Light & Shadows: Excerpt IX

Arnold stays in Germany for two years after the war, working as an interpreter and serving as a deputy security officer with the U.S. forces in Berlin. He returns to Baltimore in June 1947.

Arnold married Laura Buxbaum on February 21, 1960.

When I returned to Baltimore from Berlin, I didn’t realize at first how profoundly my experiences overseas had changed me. But as I settled back into life in the U.S., my convictions began to take shape. I was aware of my own good fortune and grateful to have had the opportunity to fight for my adopted country. But I had seen enough by the age of twenty-one to be realistic about the world. Although the things I’d experienced didn’t make me pessimistic about human nature or doubtful about my own prospects,
they did make me intolerant of injustice.

My first priority after I got home was to enroll in college and start preparing for a career, so I set up an appointment with the dean of admissions at Johns Hopkins University, where I’d been placed on the waiting list. As I sat across from him at his large desk, I glanced at my folder, which was open in front of him. To my surprise, I saw the word
“Hebrew” boldly stamped on one of the pages. “Do you have a quota system for Jews?” I cried, jumping up from my chair. When my interviewer responded that, yes, Hopkins did limit the number of Jews it admitted, I felt a rage rising within me. I’d never felt a rage like that before, and I can’t say that I’ve ever felt it again. When I’d faced discrimination
and outright persecution in Nazi Germany, I was just a boy and I assumed I couldn’t do much about it. But I was in America now, the land of the free. I had fought for this country, and I deserved better.

Secret Lives of Interns: De-Installing the Nancy Patz exhibition

Installation photo by Will Kirk.

On August 1st, Nancy Patz: Her Inward Eye officially closed at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. While the doors to the exhibit gallery are closed to the public, behind them is a flurry of activity! Luckily, we had all those handy interns to help us out.

When de-installing an exhibition, every single piece needs to be condition reported. This means examining the piece closely and documenting any (and I mean ANY) changes that have occurred since the piece was delivered to the museum. Below you can see Jobi Zink, our senior collections manager giving instructions to our horde of interns.

Interns listed intently as Jobi reviews the care and feeding of each piece.

Interns hard at work scrutinizing each work of art.

Even the supervisors get down and dirty with the condition reports.

Intern Brittney sharpens her gallery-safe pencil
with the help of "pencil pup," while Intern Kristin compares
her artwork to its incoming condition report, noting any changes.

After condition reporting, each piece needs to be properly packaged.
Here, Intern Rachael fights with the packing tape.
Fully wrapped pieces rest against a temporary wall.

Once all the artwork is packaged, it's time to prep the gallery for the next show!

No time to waste! The art for the next show arrives on Tuesday!

Secret Lives of Interns: Lloyd Street Synagogue Children’s Book in the Works

A blog post by Rachael Gilman.

Yep, that’s right; the JMM is in the process of creating a children’s book showing the history of the Lloyd Street Synagogue. I got pretty excited when I found out about this project the second day of my internship. I have some experience working with children and writing children’s literature, so I made a few suggestions. Suddenly I was a part of the project team, much to my delight.

The synagogue finally gets to tell its story.

The children’s book project team consists of Anita, Jenn, Deborah, Avi and myself from the JMM. There are a few other team members I’ll introduce in a moment.

“Long before your grandparents’ grandparents were babies, before they walked or talked or tied their own shoes, I was built with shovel and pail, hammer and nail, brick and stone.” (make the quote stand out in some way-italics? Block quote?)

This is the very beginning of the story, which was written mostly by Anita with suggestions from the rest of the team. After 10 drafts, the text has pretty much been finalized. The story is told from the synagogue’s point of view and describes children and events in the 165 year life of the building.

Here’s a peek at a sketch of one of the book’s illustrations.

A picture book needs pictures so author and illustrator Jonathon Scott Fuqua (who also did the illustrations for the videos in The Synagogue Speaks) is part of the project team. Scott has been very flexible as we’ve worked to finalize the story. The JMM staff tries to give Scott everything he needs to create beautiful and accurate illustrations. Jenn and I have hunted down descriptions and pictures of fashions, cars and other buildings from the various time periods covered in the book to send to Scott to use as references. He’s already made some wonderful sketches for us.

The project team sat down in the middle of July to work out the layout for the book. After studying the layouts of other picture books, playing with the text, and doing just a little arguing we had sketches showing the placement of words and text for the picture book. We also added four spot illustrations for Scott to create.

LSS photoshoot!

On July 20, we had a photo shoot at the synagogue so Scott could get specific reference pictures with models. Scott’s son along with some of his friends served as models. Various staff, volunteers and even we interns were adult models for Scott. Other JMM staff and their children have been models for Scott in the past. If you take a close look at some of the people in “The Synagogue Speaks” videos you’ll see several familiar faces!

Scott’s daughter Calla Grace Fuqua was the model for Ella
in both The Synagogue Speaks and the children’s book.

The latest addition to the children’s book project team is Paula Bogert, a graphic designer. She will help us pick out background colors, fonts, text size, etc. Paula created the graphics for the “Voices of Lombard Street” and “The Synagogue Speaks” exhibitions and has designed a number of books.

At our last team meeting Scott brought in about a dozen pencil sketches on watercolor paper to get our approval before he started painting them. Anita, Jen, Deb and I looked them over to see if we liked them and for historical accuracy. We found some hairstyles and head coverings we have to double check with more research. But Scott has tentative approval to start painting 5 illustrations.

We’re getting closer to finally sending our children’s book to the publisher! Once the publisher has the book it will take several weeks to print and bind the number of books we plan on ordering. The children’s book should be available for purchase early next year (keep your fingers crossed).

I feel honored to be a part of this project and I can’t wait to see how the children’s book turns out!

Internship Announcement: Media Research and Collection Internship

The Jewish Museum of Maryland seeks a qualified candidate for a collections research and development internship. The internship will consist of three phases. The first phase will be researching and writing a pilot program for collecting home movies/videos focused on Jewish “simchas” (celebrations such as holidays, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, etc). The second phase will be implementing the pilot program. The third phase, concurrent with phase two, will be arranging for the digitization, indexing and cataloging of the collected items. The intern will also be responsible for contributing to the JMM online presence through blogging his or her experience.

Applicants should be interested in museum collections work, moving pictures or Jewish history and culture. Previous museum experience is not required. This internship is part time with flexible hours. A modest honorarium is available and the internship may be used for academic credit, with the approval of your institution. Free parking is provided. Housing is not provided. The internship is open as of 1 September 2010.

Please send a cover letter, resume or CV, and three references (two of which must be academic or professional) to Rachel Kassman, Photo Archivist, Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd Street, Baltimore MD 21202 or to rkassman@jewishmuseummd.org. Please include "Media Research and Collecting Intern" in your subject line.

Brews and Schmooze: Jews Rock!

On July 28 the JMM held an interactive program about the history of Jews and rock n' roll. Jews Rock! From Tin Pan Alley to Woodstock, presented by Rabbi Brian Leiken, was an interesting, engaging, entertaining, and (at times) hilarious program. From insight on the Jewish role in the music industry to his on Bar Mitzvah video, Rabbi Lei

ken had a rapt crowd of 70 people.

Below are a collection of photos and videos from his presentation. Nothing confirms that we're on the right track quite like 70 people eating, drinking, laughing, and singing together.

Inspired by the subject, we had a lot of fun decorating!

A delicious falafel, on rock n' roll table cloths, naturally.

Hallelujah with Rabbi Brian Leiken from Jewish Museum of Maryland on Vimeo.

On July 28 Rabbi Brian Leiken gave a multimedia interactive presentation at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Part of the evening involved audience participation!

Flowers are Red from Jewish Museum of Maryland on Vimeo.

As a finale to our program Jews Rock! Rabbi Brian Leiken sang "Flowers are Red," a Harry Chapin song.

Secret Lives of Interns: Ahoy Vey!

Were you aware of it? Jewish Piracy!

A blog post by Melina

One of the best things about working in an archive is the treasure trove of strange and interesting information you may come across while organizing boxes full of letters, articles and documents from times past. My internship here at the JMM is specifically related to organizing the archives of the Baltimore Hebrew University, which encompasses everything from reimbursement receipts for 70¢ bottles of soda, to deans’ and professors’ correspondence, to file folders full of loosely organized research material. In a file labeled ‘Sephardim: History’ by one Professor Daniel J. Elazar, I discovered buried treasure: an article entitled “An Episode of Piracy” from 1962, by Leon M. Zeldis. Naturally, I stopped everything and proceeded to read the article, which begins: “It is not widely known that Jewish buccaneers once roamed the high seas, in search of gold-laden Spanish galleons.”

‘Ahoy Vey! By Melina’

The article primarily concerns the 17th century pirate Captain Subatol Deul, the early history of whom is unknown, but who was known to be the son of a prominent Jewish physician and explorer of the New World, Sudel Deul. Sudel Deul is said to have brought potatoes back from the Americas and introduced them to Europe!

According to Zeldis, there was widespread piracy in the early 17th century, particularly directed against Spanish ships, and “it is not surprising that some of the Spanish Jews, expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella, derived a special satisfaction from the capture of Spanish ships, loaded with gold and precious goods from the new world.” Subatol Deul became involved in this profitable and satisfying career sometime in the late 16th century, and in the early 17th century he formed the buccaneer alliance ‘the Brotherhood of the Black Flag’ with Henry Drake, the son of Sir Francis Drake. The Brotherhood was active near the Chilean coast until 1640, when they were defeated by the Spanish navy. Deul fled to a tribal village and married the chief’s daughter, eventually inheriting the title of Chief himself. As chief, he supervised the mining of much Chilean gold, and he and his tribe prospered for the rest of his life.

It is said that Deul and his buccaneers buried 6000 pounds of stolen Spanish gold, and even more silver, near the Chilean harbor of Guayacan. The treasure has never been found, but documents written partially in Hebrew, perhaps by Subatol Deul himself, have been discovered in the search.

Naturally, we JMM interns were inspired by Subatol Deul to try piracy for ourselves, so we booked tickets on the pirate ship Fearless for Baltimore’s Urban Pirate Cruise. We all had a great time, but ultimately decided that full-time piracy isn’t for us.

Intern Rachael G in full costume!

Aaaaarrrrr! The piratical interns.

For more Jews on the water, check out the Jewish Maritime Historical Society!

Light & Shadows: Excerpt VIII

In July 1945, the Second Armored Division enters Berlin, the first American unit to do so after the Allied victory. The Office of the Military Government follows a month later, establishing headquarters in the former Luftfahrt Ministerium (German Air Ministry) building on Hohenzollerndamm. Arnold is assigned to a unit of the Military Government called Liaison and Protocol, and his primary responsibility is interpretation. But he has a great deal of freedom to move around the city, and he uses his time to its fullest.

Arnold took this this image of Germans on a train.
It won him a first place award from the Berlin Observer,
an English-language newspaper for the troops.

One day, not too long after I was settled on Am Fischtal, I received a letter from a friend in Baltimore named Henry Goldsmith. When he learned I was in Berlin, he asked me to find his uncle, Julius Blumenstiel. He gave me an address and I discovered that Henry’s uncle had survived the war in hiding. He was still living in the attic, but he was in bad shape. Because he had been living illegally, he had no identification card. Without an identification card, it was as if you didn’t exist. You couldn’t get a ration card, and you couldn’t get enough to eat. But at the time, it was very difficult for the bona fide survivors to secure identification cards because it seemed that every ex-Nazi wanted to pose as an innocent Jew and reap the benefits.

Meeting Henry’s uncle made me wonder how many others were suffering. When I got back to headquarters, I told two of my Jewish buddies about my meeting, and we decided to try to help by providing Berlin’s surviving Jews with food and other necessities. We dubbed our efforts “Operation Joint Forward.” The three of us wrote to our synagogues back home and the packages started pouring in. It seemed as if everyone in our congregations was sending things to us.