Museum and RMM Wing

The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust opened in 1997 to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the broad tapestry of Jewish life over the past century--before, during, and after the Holocaust. In mid-September 2003, the Museum opened its 82,000-square-foot Robert M. Morgenthau Wing, which contains Edmond J. Safra Hall, a state-of-the-art theater; Garden of Stones, a memorial garden designed by Andy Goldsworthy; The Heritage Cafe, a kosher cafe; a catering hall; classrooms; and expanded gallery space for special exhibitions.

Video about the Museum.
General Press Release

Museum Time Line

Robert M. Morgenthau Wing Opening Release

Robert M. Morgenthau Wing Fact Sheet

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Andy Goldsworthy

Full View of the
Garden of Stones

Artist Andy Goldsworthy has designed Garden of Stones, a permanent outdoor Memorial Garden employing stones, trees, and soil as its core elements. A series of 18 carefully selected boulders are installed throughout the garden. Each one has been hollowed out and holds a single sapling Dwarf Oak that will show through a small hole at the top. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk fusing to the base. It will dramatically suggest how nature can survive under seemingly impossible circumstances. As a living memorial, the garden is a tribute to the hardship, struggle, tenacity, and survival experienced by those who endured the Holocaust.

More about Andy Goldsworthy's Garden of Stones

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The story of Irène Némirovsky is that of a remarkable writer, who was driven to create even as her world was destroyed around her.  It is, however, more than literary history: it is the story of a mother and her daughters, of memory and identity, of legacy and loss. A Russian-born Jewish writer, Némirovsky quickly became an acclaimed author in her adopted France. But her fame and accomplishment, and even her conversion to Catholicism, were not enough to save her; she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz in 1942.  Among the few mementos Irène left her daughters, Denise and Elisabeth, was a valise that contained a leather notebook they believed to be their mother’s diary.  Repelled by painful memories, they avoided opening the notebook, until Denise resolved to read it more than sixty years after her mother’s death. She discovered not a diary, but a major literary work: the first two parts of an unfinished five-part novel, Suite Française, now a bestseller in several countries. This remarkable story is told through stunning and heartbreaking artifacts, including the manuscript and the valise itself, never before exhibited.

In association with Institut Mémoires de l’Édition Contemporaine (IMEC).

The exhibition is made possible through generous funding from: American Express, The David Berg Foundation, Embassy of France in the United States, Nancy Fisher, Grand Marnier Foundation, Alexis Gregory Foundation, Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the generous support of The September 11th Fund, The Felix & Elizabeth Rohatyn Foundation, Howard J. Rubenstein, and The Robert Sillins Family Foundation. Salon furniture was designed and generously donated by Ligne Roset.

In 1938, a time when openings for Jewish refugees were hard to find, the government of the Dominican Republic offered to resettle up to 100,000 Jews. Sosúa, an abandoned banana plantation on the north coast of the island, would become a refuge to hundreds of Jews. The settlers were given resources to cultivate the land they were provided, and built a thriving town – one that still exists today. This exhibition will tell how the settlers were recruited and came to Sosúa, what awaited them there, what role the Dominican and U.S. governments and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee played in the story, how the settlers worked with their Dominican neighbors to establish themselves, and what kind of a town they created. Sosúa speaks poignantly to one chapter in a shared Dominican and Jewish story.

This exhibition was made possible, in part, through major funding from the Leon Levy Foundation, with additional support provided by: NY State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, Former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, City Council Member Miguel Martinez, and the American Jewish Congress.

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Read about the exhibit in the Wall Street Journal.

April 16, 2007- September 1, 2008

Daring To Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust

During the Holocaust, Jews throughout Europe, through individual and collective acts of resistance, sought to undermine the Nazi goal of the annihilation of the Jewish people. Jews engaged in a range of resistance activities with the aim of preserving Jewish life and dignity despite unimaginable difficulties.  Their efforts powerfully refute the popular perception that Jews were passive victims. Through testimony, archival footage, and authentic artifacts, the exhibition will help visitors to understand the dilemmas that Jews faced under impossible circumstances.  Whether praying clandestinely, documenting the experiences of Jews in the ghettos, or taking up arms to fight, these responses took many forms, but each and every one was a courageous act of resistance.

This exhibition was made possible through major funding from: Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz Fund of The New York Community Trust, the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities*.

Generous leadership gifts were made by: Frank and Cesia Blaichman, Patti Askwith Kenner and Family, George and Adele Klein, Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert, and Shalom and Varda Yoran.

Additional support was provided by: The David Berg Foundation, Nancy Fisher, Robert I. Goldman Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, L’Oréal USA, Righteous Persons Foundation, and Gil and Claire (Israelit) Zweig.

Media sponsorship provided by The Jewish Week.

*Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Learn about the companion volume

Read the New York Times review of Daring to Resist.

Click here to read part one of the review.

Click here for part two.