Museum Of Jewish Heritage To Host First-Ever Mishpachah Festival

The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, JewishGen, LOX, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will present New York's first-ever Mishpachah Festival: A Celebration of Genealogy, Heritage, & Immigration, on Sunday, May 21, 2023.

The day-long Mishpachah Festival ("Mishpachah" means "family" in Hebrew) - will run from 10:00am to 5:00pm and feature Jewish genealogy lectures, Jewish heritage panels, cooking demonstrations, live music, and activities for children and families. Additionally, experts will be on hand to help attendees research their family histories.

"We are proud to present the inaugural Mishpachah Festival, where we will celebrate and explore Jewish genealogy, heritage, and immigration along with our partners," said Jack Kliger, CEO and President of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. "There will be insightful lectures and activities for people of all ages, as we open the Museum to welcome our 'family' and together discover more about heritage and community."

The event is held in-person, and some activities will be livestreamed throughout the day. To reserve your spot, visit www.mjhnyc.org/mishpachah-festival. Tickets are free with a suggested $18 donation to the Museum. A full schedule of activities will be posted online in the coming weeks.

The festival will kick off with a special concert featuring musician Joanie Leeds, who won a Grammy Award for her album, All the Ladies, in April 2020. Leeds will be joined by Jeff Litman on the guitar and Andi Rae Healy on ukulele/percussion. For her original kids' music, the multi-award-winning based singer-songwriter won first place in the USA Songwriting Competition, an Independent Music Award, a Gold Parents' Choice Award, NAPPA Gold Award, Family Choice Award. For the past decade, she has performed songs from her 9 high-energy and interactive albums in dozens of cities across the country at venues and festivals such as Lollapalooza, Clearwater Festival, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, The Smithsonian, CMAs, Hang Out Festival, and the Skirball Cultural Center in LA.

Throughout the day, JewishGen will lead a series of genealogy discussions, and YIVO, HIAS, and The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation will lead other talks. National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek will hold a sing-along and Associate Artistic Director Motl Didner will lead a talk about Yiddish. David Teyf, owner of the Museum's LOX Café, will lead Jewish cooking demonstrations in the catering kitchen; and organizers will present family-friendly storytelling workshops.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York's contribution to the global responsibility to Never Forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third-largest Holocaust museum in the world, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of almost 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy.

The Museum's current offerings include The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do, a major new exhibition offering a timely and expansive presentation of Holocaust history, now on view in the main galleries. Also on view is Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust, featuring photographer Martin Schoeller's portraits of Holocaust survivors on view through June 18, 2023. Opening this fall is the Museum's first exhibition for visitors aged 9 and up, Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark, which will bring the lessons of the Holocaust to life through the remarkable story of Danish collective resistance during World War II.

Each year, the Museum presents over 80 public programs, connecting our community in person and virtually through lectures, book talks, concerts, and more. For more info visit: mjhnyc.org/events. Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

For more information, visit: mjhnyc.org

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