Raising funds for Arlington cemetery monument to Jewish chaplains

From article in this week's Washington Jewish Week:

With plans set for a monument honoring Jewish chaplains to be dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery Columbus Day weekend, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington has initiated a campaign to help raise funds for that memorial and to create a new glossy brochure of Jewish sites in the cemetery.

Read the rest of the article!

Contribute to the campaign (be sure to put "Arlington Campaign" in the Designation box)!

An Intern's JHSGW Experience

My name is Stacey and this is my first and sadly, last blog entry for JHSGW. I was an intern here for the past month or so before I begin a master’s program in museum education at GWU next week. I hope to someday be an educator at a Jewish museum, so my time here has definitely been valuable. What does an intern at JHSGW do? A little bit of everything! Besides the obligatory intern tasks of making copies and preparing mailings, in my short amount of time here I helped curatorial assistant David lead tours of our historic synagogue, made preliminary plans for bus tours of Jewish sites in both Philadelphia and Richmond, created an evaluation form to send to educators whose classes have taken field trips here, and even got to pick up a copy of Obama’s presidential proclamation of Jewish American Heritage Month at the White House (during which I had a brief encounter with the First Dog, Bo).

I had a great time here getting a taste of the goings-on at a small Jewish museum. Because of our small size, staff members wear more hats, if you will, than at larger institutions. This means that our curator also leads educational programs and occasionally writes grants, our assistant archivist is also our webmaster, and so on. Therefore, I had a wide range of experiences during my time here, and I probably am leaving this internship with a greater amount of knowledge and new skill sets than if I had interned at a larger museum.

I am sad to leave JHSGW, but I hope to continue lending a hand with programs in the late summer and fall. One thing I especially hope to assist with is our youth education programs. Since I was only here in the summer, I never got to experience a class trip to our historic synagogue. We have some terrific lesson plans written for these programs, so I can’t wait to take part in helping kids learn about D.C. Jewish history!

Alexandria Walking Tour

This past Sunday I led 17 people around Old Town Alexandria. Here's a picture of me pointing out the home of Henry Strauss, Alexandria's first Jewish mayor (1891-1897). We also visited the sites of former synagogues and Jewish businesses--including two containing markers of their Jewish owners.

This is the fourth time I've led the tour since we developed it last year, and it continues to be a hit! Stay tuned for when we offer it in the fall.

Object of the Month: June 2010

To honor our 50th anniversary, we invite you to peek into our archives each month.

From the Archives...
1876 Synagogue


The 1876 synagogue, built by Adas Israel Congregation as its first home, is the largest item in our collection. President Ulysses S. Grant attended the dedication services on June 9, 1876, and donated $10 to the synagogue’s building fund, the equivalent of $200 today.

The congregation soon outgrew its home and built a new synagogue at Sixth & I Streets, NW, in 1908. Its first building was sold and used by a succession of churches, a bicycle shop, a dentist, a barber, and even a pork BBQ!

It stood for more than 90 years on the site before the new subway system (Metro) wanted to demolish the building to build its new headquarters. Read more to learn how the building was saved!