The New
Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU Annual Digital Newsletter Summer 2022
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Chairman’s Message What a remarkable year it has been! The museum has undergone several transitions, all of which were adeptly managed by our dedicated staff. As we have shifted back into “in-person” mode and have begun offering programming and tours via remote, hybrid, and face to face modalities, our museum staff continues their innovative performance of engaging audiences under still-present COVID-19 limitations. As always, our Executive Director, Susan Gladstone Pasternack, has guided the museum through these challenges with creativity and diligence.
Change may be the only constant in life and, at JMOFFIU, it has also brought a handful of exciting exhibitions to the SoFi community and beyond. Tudor Parfitt’s Remarkable Jewish Journeys, on view through the summer, highlights our Academic Director’s fascinating career as an anthropologist and expert on the Jewish Diaspora after the fall of the Second Temple. Giller on Giller: An Adventure in Architecture, on view through October, is an outstanding tribute to my father, Norman M. Giller, FAIA, and his impact on two generations of Florida architecture over 75 years. Norman was also the Founding President of the Jewish Museum of Florida. We invite you to visit these and other enriching exhibitions in person this summer and fall! This past year, we welcomed new Advisory Board members Michael Kosnitzky and Jeremy Milgroom. We are looking forward to their active leadership of a museum project. If you have a passion for history, culture, and storytelling, please consider becoming a member of the Board. The Board has made personal commitments to “own” a part of the museum’s future with both time and money. To fulfill the museum’s destiny, significant additional private and corporate support is needed to sustain the wonderful cultural, historic, and academic programs that are part of the JMOF-FIU experience. We need your personal commitment to “own” a part of the museum: partake of the unique exhibitions, enrich our collection of Jewish artifacts, support our academic programs, engage friends and family with the museum, and provide funds to fulfill our vision.
Advisory Board Officers Chair Vice-Chairs
Advisory Board Members
Past Presidents
*
Linda Widrich Weitz, Miami Beach Leonard A. Wien, Miami Beach Sharyn Wittner, St. Petersburg Linda B. Zilber, Bay Harbor
Executive Director Susan Gladstone Pasternack
Founding Executive Director Marcia Jo Zerivitz, L.H.D.
* Deceased
Engage your passion! Ira D. Giller
Advisory Board Chair
Cover Photo: By Roee Aviv 2
Executive Director’s Report Dear JMOF-FIU Family, What a wonderful way to start our summer! I am incredibly proud of the unwavering dedication of our JMOF-FIU staff: Nancy Cohen, Luna Goldberg, Pierre Delerme, Eva Shvedova, Jacqueline Goldstein, Todd Bothel, Caitlyn Campana, and our hardworking security guard, Evans Norvil. In the wake of the pandemic, they have guided our museum through the transition from entirely remote to hybrid platforms. We are delighted to say that JMOF-FIU is open for business and in-person visitors are welcome. This year, JMOF-FIU was proud to host several innovative exhibitions. Hello Gorgeous, our exhibition celebrating the life and career of Barbra Streisand, witnessed unprecedented success and drew visitors from around the world. The colorful Pop Artinfluenced work of Martin Kreloff also graced our gallery walls as part of Martin Kreloff: A Retrospective. Not only is Kreloff’s work beautiful, it is also representative of Florida’s vibrant Jewish community through portraiture featuring local luminaries (including my own fabulous portrait, a gift from the JMOF-FIU Board). We were also proud to mount an exhibition of the incredible career of Tudor Parfitt, our Academic Director, as well as Giller on Giller: An Adventure in Architecture. The latter features reflections from our Board Chair, Ira Giller, on the sweeping body of architectural work belonging to his father, Norman M. Giller. Finally, we are currently in the process of returning restored items from MOSAIC to a new area of the museum as part of the Director’s Choice collection. Many of your favorite items and stories will be available to view in the 301 gallery! We have continued to host incredibly successful virtual tours of both Judith Leiber: Master Craftsman and Hello Gorgeous. Since June 2021, virtual tours for these exhibitions have reached more than 700 participants from 150 unique organizations and women’s groups, all of them eager to learn more about the glittering careers of these two profoundly influential women.
Despite the challenges of the past two years, our programming has become more robust than ever. We continue to partner with the Wolfsonian-FIU and Miami Beach Urban Studios for On the Avenue, an integrative visual arts programming series. Recent events have included reflections on Miami’s parallel cultural histories and a special program in observance of FIU’s 7th Annual Holocaust & Genocide Awareness Week. JMOF-FIU continues to welcome preeminent scholars as part of the ongoing Mondays at the Museum lecture series. This spring, we were thrilled to host lectures on fascinating topics including the spirituality in Bob Dylan’s music, quarantine and plague in the Ottoman Mediterranean, and the current situation in Ukraine. We also hosted successful large-scale in-person programs, including a Purim-themed, Barbra Streisand-inspired drag show and a concert by the Amernet String Quartet. Our dedicated Education Manager, Luna Goldberg, continues to work closely with the STEAM+ program to bring museumrelated artistic and educational initiatives to seven Miami Beach public schools. She has also worked with FIU colleagues and interns to debut the museum’s first publicly accessible collection of oral histories, Collecting These Times: American Jewish Experiences of the Pandemic. The wildly successful #BeWell programming series closed in December 2021 with a fun-filled celebration of light and Jewish cocktails workshop. We have some exciting plans for Art Basel 2022—stay tuned for more information as fall approaches. We are also planning something big for October 23, 2022! JMOF-FIU will host History Harvest, an all-day event complete with food, music, children’s activities, and opportunities to donate to the museum’s collection! See the “Save the Date” article a little later in this issue for more information. Until then, we hope to see you wandering our recently restored galleries and taking in all the museum has to offer! With gratitude, Susan Gladstone Pasternack, Executive Director
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From the Curator, Jacqueline Goldstein This summer the museum opens Director’s Choice: MOSAIC Reimagined. The exhibit highlights items from the original MOSAIC: Jewish Life in Florida exhibition as well as items donated to the museum since 1996. MOSAIC, which originated in 1984, began as a large-scale traveling exhibition of Florida Jewish artifacts, photographs, and stories collected from across the state. The exhibition toured eleven Florida cities, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia before ending in December 1994. The materials became the core collection of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU and the museum opened in April 1995 with Marcia Jo Zerivitz as the founding Executive Director. During the summer of 2020, due to the pandemic, MOSAIC was dismantled and the items went back to collection storage for restoration. Before the exhibit came down, a virtual recording was made, to preserve and document the entire exhibition. The virtual tour is available on our website. Director’s Choice: MOSAIC Reimagined is the continuation of the original exhibition. It includes objects and stories from Jewish communities new to Florida, including Venezuelans, Israelis, Egyptians,
Russians, and Brazilians. Among the many treasures collected are objects from military service, civic and business life, entertainment and sports, historical clothing, and artwork. Items of display from the original exhibition include a passport from immigrants who fled Castro's Cuba, a watch with Hebrew letters owned by a man born in Jacksonville in 1857, a 100 year-old dress made entirely of sea shells and other unique items that tell stories of Florida Jewish history. The new items on display include a purple velvet wedding gown worn by a bride from Jacksonville in the early 1900’s, a Union Jack dress (2018), created by graffiti artist and fashion designer Daniel Chimowitz, a carved wooden lectern designed by acclaimed New York artist Steve Marcus (2019), Myra Lehr’s Sacred Dreams, a colorful mobile-like installation filling the gallery ceiling, a lithograph donated by contemporary artist Don Eddy titled Rosen Bros. Kosher Meat (1972) and much more. Each of the pieces on display tell a story, reimagining Florida’s continually evolving Jewish community.
Now On View Giller on Giller: An Adventure in Architecture Exhibition on view May 19, 2022 – October 2022 The exhibition is retrospective of the work of legendary architect Norman Giller, who was one of the founders of Miami Modern (MiMo), a regionalized style of Modernist architecture. Through the use of new materials and technology, Giller was able to realize his ideas in a post-World War II booming Florida. Giller’s body of work includes designs for President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in Latin America, revolutionized motel design, more than 3,000 housing units for United States military bases, as well as a bevy of modern residential, commercial, and institutional projects.
Tudor Parfitt’s Remarkable Jewish Journeys Exhibition on view April 27, 2022 – September 2022 Featuring fieldwork journals, rare photographs, cultural artifacts, and more, this exhibition docuvments Professor Tudor Parfitt's extensive travels over 40 years to some of the most remote Jewish communities on earth. Parfitt is Distinguished University Professor, the President Navon Professor of Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies, and Founding Director of the Program for Global Jewish Studies at Florida International University. He is Academic Director at JMOF-FIU. 4
Goodbye, Gorgeous Caity Campana
When JMOF-FIU Executive Director Susan Pasternack first saw Hello Gorgeous, an exhibition celebrating the life and career of legendary entertainer Barbra Streisand, she knew it belonged in South Beach. The exhibition debuted in New York and, after many months of effort—coupled with the tremendous pressures introduced to the world by the COVID-19 pandemic— Pasternack finally got her wish. The exhibition, with its various artifacts ranging from sparkling costumes to retro record album covers and vintage photographs of the star, was housed in JMOF-FIU's north gallery from October 2021 to April 2022, having been held over twice due to its unprecedented (and totally understandable) popularity. Hello Gorgeous was inaugurated in a manner befitting Babs, with flowing signature cocktails, cheerful attendees, and a professional Streisand impersonator. Associated events that followed were equally educational, festive, and inspiring. Film expert Dan Hudak hosted a discussion about Streisand's films in February while Marcia Jo Zerivitz, L.H.D. forged connections to Streisand’s work in her January presentation about Florida Jews in entertainment. Rabbi Efrat Zaren-Zohar of the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education in Miami and local LGBTQ+ activist Eli Sage Rosenberg also led a fascinating February discussion about the themes of gender, identity, and tradition in Streisand’s film Yentl. The fun culminated in March with Funny Girls: A Barbra Streisand Drag Show, which featured local drag entertainers, Kathya Tension, Regina Cocoa, and Angel Elektra performing classics from Streisand’s repertoire.
Together, these events drew over 300 attendees and were testament to Streisand’s glittering universality. Aside from its exciting associated programming, Hello Gorgeous itself drew incredible crowds. Mentions in publications including Hadassah Magazine and Miami ArtZine and coverage by CBS Miami ensured a global reach reflected in both virtual and in-person numbers. From October 2021 to April 2022, the museum welcomed over 6,000 visitors, half of whom came specifically to visit Barbra. Curator-led virtual tours of the exhibition were wildly popular, introducing JMOF-FIU to countless cities across North America and averaging two per week with 40 attendees per tour. These popular Zoom tours will continue as the exhibition was recorded using new virtual technology. We are proud to say that JMOF-FIU had the opportunity to host Hello Gorgeous. During its extended run in South Beach, this stunning exhibition brought smiles to countless faces and opened a window into the early life and career of one of the most influential Jewish Americans in history. In a world that advised her to conceal elements of her identity if she wanted to get ahead, Streisand had the courage to flip every negative narrative on its head, embracing her cultural heritage and proudly channeling it through her art. It is perhaps safe to say that this icon, who has impacted the world in profound ways during her sixdecade career, has also done the same for JMOF-FIU, paving the way for more groundbreaking, inspiring exhibitions in 2022 and beyond.
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Education & Public Programs Update from Luna Goldberg K-12 + the Next Generation The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU was proud to once again participate in the City of Miami Beach STEAM+ Program, delivering arts-integrated and STEAMinfused curricula to nearly 500 Miami Beach-based public school students in grades 3-12. Responding to COVID and ongoing school restrictions, our education department adapted our teaching methods to accommodate artist-led physically distant remote instruction to students over multiple touchpoints during the school year. Inspired by the museum’s historic stained-glass windows and the power of storytelling, students worked across mediums of drawing, mosaic, and collage to design their own window projects characterized with symbolism and narrative content specific to each student. The resulting works featured a wide array of designs speaking to Miami’s rich, dynamic, and multicultural community. After a prolonged hiatus, our education department was thrilled to welcome back Jewish school groups for inperson field trips to the museum around themes of immigration and family history. Fifth graders from Rambam Day School spent the afternoon learning about Jewish migration to Florida and creating colorful collages about their personal family stories.
FIU’s Miami Beach Museums (JMOF + The Wolfsonian) revived our Discovering Design Free Family Day programs this past December with an inaugural morning of crafting shadow puppets in celebration of seasonal festivals of light. This April, we gathered once again for a poetry and music inspired program in honor of National Poetry Month. Designed for some of our youngest museum visitors, we’ve had over 100 little ones and their families join us for these creative local artist-led events.
Public Programs In another record year, the museum hosted over 50 academic lectures, musical performances, creative workshops, panels, and more! This year saw a return to in-person programs, and the continuation of virtual and hybrid events helping us both engage our local audience and maintain national interest from over 3,000 viewers across the country.
Highlights included the continuation of our #BeWell series featuring Menorahs & Martinis: a holiday mixology workshop centered around themes of light and celebration, our annual Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week co-organized with Hillel at FIU and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program at FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) and Towards More Inclusive Children’s Literature, a program dedicated to offering new and alternative voices to the Jewish lived experience with an eye to combatting antisemitism in children’s literature.
The museum launched our return to in-person programs with our annual Klezmer concert and Art Basel openings for Martin Kreloff: A Retrospective; and Festival of Lights and celebrated an unforgettable Purim with Funny Girls: A Barbra Streisand Drag Show! Be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter, so you don’t miss any of upcoming programs.
Schiff Family at Funny Girls: A Barbra Streisand Drag Show
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JMOF-FIU Debuts First Publicly Accessible Oral History Collection For nearly two years, the Jewish Museum of FloridaFIU education team has been collecting oral histories as part of Collecting These Times: American Jewish Experiences of the Pandemic, a national oral history campaign organized by the Council of American Jewish Museums. Featuring interviews with distinguished professors, first responders, clergy members, politicians, and more, the collection highlights stories of how the coronavirus pandemic has influenced our world. In celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM) this May, JMOF-FIU proudly debuted Collecting These Times, its first publicly accessible collection of oral histories. The premiere was ushered in with the screening of a short film about the pandemic and social justice and a panel discussion featuring Rebecca Bakker, Digital Collections Librarian at FIU; Dr. Rebecca Friedman, Founding Director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab; Alice Rubin, Project Director for Collecting These Times; and Luna Goldberg, Education Manager at JMOF-FIU. Collecting These Times is generously supported by the Chronicling Funder Collaborative (comprised of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies,
Jim Joseph Foundation, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, and The Russell Berrie Foundation). This content is also part of a Mellon Foundation-funded project coordinated by the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) at FIU and eight community partner institutions titled “Community Data Curation: Preserving, Creating, and Narrating Everyday Stories.” We are grateful to the FIU student interns who worked on this initiative: Gabriela Acevedo, Lia Shaw, and Alejandro González, and thank our FIU colleagues Dr. Andrea Fanta, Rebecca Bakker, and Katie Coldiron for their support in recording and making these important stories accessible. To view the collection, visit: go.fiu.edu/CTT The museum is always looking to add to its rich collection of oral histories. If you have a story to share for the historical record, please contact a JMOF-FIU staff member who will be in touch to arrange a recording.
Save the Date for History Harvest Start looking through your closets for items of historical value you think the museum might be interested in adding to our collection—we’re planning something big for the fall! Join us on Sunday, October 23, 2022 for History Harvest, an all-day donations collection event presented in partnership with the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab.
JMOF-FIU is looking for photos, artifacts and ephemera to add to the museum’s collection. Items must have significant connection to Florida Jewish history. An appraisal (yes, Antiques Roadshow-style!) will be offered by appointment. Finally, if you are interested in recording an oral history to be added to the museum’s publicly accessible collection, you will have the opportunity to do so during History Harvest. We will be hosting a tag sale to benefit the museum and offering arts and crafts activities for children, music, food and more. Be sure to stay tuned for more details as the event date nears—we hope to see you there! Photographs from the Collections of the Jewish Museum of Florida, originated by Marcia Jo Zerivitz, L.H.D. Founding Executive Director
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The Lost Tribes Come to JMOF-FIU Caity Campana
Tudor Parfitt, JMOF-FIU's decorated Academic Director, is anything but a conventional scholar. Dubbed the “British Indiana Jones,” he has authored or edited over 30 books and has travelled to Japan, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Yemen, Israel, India, Papua New Guinea, and more. Many of these academic adventures were inspired by a longstanding interest in the myth of the Lost Tribes of Israel and the notion that these Tribes continue to exist, sometimes in the most remote parts of our world. Now, visitors to the museum can take a tour through Parfitt’s career in his own words, from humble beginnings in Wales to a Distinguished Professorship at FIU. Tudor Parfitt’s Remarkable Jewish Journeys, celebrates the scholar’s substantial contributions to the field of Jewish studies. Among carefully displayed fieldwork journals and stacks of published works, viewers can find rare photographs from Parfitt’s private collection, each representing moments from his 40 years of travels.
Cultural artifacts, including intricately carved and painted wooden statues gifted to Parfitt by various Jewish or “would-be Jewish” communities, accompany witty commentary from the researcher himself. The exhibition also highlights Parfitt’s brush with Operation Moses, the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan in 1984, which he witnessed firsthand and later documented in his 1985 book Operation Moses: The Untold Story of the Secret Exodus of the Falasha Jews from Ethiopia. Whether fascinated by global Jewish studies or simply a fellow lover of adventure, one is bound to find something in Parfitt’s stories that speaks to them. As Parfitt reflects in one caption, “To be travelling with an aim, with a good notebook in my backpack, with a mystery to solve...is happiness.” From now until September 2022, visitors have the opportunity to join in on Parfitt’s happiness and discover for themselves the joy of learning through travel.
Professor Tudor Parfitt with FIU Students
Professor Tudor Parfitt exhibition opening Professor Tudor Parfitt, Susan Gladstone Pasternack, Jacqueline Goldstein
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Membership What kind of member are you? Are you a seasonal resident who loves viewing our virtual programming? Are you a local resident who attends our in-person lectures, film screenings, and live performances? Are you a history buff who loves to learn about Jewish history and culture? Do you live far away but love keeping up to date on museum news through TILES and our weekly bulletins? Are you a long time member who just let your museum membership lapse? How about an FIU Insider who loves art and looks forward to every new exhibition? Maybe you considered membership but never got around to joining. There are many reasons to be a JMOF-FIU member. As you have read in the previous pages, our museum is busier than ever providing a full schedule of virtual and in-person programing. Yes, the pandemic has affected—and continues to affect—almost every aspect of our lives, from how we work to how we socialize with one another. It has also dramatically changed the face of museum membership. Studies like Cuseum’s 2022 Museum Insights Report indicate a fascinating shift in museum membership. In this report, over half of the 150 museums surveyed noted that virtual initiatives remain a priority for them in 2022 and beyond (Lu, 2022). However, these view-fromhome programs take just as much time and resources as in-person programs.
This is just one reason why your financial support of JMOF-FIU matters now, more than ever. In the next few weeks, we will be sending out a renewal reminder to all of our lapsed members. Please take moment to mail in your membership renewal; or go online jmof.fiu.edu or, call Nancy Cohen, Museum Manager at 786-972-3164 to update your membership status. Your annual membership really makes a difference! You not only help to preserve the museum’s extensive and growing collection of Florida Jewish history, you also help provide free multicultural educational programs to our area school children and provide resources to create our groundbreaking exhibitions. But more than all this, your membership helps us tell the story of over 250 years of Florida Jewish history, arts, and culture, and in turn ensures that you yourself become a part of our museum’s story. So, what are you waiting for? Pick a level, become a new member or re-new your lapsed membership, and start enjoying all the fulfilling things JMOF-FIU membership has to offer!
Thank You Volunteers & Docents Anyone who visits JMOF-FIU is greeted by our dedicated store manager Eva Shvedova. Eva has been running the Orovitz Museum Store since 1997, with a short break during our pandemic-related closure in 2020. Besides taking museum admissions, Eva selects all of the beautiful items available in the gift shop, arranges all of the adult group tours, and schedules these museum docents: Leslie Baum, Caroline Blumberg, Howard Brayer, Mark Gordon, Reggie Feldman-Goldstein, Melissa Kishel, Judith Wurtman, and Harry Zupnik. A steady stream of local, national, and international visitors keeps Eva and our hardworking docents busy. Since transitioning back to full time operations in October 2021, museum attendance has exceeded 3,000 visitors, all of whom were greeted by our enthusiastic docents. We would like to extend a special thank you to our docents and to our office volunteer, Claire Warren who recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Here are few noteworthy details about our docents.
Howard Brayer has lead more than 60 South Beach Jewish Walking tours since October 2021. In March 2022 he led his 3,000th participant.
Reggie Feldman-Goldstein, Melissa Kishel and Elaine Litvak have guided more than 30 adult group tours this season.
Our youngest docent is Caroline Blumberg who is here most Saturdays and dedicated docent Harry Zupnick is here most Sundays with his wife Rochelle.
Please contact Eva at 786-972-3176 or eshvdov@fiu.edu if you want to become a Museum docent or Volunteer.
South Beach Jewish Walking Tour The two-hour (live) tour, conducted by Howard Brayer, includes an overview of the more than 100 years of Jewish history of Miami Beach; discussion of significant Jewish people and organizations, both present and past, in Miami Beach; and a review of various architectural styles found in the city, including Jewish contributions. Call Howard at 202-812-0044 for information and available dates and times. Cost is $15.00 per person. 9
Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU
By the Numbers 2021-2022
Welcome, Bonjour, Hola, Shalom, Ciao, Bienvenidos.. JMOF-FIU is truly an internationally known cultural destination. In the past year, the museum’s guest book logged visitors from Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Russia, Scotland, Venezuela and more. Museum staff created welcome packages in different languages including Hebrew, Russian, Portuguese and Italian.
6 Unique museum
45 K -12 Virtual
3,700 International
exhibitions
Field Trips
visitors
500 Miami Beach-
55 Hello Gorgeous
50 academic lectures,
based public school students in grades 3-12
and Judith Leiber: Master Craftsman Virtual Tours
musical performances, creative workshops, panels.
60 South Beach
30 Adult Group
10 Meetings &
Walking Tours
Tours
Special Community Events
JMOF-FIU’s reach has widened broadly through a robust social media presence and lots of great articles in local and national publications, including Miami Artzine, SunSentinel, Miami Magazine and more. Our members and follower followers can stay up to date on all the exciting goings-on at JMOF-FIU through our weekly newsletter and on Facebook and Instagram. Videos of past programs are available on our Youtube page. This year we made significant strategic and aesthetic changes to our social media. These alterations have included the development of a streamlined post format that incorporates on-brand hashtags, tagging of affiliated individuals and organizations, and eye-catching design reminiscent of the Art Deco era and sunny Florida days. Changes like this have boosted post engagement and the museum now has over 4,000 followers on Facebook and Instagram combined. If you haven’t already, be sure sign up to receive our weekly newsletter and connect with us on Facebook @JewishMuseumFL and on Instagram @jmof_fiu!
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Grants, Donations& Exhibition Sponsors Thank you to our generous donors and exhibition sponsors listed below. The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU prospers from the generosity of many donors. All donations help to preserve and share our Florida Jewish history collections through exhibits and programs. Visit our website at jmof.fiu.edu to make a tax-deductible contribution today!
$100,000-$500,000 Elliot Stone & Bonnie Sockel Stone $10,000- $50,000 Greater Miami Jewish Federation Cong. Beth Sholom, Gulfport, FL Ira & Honey Giller Reggie & Jeff Feldman Goldstein Alan & Diane Lieberman Schiller Family Foundation Dr. Denis P. & Linda Trupkin
$2,500- $9,999.00 Barbara & Kenneth Bloom Fain Family Foundation Michael & Susanne Kosnitzky Larry & Millie Magid Foundation Seligman Family Foundation Solomon Family Foundation Meryl & Daniel Weiss Dr. Bruce Wolf Richard & Judy Wurtman
Exhibition Sponsors Martin Kreloff: A Retrospective Michael & Susanne Kosnitzky Daniel & Merle Weiss Hello Gorgeous Alan & Diane Lieberman Schiller Family Foundation
Giller on Giller: An Adventure in Architecture Airstron, LLC Steve Bernard Zamarr Brown Drucker Family Foundation Jacqueline Simkin
Memorials and Tributes Marking a donation to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU is a thoughtful and generous way to honor special people for an occasion such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and other celebrations or to pay tribute to love ones, friends and family who have passed way. To make a donation, log onto jmof.fiu.edu and select Donate. JMOF-FIU gratefully acknowledges these individuals who have recently made contributions to the museum.
In Honor of Shirley Kahn’s 100th Birthday Joseph Battat Nancy & Larry Cohen Eva Shvedova Carolyn Stein Carol Fryd’s Birthday Honey & Ira Giller Anita Grossman Elaine Levin Katz Ronnie, Ellen, Susan and Arlyne The birth of Susan Gladstone Pasternack’s Granddaughter Wendy & Chuck Traurig Perlin Doug & Jane Tendler’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Wendy & Chuck Traurig Perlin Get Well Soon Marcia Jo Zerivitz Eva Shvedova
In Memory of Hariette Gilbert Shelley Booken Doris Brooks Corkin, Kaplan & Rudolf Families Rosalyn Friedman Gerald & Maya Greenberg Debbie & Andy Hirschl Karen Kaplan George Kaplan Judy Kettler Ron & Dori Klein Cathy Madigan Adrienne Pardo Percal Amy & David Scharlin Janet Schatten Jacqueline Traurig Wendy & Chuck Traurig Perlin Joel Weisman Family Marilyn Soloman Jacqueline Traurig Wendy & Chuck Traurig Perlin
Inga Gatto Howard Brayer & Don Szumowski Eva Shvedova Rose Ross Nancy & Larry Cohen Cyndi Riccio
Thank You 11
Festival of Lights One of the highlights of the 2021-2022 season was Hanukkah Menorahs from Across the Ages and Around the World from the Collection of Howard A. Berman on view December 5, 2021 thru February 20, 2022 The exhibition reflected Rabbi Berman’s life-long love of Hanukkah. “Growing up in Post-War America in the 1950s-60s, my experience was shaped by the emergence of the Americanization of Hanukkah, from a relatively minor cultural tradition aimed at children, to an elaborate, proud celebration of Jewish identity in our pluralistic society during the holiday season. There was nothing of imitation or compensation in this creative transition - it was a perfectly appropriate response rooted in Jewish history and tradition." Rabbi Berman selected about 100 pieces for the exhibition from his vast collection of nearly 200 menorahs and dreidels gathered from all over the world, and spanning various historic periods from the First century to the latest creations by America’s leading designers. Rabbi Berman welcomed family and friends to the exhibition opening Sunday, December 5, 2021. The annual Klezmer Music Concert, featuring the music of Heavy Shtetl followed the opening.
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Hello Gorgeous - Opening Night October 14, 2021
Alan & Diane Lieberman
Charlotte Libov & Richard Jay-Alexander
JMOF Advisory Board Member Elliot Stone, Susan Gladstone Pasternack & Joanna James
JMOF Advisory Board Member Gerald & Debra Schwartz, Luna Goldberg
Joanna James & Bibi Andrade
Steve Adkins & Nancy Cohen
JMOF Advisory Board Members Daniel & Merle Weiss, Michael & Suzanne Kosnitzky
Joanna James & Mayor Dan Gelber
JMOF Advisory Board Member Allen & Ilana Levitt, Joanna James
Michael Todd & Mark Nedlin
Ray Breslin & Patrick Pecoraro
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Marty Kreloff: A Retrospective - Opening Night December 2, 2021
Sid Daniels, Harvey Burstein, James Cubby
Marty Kreloff, Joy & Fred Malakoff
Daniel Chimowitz & Jacqueline Goldstein
Giller on Giller: An Adventure in Architecture - Opening Night May 19, 2022
JMOF Advisory Board Member Andrew Gottlieb & Isis Gottlieb
JMOF Advisory Board Member Ira Giller & Nelson Family
JMOF Advisory Board Member Danny & Merle Weiss
Sara Solomon & Fran Gordon
Susan Gladstone Pasternack, Ira & Honey Giller
Michael Hughes, Sydney & Stephen Cohen
David Freundlich & Ana Veciana-Suarez
Dave Adams & Ozzie Totten
Ben Grossman & Anita Giller Grossman
Special thanks to Miami Artzine Magazine for providing many of the event photos.
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Next time you visit the museum, be sure to stop by the Orovitz Museum Store, your one-stop shop for classic and modern Judaica, all hand-selected by Store & Group Tour Manager, Eva Shvedova. Whether you’re searching for gifts, precious seder plates, designer mezuzah cases, Florida history books or unique jewelry, you’re sure to find something you and your family will cherish for years. JMOF-FIU members receive a 10% discount.
Hello Gorgeous Virtual Tour available for Groups of 15 or more!
Contact Nancy Cohen at 786-972-3164 or nancohen@fiu.edu for details
TILES was edited by Nancy Cohen and Caitlyn Campana 15
About JMOF-FIU
Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU 301 Washington Avenue Miami Beach, FL 33139 305-672-5044 Jmof.fiu.edu
The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU serves as a major cultural attraction and source of information for a wide audience of residents, tourists, students, and scholars of all ages and backgrounds from throughout the state, nation, and the world. Located in a former synagogue that housed Miami Beach’s first Jewish congregation, the Museum’s restored 1936 Art Deco building and 1929 original synagogue are both on the National Register of Historic Places. The 301 building features nearly 80 stained glass windows, a copper dome, marble bimah, and many Art Deco features including chandeliers and sconces. The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Museum Hours Wednesday thru Sunday 10:00am-4:00pm Admission Adults $12.00 Seniors/Students $10.00 Museum Members –Free Free Admission on Saturday
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