OREGON JEWISH MUSEUM

April 2007
Submitted by Judith Margles

The Oregon Jewish Museum (OJM) is honored to have an opportunity to submit a proposal to the NCJW–Portland Section. We believe that the mission of the museum dovetails with the mission of the NCJW and hope, in the following pages, to engage you by explaining the significance of our organization and the role that the museum can play in perpetuating the legacy of the NCJW–Portland Section.

Proposal

The Oregon Jewish Museum respectfully asks the NCJW–Portland Section to consider a significant donation to the museum that we would use towards the creation of a core exhibition about Oregon Jewish history and complementary education programs. After five years in Old Town, the museum has outgrown the space to adequately house the artifact and archive collection, present a range of exhibitions to our visitors and offer competitive educational programs. An active building committee has been researching buildings to purchase and we are confident that we will be able to locate a suitable home and move within the next twelve to eighteen months.

A gift from the NCJW–Portland Section would be used in two ways: first to support the creation of the permanent exhibition gallery in the museum. This gallery will house the core exhibition documenting the experience of Oregon Jews and provide a teaching opportunity for all ages–youth, adults and senior citizens–to further their knowledge about the dynamic role that Jews have played in the history of the state. We propose to name the gallery after the NCJW, perhaps calling it the National Council of Jewish Women–Portland Section Gallery, or whatever you might wish to call it. The name of the gallery would be permanent, i.e. even though the exhibition would change occasionally to reflect the acquisition of new material, the gallery name would never change. We fully intend to draw upon the best exhibit designers in the country to create a state-of-the-art multi-media exhibition that offers something to all ages.

Second, in light of NCJW’s commitment to education, we propose that some of the donated funds be kept in a restricted account to be used solely for educational purposes. These restricted funds could, perhaps, pay for three years of visits by public school children in the region. We would need to construct a carefully thought out budget that covers marketing, scheduling, admission, bus transportation and administrative charges; this could be done in a relatively short amount of time and the required funds would be allocated accordingly.

The NCJW Legacy

The founding members of the NCJW–Portland Section were remarkable women. The institution that did so much for the settlement of immigrant populations to Oregon was founded and run by women with little training and experience outside the running of their homes. NCJW grew from a lady’s club for socializing and study, to a political force and a major philanthropic agency. They even put up a female candidate for city school board–Blanche Blumauer–years before the city proved ready to allow such a change!

Matilda Selling, Salome Bernstein, Rose Selling, Blanche Blumauer and Julia Swett all served as early presidents of the NCJW board. This was in addition to the many other volunteer tasks they each accomplished in social service. Blanche Blumauer oversaw the building of Neighborhood House in 1904. Matilda Selling founded “The Sewing School” at Neighborhood House, running it for 32 years. Another, Mrs. Max Hirsch, who taught at the school, was remembered by two generations of girls who learned to mend and embroider under her instruction. They were fierce advocates for children’s rights, fighting to protect the Newsboys and other child laborers. After women received the right to vote in Oregon (1912) they helped women register to vote and became a forum to educate women about important political issues. Throughout the twentieth century, powerful NCJW women took stands on other local and national issues, including efforts to expand public school education, salary equity for women and the endowment of hospital beds at St. Vincent and Emanuel hospitals to provide care for impoverished Jewish women. They were also actively involved using funds from the sale of the Council’s cookbook to create scholarships and loans for needy Jews.

Why OJM?

The history of NCJW is a microcosm of the history of the Portland’s Jewish community in the twentieth century and sheds light on women’s history, social history and community history. OJM is already the proud steward of the Portland Section’s archives, a collection that will be the nucleus for the research and development of a special exhibition about the NCJW, which OJM is committed to curating. The history and contributions of the NCJW will also be an integral part of the permanent exhibition about the experience of Oregon Jews, anticipated to be the cornerstone of our permanent home.

OJM’s mission is to preserve the legacy of the Jewish experience in Oregon and make it relevant for Jews and non-Jews alike. When we examine the NCJW mission we see parallels between the two organizations and ways that OJM can admirably perpetuate some of Council’s aspirations. In particular we share a mutual goal, reflected in the NCJW mission statement, to “educate the individual and the community toward their responsibility in advancing human welfare and the democratic way of life.” At OJM, we take very seriously our responsibility to educate our visitors, whether in programs to children, youth, adults and seniors, or through our exhibitions. We feel an obligation to be able to offer programming to teachers as a way to supplement their diversity curriculums. As the student population in Oregon schools becomes increasingly diverse, teachers must respond with culturally sensitive curricula that integrate multicultural viewpoints and histories. Many studies (for example, the National Crime Prevention Council) have shown that teaching tolerance in elementary schools reduces the incidence of hate crimes, racism, discrimination, and bigotry. An expanded education program, offered at the Museum, would provide students with an opportunity to learn about the challenges and contributions of one specific ethnic community, the Jewish community, a segment of the population who has experienced its own share of hate and intolerance. The program will draw upon the histories of other ethnic minorities–Chinese, Japanese, African Americans and recent immigrants such as the Vietnamese, for example–and provide a context from which students can begin to understand their own similarities and differences. Teachers will benefit from a carefully designed curriculum that both meets state content standards and blends hand-on activities with opportunities to engage the students in thoughtful dialogue about race and ethnicity.

In our exhibitions, we always place the experience of Oregon Jews within the context of the broader community: how have Jews fit into the fabric of civil society? When we look at the 110-year history and contributions of the NCJW, we see an organization that has parallel ambition to the OJM: to take an essentially Jewish endeavor, based upon principles of tikkun olom and mitzvoth, into the broader community. In our exhibitions, OJM always creates a framework that sets the Jewish community into Oregon’s landscape. One favorite example came out in an exhibition about Congregation Beth Israel, the oldest synagogue in the state. When a catastrophic fire destroyed Portland’s downtown in 1874, Jewish men were part of the volunteer fire brigade that fought the fire. Another wonderful example is the foundation story for NCJW: a group of women in the mid-1890s had the gumption to organize themselves as a way to counterbalance male domination, going far beyond the familiar female boundaries of musical entertainment and self-education to form a philosophy of social action.

OJM welcomes an opportunity to provide NCJW with an enduring legacy befitting its tremendous service to the community. A named permanent gallery–with-state-of-the art exhibitions–and an endowed education program will reach a broad spectrum of the population, providing teaching opportunities that do not exist elsewhere. Successful Jewish museums are a sign of the strength of learning and the continuing discussion of Jewish life. Thank you for your interest in our endeavor. The future beckons with opportunities.