The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience (MSJE) in New Orleans will cut the ribbon on its new Southern Jewish Family Research Center (The Center) on Nov. 7. It is the first major expansion of the museum since it opened in spring 2021.
The new center, located on the museum’s third floor, will include an area devoted to artifact conservation and digitization; a secure vault to hold the museum’s growing archival collection; an oral history and distance-learning studio; and a reading room and reference library, where
visitors will be able to research their family’s Southern Jewish roots.
The Center is the realization of the MSJE’s vision for the museum’s expansion. “Since we opened the museum three years ago, countless people have asked us to help them discover more about their Southern Jewish family history,” says executive director Kenneth Hoffman. “The programs and services that we offer in this new center will help us do just that.”
Key to the success of the museum’s effort to build the center was the financial support from people across the South interested in preserving the unique history of Southern Jews, particularly leadership giving by the Perlin Family Foundation of Fairfax Station, Va.; the Ben May Charitable Trust of Mobile, Ala.; and with generous support from Joanne B. Fried of Metairie, La.; and Dr. Ivan Sherman of New Orleans.
The Center’s preservation and digitization suite is made possible thanks to a generous gift from the Perlin Family Foundation, led by Rabbi Amy and Gary Perlin. Perlin is featured in the museum as the first female rabbi in the United States to start her own congregation—Temple
B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station in 1986. The family had previously provided major museum and archival support to the American Jewish Archives of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, most recently funding the acquisition of American Jewish portraits. “As proud Virginians, we feel it is important to preserve and share the 370-year-old American Jewish story,” says Perlin.
The goal is to fully digitize its archival collection, eventually making it available to researchers and the public online.
The Center’s reading room and library has been named for Ben May (1889-1972), a son of Alsatian Jewish immigrants who became a successful businessman and philanthropist in Mobile. May’s philanthropy included funding Mobile’s main library, the Ben May Department for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago, and even funding Sir Alexander Fleming’s research on penicillin.
“As one of the museum’s earliest supporters, the Ben May Charitable Trust is proud to be part of this exciting expansion, and to help keep the legacy of Ben May’s Southern Jewish experience alive,” says Ben May trustee Lynette Perlman Koppel.
Besides books and journals on Southern Jewish history and culture, the library features a large collection of Southern Jewish congregational cookbooks and a growing collection of family genealogies, previously unavailable to the public.
“Jews have been an important, but lesser-known part of Southern history from colonial times up to the present day,” says Hoffman. “The museum, and now the Southern Jewish Family Research Center, is part of our ongoing conversation with those who came before us and those
who will come after. Ultimately, that conversation can expand our understanding of what it means to be an American.”
A temporary exhibit, Greetings from Main Street: Southern Jewish Postcards from Our Collection, will be on view in a new special exhibition gallery, adjacent to the center. It will feature postcards from many of the 13 states the museum covers, spanning most of the
twentieth century and showing the variety of ways Southerners encountered the Jewish presence in their communities on a daily basis.
For more, visit: msje.org. Contact: Kenneth Hoffman, executive director, kenneth@msje.org, 504-384-2480, Ext. 101.