Our Events Log

“Separate Yourself Not from the Community”

[All times EST]

Anne Frank the Exhibition—15 West 16th Street, New York

More than 100 original collection items from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, including several never-before-exhibited artifacts.

The Grey Art Museum in New York, NY – located at 18 Cooper Square (Free)

  • Self-Guided Walking Tour – New York City’s Village was an important place for radical politics, most notably Communism. In the decade that followed the Stock Market Crash in 1929, artists, writers, intellectuals, and radicals flooded the then-impoverished, unglamorous part of Manhattan mainly inhabited by immigrants, only to make it one of the nation’s most vibrant, energetic places. This tour highlights where these Village radicals lived and some places they met from 1929 to 1940.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy. Visit their site for more information and to register (under Public Tours and Events)

American Museum of Natural History [200 Central Park West]

BZD Baltimore Zionist District 

Fritz Ascher Society – The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized, and Banned Art (FAS) tells untold stories of artists marginalized and persecuted by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. 
  • “Identity, Art and Migration” investigates the experience of seven Jewish European artists who were forced to abandon their country of origin, or remain in hiding for years, in response to Nazi policies in effect from 1933 to 1945. These six artists- Anni Albers, Friedel Dzubas, Eva Hesse, Rudi Lesser, Lily Renée, and Arthur Szyk emigrated to the United States, while one, Fritz Ascher, stayed behind in Germany, hiding in a basement for three years. –  Runs from February 27, 2022, to February 27, 2027  – Free and available online
  • April 9 (12 – 1 PM) Léo Maillet (1902-1990): The Broken Mirror Presentation by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Hadassah

Metropolitan Museum of Art

  • Beginning on March 14, 2024  – The Rothschild Mahzor and The Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, Located in Gallery 503

Museum of the City of New York [1220 Fifth Ave at 103rd St]

Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

Museum at Hebrew Union College – Dr. Bernard Heller Museum (admission free) NYC – Open: Mondays through Thursdays, 9 am – 6:30 pm

  • Running until June 26 – The Mezuzah Message – 17 imaginative artists’ contemporary designs for the mezuzah
  • Running Until June 26 – Nathan Brujis: Spirituality and the Subconscious

Programs on-demand – recorded  – Archived video recordings of faculty and guest experts illuminating the full scope of Jewish studies

New York Historical Society – [170 Central Park West]

Passaic Torah Institute, a Baalei Tshuva Yeshiva, Young Professional Program

  • Thursday (8 PM) Contact Ben Rand at 201-280-8145 for more information

RVCC Institute of Holocaust and Genocide (online programs)

  • April 17 (10 – 11 AM) Petr Ginz Jewish Czech teen sent to the Terezin Concentration Camp.
  • April 24 (10 – 11 AM) theatrical reading of “Armed and Spiritual Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto” to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
  • May 9 (10 – 11 AM) Book talk with author Bonny Reicher

Rutgers Bidner Center – Jewish Studies Online 

  • April 24 (5:45 PM) Opening and Screening BESA: A Code of Honor, a traveling exhibit that features photographs taken by the American photographer Norman Gershman. This exhibit also features personal rescue stories of Muslim-Albanian families who saved Jews and were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. These powerful photographs and stories highlight the bravery of Muslim-Albanians who risked their lives during the Holocaust, guided by a deeply held belief in protecting the dignity of every human being.

  • April 29 (7:30 – 8:30 PM) The Progressives’ Bible: How Scriptural Interpretation Built a More Just America – Professors Claudia Setzer (Manhattan University) and Gary A. Rendsburg (Rutgers University) discuss how abolitionists, women’s rights supporters, contemporary climate activists, and other social reformers saw (and see) their struggles in the Bible’s narratives and characters

Free, non-credit online courses allow you to learn at your own pace and study with the Jewish Studies faculty at Rutgers.

Jewish Agriculture in the Garden State – Free, Virtual Digital

Rutgers Zimmerli Museum offers free admission

  • Wednesday – Friday 11 AM –6 PM; Saturday – Sunday noon–5  PM; Thursday 11 AM – 8 PM

Sousa Mendes Foundation  – Founded in 2010, the Sousa Mendes Foundation is dedicated to honoring the memory of the Holocaust rescuer, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, and educating the world about his good work. 

  • May 4 (4 PM) Fred Korematsu — An American Hero. He defied the US government in 1942 when he refused to be incarcerated as a Japanese American. His case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him. He was finally exonerated in 1983. In 1998, Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 
  • May 11 (4 PM) Family Treasures Lost & Found — One Woman’s Search for Answers explores the quest of journalist Karen Frenkel to learn the stories that remained untold about her mother’s Holocaust survival

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History – Established in 1976 and situated on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall (free admission)

  • April 24 (7 PM) The Stronghold Movie Premier- Sinai Desert, Yom Kippur War, 1973. In a remote outpost, a company of Israeli soldiers is overwhelmed by a sudden Egyptian onslaught. After a week of ceaseless assaults, the survivors face imminent doom. With lives hanging by a thread, a young lieutenant and an army doctor confront a soul-shattering choice: a desperate last stand or a perilous gamble that could betray everything they stand for.
  • April 25 (10 AM – 4 PM), April 26 (10 AM – 4 PM), April 27 from 10 AM – 6 PM Some.Body – A Nova Story AI Exhibition feature film, combines original AI animation, spoken word, and trance music of a short story by clinical psychologist and co-creator Dr. Nir Soffer-Dudek, written after bearing witness to dozens of testimonies from survivors of the Nova Music Festival massacre, as well as members of rescue forces who oversaw identification of the deceased.
  • April 25 (2 PM) Theodor The Israeli Opera explores the life and origin story of Theodor Herzl, the visionary behind the modern State of Israel, and depicts how his experiences with rising antisemitism in Europe compelled him to recognize the necessity of a Jewish state. Composed by Yonatan Cnaan and directed by Ido Ricklin.
  • April 27 – 27 (Documentary streaming on demand) 999: The Forgotten Girls. Heather Dune Macadam has adapted her acclaimed book. In March 1942, nearly 1,000 young Slovak Jewish women, mostly teenagers, told by their government that they were embarking on a volunteer work assignment, were instead illegally deported to Auschwitz on what was the first Jewish transport to the Nazi death camp. 
  • April 27 (4 PM) The Community: A portrait of Jewish life in Ukraine today in the mirror of history and the shadow of Russia’s full-scale invasion. It captures the strength and resilience of Ukraine’s diverse Jewish community as they navigate the hardships of war. Through personal stories and interviews with a range of characters, the film reveals their essential role in Ukraine’s struggle and explores their experiences amidst accusations of Nazism that have cast a shadow over the nation.
  • April 27 (6 PM) TORNdelves into the controversy surrounding the ‘KIDNAPPED’ poster campaign, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 240 hostages taken by Hamas. These posters quickly became polarizing symbols, sparking intense clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists and turning New York City’s streets into battlegrounds of ideology and emotion. The film explores the motivations behind activists putting up and tearing down the posters, unraveling the complexities of this intense ‘paper arm’ proxy war, fought thousands of miles from the actual conflict.
  • April 28 (7 PM) Four Winters Over 25,000 Jewish partisans fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped Nazi slaughter, transforming from young innocents to courageous resistance fighters.

The Museum of Hunger virtual

The Tenement Museum

  • Chalk – an annual public art project honoring the immigrant workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Each year since 2004, on the anniversary of the infamous blaze, volunteers fan out across the city to inscribe in chalk the names and ages of the Triangle dead in front of their former homes. 

TOLI – The Olga Lengyel Institute is a recognized leader in Holocaust and human rights professional development education for teachers. Inspired by the legacy of Olga Lengyel, author of Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz

  • RECORDING – Saints and Liars – Long before their country joined the war, American aid workers undertook rescue efforts abroad. Who were these women and men who sought to save lives? Saints and Liars tells their stories and, exploring their experiences, illuminates the moral questions they encountered, the devastating decisions they had to make, and the role of unpredictable and irrational factors on the ground, at a particular moment, in shaping individual fates

April 24 (10 – 11 AM) “What Must We Learn?” led by Dr. Ellen Kennedy, Executive Director of World Without Genocide.

  •  (Holocaust Remembrance Day)“Armed and Spiritual Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.” In 1942, nearly 250,000 Jews were deported from the Warsaw ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland to be exterminated in the Treblinka death camp. Many of the Jews who remained in the ghetto organized for armed resistance, only to eventually be annihilated in the largest and most courageous show of defiance during the Holocaust. The story will be told through a “readers’ theater” play highlighting upstanders who carried out armed and spiritual resistance.

Whitney Museum of American Art whitney.org

YIVO 

  • April 18 (1 PM) COMMEMORATION OF THE 82ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING AT DER SHTEYN
  • April 22 (7 PM) AN EVENING OF SEPHARDIC ART SONG
  • April 24 (1 PM) THE YIVO SOUND ARCHIVE AND THE KLEZMER REVIVAL
  • April 28 (7 PM) TWO REVOLUTIONARY JEWS: LEON TROTSKY AND CHAIM ZHITLOWSKY
  • April 29 (7 PM) WARSAW TESTAMENT BY ROKHL AUERBACH
  • April 30 (1 PM) THE YIDDISH PATIENT: POSTWAR ILLNESS AND THE SANATORIUM IN DANIEL CHARNEY’S OYFN SHVEL FUN YENER VELT
  • May 1 (7 PM) FALAFEL, FREILACH AND FRIJOLES: FROM MAMBO TO BORSCHT
  • May 5 (6:30 PM) PERSON PLACE THING WITH JONATHAN BRENT
  • May 7 (1 PM) THE MAKING OF A HISTORIAN OF EAST EUROPEAN JEWRY AND THE HOLOCAUST: LUCY S. DAWIDOWICZ AND THE YIVO IN VILNA, NEW YORK, AND OFFENBACH
  • May 8 (1 PM) IMMIGRANT JEWISH MUSICIANS AND NEW YORK MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES, 1920s- 1960s
  • May 15 (7:30 PM) CHAIM GRADE’S SONS AND DAUGHTERS
  • May 18 (1 PM) SHKHEYNIM (NEIGHBORS)

Online Museum 

Online self-paced free courses

  • Is Anything Okay? The History of Jews and Comedy in America
  • A Seat at the Table: A Journey into Jewish Food
  • Oh Mama, I’m in Love! The Story of the Yiddish Stage
  • Folksong, Demons, and the Evil Eye: Folklore of Ashkenaz
  • Discovering Ashkenaz: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe

Information You Can Use

FOR PASSOVER:  JBI Library  – complimentary accessible large print, braille, and audio Haggadot (17 different editions) that enables anyone who is reading disabled or has trouble physically holding a book (e.g., due to Parkinson’s disease, stroke, or arthritis) to participate in the Passover tradition of reading from a shared text at a seder.

Adult Clothing Gemach Chabad of Maplewood. For information, contact: Lenny Levy at 201-836-7376 or email umbrellapickup@aol.com

Bergen Volunteers Center’s Make-It-Home donations of gently used furniture for those in need. For more information 201-489-9454 info@bergenvolunteers.org or www.bergenvolunteers.org/making-it-home

Beth Aaron Centerpiece Gemach For information, contact Michele at 201-403-6409  www.bethaaron.org/gemach

Bikur Cholim Bergen County (BCBC) is a volunteer-run 501(c)3 organization that provides support, facilities, and services to ease the burden of families services Englewood Hospital and Medical Center,  Hackensack University Medical Center, Holy Name Medical Center, The Valley Hospital, and Kessler Rehabilitation of Saddlebrook For information contact info@bikurcholimbergencounty.org or 201-579-3066

Center for Food Action  (CFA) provides emergency services to northern New Jersey’s poorest and most vulnerable residents. CFA provides food, housing, utility, and heating assistance and offers counseling and advocacy services to low-income individuals and families. CFA is headquartered in Englewood and has sites in Hackensack

Community Food Bank of New Jersey (CFB–NJ) volunteers, donors, and our many partners to fill the emptiness caused by hunger with Food, Help, and Hope.

Fair Lawn – 

  • Gemach for information email FairLawnGemach@gmail.com
  • Sophie’s Costume Gemach – simifleischer@gmail.com 845-548-1319

JEMA needs volunteers for a virtual free tutoring service to study with/support Yavneh students in grades K–8 in all subjects. (No formal teaching experience is needed. ) Contact Dr. Brecker-Blum at hr@thehrca.com yavnehedoffice@yavnehacademy.org

Jewish Family Services and Alzheimer’s Association – Virtual caregiver support group – 2nd & 4th Thursday of the month, 10:30 – 11:30 AM. Contact Rebecca Schochet at 862-233-1598 or r.schochet@jfsclifton.org

Project Ezrah helps by finding employment opportunities for candidates seeking entry-level to senior leadership positions. 201.569.9047; Info@ezrah.org

Re-Pleat: Gemach of outfits for dressy occasions is new in Edison/Highland Park! Have something to donate? Have a special occasion and need something to wear?  Open by appointment only: text 732-267-3216

Teaneck  – 

  • SHPBC  Shearit Haplate of Bergen County collects, repackages, and distributes surplus food to individuals and families in a respectful way that helps to ensure the recipients’ privacy and self-esteem. If you know of a family in need, are having an upcoming Simcha and would like us to pick up leftover food, or want more information about volunteering, Email: shpbcinc@gmail.com, Phone: 225-DON8-FUD or 225-366-8383
  • Preemie Clothing Gemach Yad Yocheved, Teaneck, for information 201-836-2071
  • Baby Gemach assists Jewish families in Bergen County with baby equipment and clothing for babies – toddlers. http://www.teaneckbabygemach.org/contact-us.html
  • Bike Gemach For information, email Rebecca at rebeccadklar@gmail.com
  • Gown Gemach – Something Borrowed – somethingborrowedTCG@gmail.com
  • Simcha Gemach Chairs, tables, coat racks, vases, and bris table decor are available for loan. For information, email TeaneckSimcha@yahoo.com

Tomchei Shabbos provides Shabbos food and weekly groceries to families in need. Sites organized by location: LA, Dallas, Providence, Rhode Island [Jewish Collaborative Services], Toronto, Queens [Masbia], Rockland County, Bergen County, Passaic, Middlesex, Kansas City, Chicago, Florida, Montreal [The Family Store].,

Donation ONLY: Houston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Lakewood,  St. Louis, Detroit, Florida, Denver,

United Hatzalah (a partnership group of mental health trauma professionals practicing in Israel) provides free & anonymous online 24/7 mental health counseling to US frontline healthcare providers.

Vintage Thrift Shop – Benefiting the United Jewish Council of the East Side – 286 3rd Avenue

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