Jews for Jeans: Who’s Your Pick for Hall of Fame?
By Devra Ferst
Levi Strauss, creator of blue jeans, or Steven Spielberg, director of the films “E.T.” and “Schindler’s List”? Perhaps legendary baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax, or Albert Einstein? Who deserves to be in the Jewish American Hall of Fame? The National Museum of American Jewish History is about to find out.
The museum, which is slated to open in a newly constructed building in Philadelphia in November 2010, is letting the public vote on 218 figures from American Jewish life throughout history for its Only in America Gallery/Hall of Fame, which will be a permanent exhibit on the museum’s first floor.
“This is a rare opportunity for the public to have input on what is going to be featured in a major museum exhibition,” said Josh Perelman, the museum’s deputy director of programming and chief curator of the museum’s core exhibition.
Voters will choose their top three picks in categories such as arts and entertainment; business and philanthropy; literature; performance; politics, law and activism; religion and thought; science and medicine, and sports. Eighteen finalists will be selected from the results, in consultation with the museum’s historians.
In addition to Jewish sports and music celebrities, the list of personalities includes rabbis such as Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement, Jewish female activists such as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, and educator Rebecca Gratz.
Votes can be cast online at the museum’s web site until August 6 and at the current museum’s exhibit, Shaping Space, Making Meaning.
Don’t see someone you like? The site will also let visitors write in the names of their own Jewish heroes. Gene Simmons, anybody?
Advertisements
Advertisements
Yoni Netanyahu Jonas Salk
Definitely NOT Spielberg, who picked the anti-Israel Tony Kushner to write a script about the Israeli agents who avenged the Munich Massacre.
The National Museum of American Jewish History is a little late. The Jewish-American Hall of Fame was founded 40 years ago at the Magnes Museum in Berkeley. It became a division of the American Jewish Historical Society in 2001. The Jewish-American Hall of Fame exhibit featuring its 40 inductees can be seen at B'nai B'rith headquarters in Washington DC. If you had bothered to Google "Jewish-American Hall of Fame" before writing your story, you would have discovered our award-winning website at www.amuseum.org/jahf that attracts over a million visitors a year. I hope you will correct this oversight in the printed edition of the Forward. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like additional information about The Jewish-American Hall of Fame. Mel Wacks, Director
Here are the inductees in The Jewish-American Hall of Fame (www.amuseum.org/jahf or www.jewishamericanhalloffame.org): 1969 Judah Magnes (1877-1948), 1970 Albert Einstein (1879-1955), 1971 Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), 1972 George Gershwin (1898-1937), 1973 Haym Salomon (1740-1785), 1974 Herbert Lehman (1878-1963), 1975 Gershom Seixas (1745-1816), 1976 Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), 1977 Touro Synagogue (1763), 1978 Golda Meir (1898-1978), 1979 Levi Strauss (1829-1902), 1980 Jonas Salk (1914-1995), 1981 Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), 1982 Isaac Stern (1920-2001), 1983 Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), 1984 Isaac B. Singer (1904-1991), 1985 Adolph Ochs (1858-1935), 1986 Abravanel, Zacuto & Santangel, 1987 Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938), 1988 Uriah P. Levy (1792-1862), 1989 Benny Goodman (1909-1966), 1990 Dr. Bela Schick (1877-1967), 1991 Hank Greenberg (1911-1986), 1992 Columbus & Torres (1492), 1993 Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), 1994 Ernestine Rose (1810-1892), 1995 Elie Wiesel (b. 1928), 1996 Houdini (1874-1926), 1997 Barbra Streisand (b. 1942), 1998 Isador & Ida Straus & David Sarnoff (1912), 1999 Asser Levy (1654), 2000 Arthur Miller (1915-2005), 2001 Bess Myerson (b. 1924), 2002 Leopold Karpeles (1838-1909), 2003/4 Gompers (1850-1924) & Hillman (1887-1946), 2005 “Rosie” Rosenthal (1917-2007), 2006 Moe Berg (1902-1972), 2007 Lillian Wald (1867-1940), Milton Berle (1908-2002), 2009 Barney Ross (1909-1967).
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.