg (Rockville, MD)
Betsy & Joseph Samuels (Jackson, MS)
Paula Sanders (Houston, TX)
Steve & Melissa Scheckman (New Orleans, LA)
Charles Scher (New Orleans, LA)
Mimi Schlesinger (Metairie, LA)Richard Seff (Los Angeles, CA)
Peter & Wendy Stahl (Columbia, SC)
Suzanne Stone (Kenner, LA)
Beth Sugarman (Atlanta, GA)
Marlene Trestman (Baltimore, MD)
Roger & Diane Tygier (New Orleans, LA)
Dana Wallen (New Orleans, LA)
Rabbi David Weis (Northfield, NJ)
Richard Weiss (Roanoke, VA)
Nicole Wiener (New Orleans, LA)
Diane & Paul Zimmerman (New Orleans, LA)
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In Case You Missed lt
WATCH NOW! Janice Rothschild Blumberg
and Rabbi Edward Cohn
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Did you miss our latest virtual event with Janice Rothschild Blumberg and Rabbi Edward Cohn? No worries – you can watch the recording now on our YouTube channel!
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Survey Says
Who are you supporting for GiveNOLA Day 2023?
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Think I'll bestow my beneficence upon...
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The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience
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The Best Museum in NOLA ;)
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Mezuzah of the Month
The Fleisig Mezuzah
Betsy and Howard Fleisig, Atlanta, GA
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Where is your mezuzah from and why did you choose to display it at MSJE?
Our mezuzah was handmade and painted by my mother, Edith Fleisig, who made all kinds of beautiful mezuzahs. We have a family collection that includes a little boy baseball player and a little girl holding flowers that we used on our children's doorposts as they grew up. My mom was classically trained in the arts at RISD and loved to make Jewish things.
What is your Southern Jewish Experience?
My Southern Jewish experience was filled with many happy family and community occasions with all kinds of Jewish foods and observances. My mother brought Jewish traditions (+ recipes) from Rhode Island and her family there to meld with the Southern Jewish heritage in southeast Arkansas and the other members of the congregation. My father served many terms as President of the Temple in McGehee, AR, and worked hard to keep Judaism alive in our small southern town. All the congregants were very proud of the Temple there. It was a very meaningful part of our lives.
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Why do you support MSJE?
My wife, Betsy, and I are very proud to support MSJE so that future generations can learn about the wonderful and life impactful Southern Jewish Experience that we had growing up as Jews in the (in our case, rural) South. As so many of these communities wither and go away, it is so tremendous that this Museum exists to tell all of our stories and preserve the rich history that we lived, and commemorate the lives of those who made it happen. The Museum is wonderfully and artfully curated and the hard work and talent of the founders and staff of the MSJE is much appreciated.
Betsy and Howard Fleisig in Antarctica
(talk about the Southern Jewish experience!)
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What is the Mezuzah Society? |
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Supporters who donate $1,800 or more are included in our Mezuzah Society and are invited to send us a mezuzah to display on our ever-growing Mezuzah Wall. Interested in joining the Mezuzah Society? Email Emma Herr at emma@msje.org today to learn more!
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We will regularly be highlighting members of our Mezuzah Society and sharing why they chose to join and the importance behind their mezuzah. If you are a member of the Mezuzah Society and would like to be featured, email emma@msje.org.
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Not a member of the Mezuzah Society yet?
Click HERE to learn more.
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Shalom. Make yourself at home.®
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Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience
818 Howard Avenue | New Orleans, LA 70113
504-384-2480
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