03/29/2025
How to Celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month Without Schlepping Anywhere
May is Jewish American Heritage Month, as declared by every President since George W. Bush. It’s a good opportunity to visit your local Jewish museum. But what if you don’t have a nearby Jewish museum, or what if you don’t want to schlepp your family there? Fortunately, you can celebrate from your home or anywhere for that matter – simply by visiting the Jewish Museum in Cyberspace on your computer or smart phone. This award-winning website features the Jewish-American Hall of Fame (at www.amuseum.org/jahf). Here you will find over 50 sculpted plaques of the honorees, along with brief biographies. And most bios include short videos or music.
Read the bios and you will learn that “It was not Queen Isabella’s jewelry, but Spanish Jewry that made Columbus’ historical trip of discovery possible … Actually it was Luis de Santangel, whose grandfather had converted from Judaism to Christianity under pressure of Spanish persecutions, who lent nearly 5 million maravedis to pay for the voyage.” You will learn how “As the Titanic was sinking, 67-year-old Isidor Straus (wealthy owner of Macy’s) urged his wife Ida to board a lifeboat, but she declined, saying, ‘We have been living together for many years, and where you go, I go.’” Among these fascinating stories, you can watch Lt. Col. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal tell how he won 16 decorations, including the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against the enemy,” the Silver Star (with cluster) for “gallantry in action,” the Distinguished Flying Cross (with cluster) for “heroism or extraordinary achievement during aerial flight,” the Air Medal (with seven clusters), the Purple Heart (with cluster), plus the British Distinguished Flying Cross and the French Croix de Guerre. You might have seen “Rosie” portrayed in the television series “Masters of the Air.” And movie star Hedy Lamarr’s biography reveals how her patent describing spread spectrum technology contributed to the development of GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi!
At www.amuseum.org/jahf you and your family can also watch Irving Berlin sing his “God Bless America,” George Gershwin play “I Got Rhythm,” and Molly Picon perform “Abi Gezunt” (As Long as You’re Healthy) from the 1938 Yiddish film “Mamele.”
In addition to finding inspiring icons such as Albert Einstein, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jonas Salk, you will be able to read that “Elvis Presley was Jewish the old fashioned way – through maternal descent” (his mother’s tombstone features a Star of David in honor of Elvis’ Jewish heritage); and you can see Marilyn Monroe’s Certificate of Conversion to Judaism when she married playwright Artur Miller.
But the Jewish-American Hall of Fame website has much more! It contains fun quizzes about all of the honorees – and if you get enough correct answers, you will be declared “An Einstein.” And in the Entertainment area, you can try to solve the Jewish crossword puzzles, test your knowledge of Jewish baseball players, and youngsters will enjoy playing Hide and Seek by figuring out how many children can be found in the designs of Jewish-American Hall of Fame medals.
Just as there are interesting exhibits in the nooks and crannies of museums, visitors to www.amuseum.org/jahf will find an exhibit of the Harry Flower Collection of Medals and Coins honoring Albert Einstein, a virtual memorial to the victims of Kristallnacht created by child survivor Marika Somogyi, and can take a tour of the Jewish-American Hall of Fame plaques at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, conducted by their Executive Director Sam Asher.
