Annual Stewardship Report November 2020 On behalf of the Board and Staff of The Breman Museum, we wish to acknowledge all supporters who have helped us make a difference.
and understanding through the fulfillment of our mission of connecting people to Jewish history, culture and the arts. There has been great energy at The Breman ... larger-thanever audiences, sold-out exhibitions, pop-up events across the city, national recognition with our concert series ... yet we know there is more work to do, more stories to tell. We will soon celebrate our 25th Anniversary in 2021, a significant milestone that offers the opportunity to honor our role as a cultural center devoted to Jewish heritage. The Breman is firmly rooted in the community ... poised and positioned well to advance its mission by showcasing what we are today and our relevance in the future. We stay connected through the history of our past and what we leave behind.
Sol and Lillian Freedman (pictured in front of those next to life ring) on the SS George Washington en route from Poland to the United States, 1928.
It is because of the sustained generosity from so many that we can make a positive impact in Metro Atlanta and beyond. This support has been invaluable and enabled us to reach an important milestone in our history. Together, we can continue to give back to the community in a meaningful way. This report summarizes our commitment to our mission, an overview of our programming, highlights and outcomes, as well as an update of where the museum stands today amidst the global pandemic. Since its founding in 1996, The Breman Museum — Georgia’s only Jewish museum — has been dedicated to inspiring mutual respect
YEARS STRONG IN
2021
MISSION STATEMENT Connect people to Jewish history, culture, and arts
VISION STATEMENT A community filled with mutual respect and understanding that resonates with Jewish values
OUR PROGRAMMING The Breman Museum is deeply committed to educating and impacting audiences through four main programming pillars: • • • •
Archives Holocaust Education Exhibitions Signature Programs
Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives for Southern Jewish History
Highlights and Outcomes • 25,000+ people conducted online research • 250+ researchers personally served • 470+ attended Jewish Genealogy Society of Georgia meetings • 420+ attended Historic Jewish Atlanta Tour series programs • 15 Archives special events hosted
Established in 1985, the Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives today is the largest repository of material related to the Jewish experience in Georgia and the surrounding region. Its archival holdings include thousands of manuscript and photograph collections as well as hundreds of artifacts, textiles and oral histories. Family papers, business and organizational records, rabbi’s papers and synagogue records are housed as part of the Cuba Archives — all representing an extension of human memory as a witness to the past. Archives Collection • • • • 2
1,200+ artifacts 1,300+ oral histories 1,500+ manuscript collections 45,000+ photographs
Pola Beinstock (Arbiser) (middle) and her brother, Ludwik Bienstock (left on bike), with Franciszka (Frania) Sobkowa. Drohobycz, Poland, c. 1935, Sam and Pola Arbiser Family Papers.
through artifacts, images, and oral histories. Online and traveling versions of Eighteen Artifacts are also on view. Highlights and Outcomes • 7 Exhibitions (1 permanent, 3 temporary, 2 online, 1 traveling) • 13,800+ exhibition visitors • 2,542 attended exhibition-related events • 3 student interns Rabbi Joe Prass interviewing Holocaust survivor George Rishfeld at a Bearing Witness program.
The Lillian and A.J. Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education The Center makes available Holocaust educational materials for teachers, students, and institutions seeking to better understand the lessons of the Holocaust to educate future generations. Resources include films detailing oral histories from local survivors, first-person testimonies given by in-class speakers, as well as the opportunity to earn staff development credits through The Summer Institute for Holocaust Education. The Center offers Jewish institutions materials to supplement their existing Holocaust research and education programs including a unique curriculum, We Are Here!, designed specifically for Jewish families. Highlights and Outcomes • 7,000+ students experienced an introduction to Jewish history • 1,490 people heard a Holocaust Survivor speak at Bearing Witness events • 5,144 people learned from speakers offsite • 30 Holocaust survivor speakers
Exhibitions and Special Programs The Breman contains three exhibition galleries. A permanent exhibition gallery is fully dedicated to the history of the Holocaust. The other two galleries rotate new and insightful exhibitions that enhance the mission of the Museum. Eighteen Artifacts: A Story of Jewish Atlanta has been on exhibit since 2015. It showcases the history of Jews in Atlanta
Magical Mondays, Inescapable: The Life and Legacy of Harry Houdini, Summer 2019.
Breman Signature Programs Bearing Witness: 1,490 attendees A speaker series that features Holocaust survivors— all Atlanta residents—who recall their experiences during one of the darkest periods in history. This program is free to the public in thanks to past funding from The Sara Giles Moore Foundation. Molly Blank Jewish Concert Series: 485 attendees (Sold out concert + additional virtual performance) Performances that highlight Jewish contributions to music—transforming the Breman auditorium into a rousing concert hall. Each season showcases a variety of musical genres and world-renowned talent. Historic Jewish Atlanta Tour Series: 418 attendees Guided tours of historic sites related to Jewish history in Atlanta exploring Oakland Cemetery, the Temple and a host of other locales bringing “hidden” history to light. 3
THE BREMAN’S RESILIENCE DURING COVID-19 The spring of 2020 ushered in unforeseen and monumental challenges that have impacted our global community. The Breman Museum shuttered its doors in mid-March as COVID-19 marched through our city and we have remained closed for the protection of our staff, volunteers and the general public. However, we have responded to this crisis by increasing our online visibility ten-fold and welcoming new audiences who have enjoyed our virtual programming that includes: Field Trip Friday, a Summer Speaker Series, numerous talks and workshops. Our “Terra InFirma” exhibition could not be shipped due to pandemic restrictions, but we have been able to present this virtually with complimentary hands-on workshops led by Atlanta artists. We have upgraded our website for online exhibitions such as “A Jazz Memoir: The Photography of Herb Snitzer” featuring iconic images of Jazz masters. This exhibit was originally planned to coincide with the 2020 AtlantaJazz Festival which was postponed. While our membership renewals and fundraising efforts have been greatly impacted, The Breman is committed more than ever to present stellar virtual programming aimed at enriching and educating audiences of all ages and backgrounds. We have been careful and thoughtful stewards of dollars raised from our funders and continually seek to broaden our donor base. The museum leadership is strategizing about the future, our sustainability, and how we will continue to meet the needs of a changing community. Planning is underway NOW for our HISTORY WITH CHUTZPAH exhibition, which will take place in 2021 and be invaluable to a public seeking refuge and a thirst for discovery during a time of great uncertainty. We will also honor The Breman’s 25th Anniversary which demonstrates our steadfast presence in Atlanta. We are proud of the work that we are doing during this moment of adversity and greatly appreciate the enthusiasm shown by our funders and friends.
• Communicating regularly and meeting virtually with volunteers, docents, museum members, funders and all those who love The Breman • Presenting genealogy web seminars, programs and virtual tours at no cost to the public • Collaborating with peer organizations, such as the Atlanta Opera and the Alliance Theater, to provide insight on the Holocaust as they prepare for upcoming performances tackling this very sad legacy in our world’s history • Responding to the rise in anti-Semitism by offering racial justice programming • Planning future programming that will resonate with the community given the overwhelming impact of the global pandemic • Protecting the safety and well-being of all of our constituencies by remaining closed and opening again once the pandemic has eased Measurable Impact and Outcomes during COVID-19 • Our virtual Summer Speaker Series has averaged 250 live participants per event and, to date, has been seen by hundreds more on The Breman’s YouTube channel. Our July lecture on Atlanta’s Old Jewish Neighborhood was presented by Dr. Marni Davis, Associate Professor of History at Georgia State University. • Our Holocaust survivors, mostly homebound, have continued to connect with audiences through Zoom webinars. • The Breman has regularly surveyed our participants and we learned from our survey results that more than 60% of Bearing Witness attendees had never heard directly from a survivor, indicating there is still an enormous audience for us to touch.
The Breman has managed the new normal by…
• Over 1,100 participants viewed our online presentation of Ilse Reiner, keynote speaker who made remarks on Yom Hashoah this past April.
• Pivoting quickly to online programming after The Breman’s closure due to COVID-19 so our audiences could remain engaged
• Partnering with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, The Breman presented “Digital Antisemitism and Hate During COVID-19” in May which was viewed nationally online.
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• The Breman’s Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives for Southern Jewish History is continuing to upgrade cataloging systems expanding online digital access for researchers and positioning the digital archives on par with leading institutions in the field. There has been a 20% increase in research inquiries. • Since increasing online engagement in response to the pandemic closure, we have seen a 20% gain in Facebook followers, our email list has grown by 18%, and website page views have increased 35%.
• Fifty-one percent of our visitors during this time period are over the age of 65. However, since the museum has been presenting more online programming, we have seen a 20% increase in participation from people in the 18-24 age range. • Ninety-eight percent of visitors have informed us that they learned something from the program they participated in and 95% rated programs as “excellent” or “very good.”
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WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE BREMAN
In response to COVID-19, The Breman moved swiftly to ensure our audiences could continue to count on the museum as an important resource and cultural destination. We revealed a strengthened digital voice by offering robust online programming that has received strong reviews and expanded our visibility. Additionally, we joined a consortium of eleven Atlanta museums and attractions to share information about the response to the pandemic and how to keep visitors safe until decisions are made to reopen. As a founding partner of the Atlanta Museums at Home, we are presenting weekly content as part of Field Trip Friday. The executive directors of these organizations communicate often and collectively understand the need to preserve the role each plays in the community. The Breman has remained closed and will re-open after the proper protocols can be implemented. In the meantime, we are welcoming online visitors to take a virtual journey with us unlike any other! Virtual Programming Highlights • Terra InFirma: 60 artists explore human connections shaped by genetics, proximity, interests, and shared destiny in “Relative Relations” • Breman at Home: speaker series, Field Trip Friday, webinars, online tours and concerts and much more to bring our content virtually to audiences eager for arts and culture programming
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• A Jazz Memoir: Photography by Herb Snitzer: a montage of photos spanning decades of notable and important figures in the world of jazz Upcoming Virtual Events • December 6, 4:00 PM – Janice Rothschild Blumberg Lecture Keynote Speaker: Alfred Uhry In honor of Atlanta Jewish community pillar Janice Rothschild Blumberg, The Breman Museum, Southern Jewish Historical Society, and The Temple unite two of her passions: history and theater. Keynote speaker and acclaimed playwright, Alfred Uhry, will discuss his own reflections on the intersection between race and religion through his award-winning plays based on Jewish life in Atlanta and the American South. • December 9, 7:00 PM – The Joe Alterman Trio Jazz: Inspired by Photographs in the Jazz Memoir Exhibition The Breman Museum is excited to welcome the Joe Alterman Trio back to the Stage for a Hanukkah Eve musical treat! On Wednesday December 9 at 7 PM the trio returns for a Live Zoom performance of music by jazz musicians featured in the current photography exhibition A Jazz Memoir: Photography by Herb Snitzer. Featured artists include Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and many others.
POSITIONING THE BREMAN FOR ITS FUTURE Results-Driven There has been great energy at The Breman: growing audiences, sold-out programs, insightful exhibitions, pop-up events across the city, and national recognition with our concert series. In FY20, The Breman welcomed more than 32,000 visitors, new and returning. Our social media followers totaled over 11,700 further advancing our reach. Learning from these previous successes, we look towards the future opportunistically. Planning has been underway to develop additional education programs, expand our Holocaust programming, grow the collection of archives, and so much more! Our list of collaborative partnerships spans the globe so that visitors and members benefit from this wealth of expertise and knowledge right at our doorstep. We seek to broaden our reach at every opportunity and track our progress quarterly by carefully collecting and analyzing the data. While The Breman has measurement tools in place, we aim to strengthen progress reports by using this data to show the return of investment for current and potential funders. This includes our online initiative during COVID-19. By using a system to measure our goals, we will continue to advance our mission and show how our impact directly reflects our mission of connecting people to Jewish history, culture, and arts. Relevance The Breman is more important now than ever: in these contentious times there is a prevailing need to understand how prejudice can fester and evolve into
something far greater. Our founders understood the need for a cultural center devoted to Jewish heritage that would reflect its past, present, and future. The horrifying legacy of the Holocaust left survivors the unthinkable responsibility of reliving the atrocities they experienced so the world would understand and learn how hate cascaded into the loss of millions of Jews. The Breman shares this responsibility by preserving each artifact with the utmost care, developing programming to help the public view humanity through a different lens, and sharing oral testimonies demonstrating the deepest layer of human strength, determination, and the steadfast will to survive. As The Breman exposes Jewish culture to a wider audience, it further lifts the veil of why the museum was founded and why it continues to remain relevant today. Reputation The Breman has consistently expanded its programming and aimed to be a hub for Jewish history, culture, and arts. When an organization has staying power—25 years—the mission is enhanced and furthered. Our executive director, Leslie Gordon, with over a year at the helm, has devoted much of her tenure to the future of The Breman. The museum is positioned well to propel its importance into a new decade where we perceive history side-by-side with the creative power of the arts. More youth need to be enlightened; more stories need to be shared, and more artists need to be heard. The Breman is STILL here to educate, honor and inspire!
Photographer Henri Dauman gives a gallery talk for the exhibition Henri Dauman: Looking Up.
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HISTORY WITH CHUTZPAH EXHIBITION Opening fall 2021 As the Breman stands on the cusp of our 25th Anniversary, plans are underway now to install a powerful exhibition entitled: HISTORY WITH CHUTZPAH. The exhibition will open next fall and coincide with our special anniversary. It will be the first event of the Jewish New Year and offer a meaningful opportunity to reconnect us to our Jewish roots and to each other. HISTORY WITH CHUTZPAH will ‘give voice’ to many people…past and present…whose experiences, achievements and perceptions are reflected in The Breman’s vast archival collections, supported by a seed gift from Erwin Zaban in 1985. The exhibition will be divided into six sections as follows: • • • • • •
Courage & Conformity Hope & Survival Success & Loss Patriotism & Perseverance Benevolence & Community Murder & Mayhem
Together, these micro-galleries will recount the stories of Jews in Georgia and Alabama through more than 250 objects, documents, photographs and oral histories. The interpretive themes of resilience, adaptation, courage and advocacy seem to mirror what the world is experiencing now through the pandemic and its rippling affects into every corner of society. Our visitors will take in narrative, numerous photographs and displays of artifacts as they walk through history. The exhibition will feature technology with highly interactive, immersive experiences for museum guests from freestanding audio-visual stations to large digital displays The theme of CHUTZPAH will be woven throughout the exhibition, which will be open for multiple years. The exhibition has been designed to encourage people to share their own documents, photographs and stories to add to The Breman collections. Through this visionary exhibition, The Breman will show how technology has influenced museums today and present an exhibition that will attract all who are searching for meaning outside of themselves and how CHUTZPAH exists in all of us! Left: Homer Loomis holds an envelope addressed to state assistant attorney general Dan Duke while Ralph Childers sweeps the torn-up charter for the Columbians. Loomis and Childers were members of the white supremacist organization, which aimed to intimidate African Americans and Jews in Atlanta, 1946. Paul Ginsberg began practicing law in Atlanta in 1930 and rose to become Georgia’s assistant attorney general, assistant solicitor general and assistant district attorney for Fulton County. One of his most notable accomplishments was the exposure and prosecution of the Columbians. Next page, top: Postcard of the Steiner Clinic, 1942. Originally from Taacan, Bohemia, Albert Steiner immigrated to Dadeville, Alabama in 1882 and moved to Atlanta in 1886. His wife and son both died of cancer. In 1919, he died of the same disease. Upon his death, he left millions of dollars to establish the Steiner Cancer Clinic at Grady Hospital. The Clinic became a model for future cancer centers throughout the country. Next page, bottom: Playing cards used by sisters Pola and Irene Bienstock, Poland, c.1943. In 1943, Franciszka Sobkowa, Pola and Irene’s Polish nursemaid risked her own life for the next two years as she hid the sisters and their mother in a closet in her home in Drohobycz, Poland. In order to amuse the children and keep them quiet and safe, Franciszka took playing cards from the gestapo officer’s home where she was employed as a maid.
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WHY THE BREMAN MATTERS TODAY The pandemic has stirred in us many emotions but one thing is for certain: we are seeking meaning and hope for a better future. And we know that arts, culture and history matter in our lives and communities: WE are experiencing a shared humanity in profound and moving ways and WE are creating a more connected community. Museums across the globe have become virtual destinations to allow for this pause in our lives. The Breman relies heavily on our volunteer community—docents and survivor speakers—who lead our tours and teach the lessons of the past to our in-person audiences. While our tours have ceased for now, our commitment to this very important population, many of whom are retired, remains strong. We are actively engaging and communicating regularly with our volunteers who rely on us for not only their social interactions but also mental stimulation and physical well-being. As Holocaust knowledge declines, education is more important than ever. The alarming results of a recent survey have underscored the urgency of our educational mission. The survey that was conducted across all 50 states, shows that as we move further from the events of the Holocaust, our work to teach future generations about Holocaust History and the dangers of unchecked hatred and anti-Semitism couldn’t be more important.
Two-thirds of young Americans — between the ages of 18-39 — did not know that six million Jews were murdered an the Holocaust, and over half thought the death toll was under two million. Even more disturbing is that one in ten believed the Jews to be responsible for the Holocaust and 15% believe that holding Neo-Nazi beliefs is acceptable. We know the current crisis that we are enduring will certainly impact arts and culture institutions for years to come. We remain committed to staying relevant whether we are sharing our content virtually or planning for our reopening. Our vision remains clear: fostering a community filled with mutual respect and understanding that resonates with Jewish values. The Breman Museum is a key community asset and we are deeply grateful to all funders—past and present—for their philanthropic support as we now stand on the cusp of our 25th Anniversary. This enduring dedication to our success has been instrumental. It has allowed The Breman to continue sharing compelling stories, educating our youth and presenting programming that aligns with historical and current events. We thank you for joining with us!
“Even though the pandemic necessitated changes to the schedule and modes of presentation, The Breman has continued to bring high-caliber programming to the community. Faced with unexpected challenges, our board, staff and supporters continue to demonstrate the resiliency and persistence that epitomizes everything that The Breman Museum stands for.” - Leslie Gordon, Executive Director
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Kippah Face Mask created by Eve Mannes of Atlanta, GA, from her husband’s kippah collection. This artifact was donated to the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum on June 3, 2020.
The Breman’s newest exhibition, A Jazz Memoir: Photography by Herb Snitzer
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William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum 1440 Spring Street, NW, Atlanta, GA 30309 678-222-3700 | www.thebreman.org
Left: Kiddie Revue at the Capitol Theatre. A benefit for the Scottish Rite Hospital Milk Fund, June 23, 1930, Louis Hirsch Family Papers.