Museum of Family History: New Year, new exhibits

The Museum of Family History is beginning the Jewish New Year with many new resources, according to creator Steve Lasky.

If you haven't checked in for awhile, do see the new homepage redesign - crisp, clean and very nice!

Shabbat and the Jewish Holidays: A 40-page exhibit of photographs and stories covering Shabbat and holidays, as well as personal stories form the US and pre-war Europe.

Castle Garden and Ellis Island: Learn more about these two entry ports. For Ellis Island: the 1891 opening, the 1897 fire, the 1900 re-opening, the hospital and the children's playground. Read a 1909 interview with William Williams, then-Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island. There is also a sad group of stories for those who were rejected and sent back.

Emperors and Czars of Europe: Read a moving 1891 letter by an unknown writer in St. Petersburg to the Berliner Tageblatt paper.

Philanthropy: Learn about some of the Jewish hospitals and societies which helped the needy in 1902 New York City, established by philanthropists who helped finance many projects and institutions. Some of the institutions in this exhibit are hospitals (Mount Sinai, Lebanon and Beth Israel), homes (Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York) and the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith.

In the Screening Room, view film clip 21: "A Great Day on Eldridge Street" which is a Lower East Side Klezmer celebration. Clip 22 is "The Peretzniks (Perecowicze)" about a Lodz Jewish school, closed following an anti-Semitic campaign in 1968 Poland. It tells the story of the Peretz School graduates who now live in many countries.

Photographic Studios of Europe: An important website in Polish and German offers information on hundreds of pre-World War I photographers and studios. It may help you identify the names of studies on any old photos you have.

Visit the Museum, read Steve's Museum of Family History blog or sign up for email alerts or RSS feed to learn about new exhibits as they are added. Questions? Contact Steve.