By Debra Rodman, JCRC Director
May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a time to reflect, explore, and celebrate the American Jewish Experience.
There are many ways you can take advantage of this month, as Richmond provides so many resources to learn more about the Jewish Experience in Virginia.
You can visit the Virginia Holocaust Museum, where many local Holocaust Survivors’ testimony is documented in two exhibits, The Tower of Remembrance and The Survivors in Virginia.
There is also an accompanying online tour https://www.vaholocaust.org/survivors-in-virginia/.
Just up the street from the Holocaust Museum is one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the country. Established in 1789, the Franklin Street Burying Ground is located on the south side of Franklin Street between Twenty-first Street and Twenty-second Street.
Another local resource is the Beth Ahabah Museum & Archives, located at 1109 West Franklin Street and is open from Sunday through Thursday.
The Jewish Experience in America can also be experienced at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture starting May 25. One of the earliest collaborations between Jews and African Americans to create schools throughout the nation for Black children was founded by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington.
From 1912 to 1937, the Rosenwald schools program built 4,978 schools, shops, and teacher’s homes across 15 Southern states. The exhibit highlights the first comprehensive photographic account of the Rosenwald Schools program.
Andrew Feiler drove more than 25,000 miles and photographed 105 schools in all 15 of the program states.
The exhibition features 26 photographs by Andrew Feiler of interiors and exteriors, schools restored and yet-to-be restored, and portraits of people with compelling connections to these schools.
The exhibition is derived from Feiler’s book, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America, which includes 85 duotone images and an introduction by the late Congressman John Lewis, who attended a Rosenwald school in Alabama.
The exhibit, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America, starts May 25 and runs through April 20, 2025.
One of the Rosenwald Schools was built in Goochland County in 2018 and is now a museum – the The Second Union Rosenwald School Museum, at 2843 Hadensville-Fife Road, Goochland.
