This September, the Museum of Jewish Heritage is hosting seven exciting events in addition to their current exhibitions. These events touch on a variety of topics, from film and opera to 9/11 commemoration. Here’s what is coming up:
Stories Survive Speaker Series: Rene David Alkalay
Sunday, September 8 | 1 P.M.
Free admission; advance registration recommended
The Stories Survive speaker series, where Holocaust survivors tell their life stories in their own words, continues. Rene David Alkalay will share his eyewitness account of the Holocaust. Alkalay was born in Croatia during the war, and he was imprisoned as an infant and toddler from 1941–1943 in the Kraljavica concentration camp with his mother and grandparents.
Prosecuting Hate Crimes: Charlottesville and Beyond
Tuesday, September 10 | 7 P.M.
Free admission; advance registration recommended
Litigator Roberta Kaplan leads an insiders’ discussion of the lawsuit representing those injured at the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. Kaplan will be in conversation with plaintiff Reverend Seth Wispelwey and Integrity First for America Executive Director Amy Spitalnick. The three will give an overview of the landmark case and discuss its impact on the broader fight against white nationalist violence in America. The program will be introduced by Abraham H. Foxman, director of the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism, and moderated by John Avlon, a Senior Political Analyst at CNN.
September 11 Commemoration
Wednesday, September 11 | 10 A.M. – 9 P.M.
Free admission; separate, paid ticket is required for the special exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.
In memory of those who were lost in the attacks at the World Trade Center site and in honor of the first responders, the Museum invites the public to come reflect and remember.
Hitler’s Hostage Art
Thursday, September 12 | 7 P.M.
Free admission; advance registration recommended
Mary M. Lane, former chief European art reporter at The Wall Street Journal and the author of “Hitler’s Last Hostages,” will discuss how Hitler’s obsession with art fueled his vision of a purified Nazi state, and the fate of the artwork that was hidden, stolen, or destroyed to “cleanse” German culture. Lane, in conversation with Erin L. Thompson, America’s only full-time professor of art crime, will reveal the series of events leading up to 2013, when the German government confiscated roughly 1,300 works by Henri Matisse, George Grosz, Claude Monet, and other masters from the reclusive son of one of Hitler’s primary art dealers.
Childhood and Selfhood: Irene Butter in Conversation with Andrew Solomon
Sunday, September 15 | 7 P.M.
Free admission; advance registration recommended
Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter, a survivor of two concentration camps who has dedicated her life to Holocaust education, will share her story with Dr. Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction). The two will share insights on selfhood, trauma, and navigating change gleaned from Butter’s childhood in Nazi-occupied Europe and Solomon’s research on the formation of self within different family frameworks.
“Enemies are people whose story you haven’t heard,” said Butter.
“Forgotten Soldier”
Tuesday, September 17 | 7 P.M.
Free admission; advance registration recommended
This is the New York premiere of “Forgotten Soldier,” which won festival awards in the UK, Canada, and the U.S. The film tells the story of “Master of Bluffing” Salomon (“Sally”) Noach, a Dutch citizen who risked his life in Vichy, France to save hundreds from deportation to Auschwitz. The film follows Noach’s daughter, Lady Irene Hatter, as she goes in search of the truth behind her father’s story. A discussion will follow with Lady Irene Hatter, her brother Jacques Hatter, and survivor Herman Veder, who is featured in the film. (2018, 69 mins., English, French, and Dutch)
“The Final Veil:” An Artists’ Discussion
Wednesday, September 25 | 2 PM
Free admission; advance registration recommended
Join us for an artists’ discussion with the creators of “The Final Veil,” an upcoming multidisciplinary “movement opera” involving theater, dance, and song. Co-creators J.L. Marlor (composer) and Cassandra Rosebeetle (dancer) will share their discovery of the true story of Franceska Mann, a remarkable woman who resisted the Nazis in her final moments in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. They will discuss their artistic processes and how the different mediums work together to bring this story of female resistance to life.
To reserve tickets or see more from the Museum of Jewish Heritage, click here.
