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A revived Jewish Museum spotlights the story of Jewish endurance
The object that best explains the Jewish Museum’s new core exhibition isn’t actually there.
Printed on the wall is a photographed section of the first century Arch of Titus, depicting the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Among the plunder looted by the Romans was the Temple’s seven-branched menorah. This image, carved by conquerors, speaks to a lost homeland and culture. Or it might have, had Jews not proven supremely adaptable.
The rest of the exhibit’s 200 items, ranging from antiquity to this decade, are a testament to how Jews, experiencing millennia of diaspora, suffered, thrived and engaged with their neighbors. As Jewish Museum director James S. Snyder told me, his approach is not to present Jews as separate and elevated, but as a people deeply enmeshed in their global communities, resonating with them while maintaining their sense of self.
The $14.5 million renovation of the third and fourth floors in the Central Park-facing, neo-Gothic mansion built for the German-American Warburg family in 1908, can’t help but tell that story.
Titled “Identity, Culture and Community: Stories from the Collection,” the exhibit is organized thematically and roughly chronologically, beginning with a gallery of Judaica: a handsome Torah ark from Urbino, inscribed in Hebrew and decorated with Italianate flourishes. A Torah scroll destroyed by the British in the American Revolution holds pride of place, while an adjoining gallery, inspired by the forthcoming 250th Anniversary of the United States, boasts personal artifacts like the mezuzah of Continental Army financier Haym Salomon.
Moving away from Torah finials and portraits of prominent Jews, there’s a section dedicated to persecution and remembrance. Hanging there is a selection of intimate portraits by Gertrud Kauders, whose paintings were discovered in the walls of a home outside Prague during a 2018 home renovation. Kauders, an assimilated Czech Jew who was murdered in 1942 in Majdanek, hid them before her deportation.
While this work was discovered decades after her death, it’s in the company of some notable names, and not all of them Jewish. A 1936 Alice Neel painting of a New York City Communist rally, illustrating her friend, the artist Sid Gotcliffe, holding a placard reading “Nazis Murder Jews,” appears alongside an apocalyptic, modernist cityscape by Abraham Manievich. Manievich’s 1919 depiction of the destruction of the Kiev ghetto, a literal scapegoat foregrounded in the rubble, seems to prefigure Picasso’s Guernica in an expressionist mode.
European Jews were not immune to the modernism sweeping over Europe, and used its fractured forms to comment on their people’s persecution. A late figurative drawing of severed limbs by Mark Rothko, from his crucifixion series in the early 1940s, makes a wry comment on Christian hegemony and Hitler’s campaign of annihilation. (Marc Chagall, who produced a similar series, is across the way, appearing to pee on his native Vitebsk, which he left for Paris.)
A charm bracelet produced in Terezin, whose individual pieces are identifiable on a touch screen, shows how production didn’t stop in the Holocaust. Hadar Gad’s notebook, imagining the obliteration of her grandmother’s hometown in Poland, and produced after Oct. 7, reveal the Shoah’s continued resonances today. Dor Guez, son of a Palestinian Christian mother and North African Jewish father, makes use of his family’s quotidian possessions to tell their post-World War II immigration story. Other other artists make use of suitcase imagery.
From commentaries on displacement, there next emerges a reclamation of ritual objects within the context of a dominant culture: a Bauhaus-inspired menorah, a mid-century modern Torah crown forged with looping silver threads. Women artists, like Lee Krasner, gravitate toward abstraction. A stretch devoted to women modernists focuses on intersectionality. There are Miriam cups, a feminist inclusion to the Seder ceremony, and artist Gil Yefman’s kippah, topped by a dark nipple to signify the feminine nature of God.
Two thousand years after the sack of Jerusalem, contemporary artists are still grappling with how to express their Jewishness alongside compounding, modern identities. Candace Breitz’s video installation registers her discomfort, as a white woman chosen to represent South Africa at the 57th Venice Biennial, and so features a diverse and representative group of artists, saying “I am Candace Breitz.” A piece by Izhar Patkin, inspired by motifs on Persian rugs, faces a carpet from the 1890s with the likeness of Moses and Aaron, which the Shah of Iran is believed to have commissioned for his Jewish doctor.
Coinciding with the new core exhibit is a second floor show spotlighting the early works by Anish Kapoor, the Indian-born British artist, whose father was Hindu and whose mother was from the Iraqi Jewish community. (In a press conference, Kapoor downplayed how his background shaped the art.) But the overall theme carries onto the new fourth floor learning center.
Replicas of objects — a mosaic floor tile, a ceramic turkey menorah from 2013’s “Thankgivukkah,” an ancient bull figurine that is remarkably Aardman-esque — are available to touch to teach visitors about materials artists use. A 50-foot glass vitrine, with 130 menorahs from around the globe, most crafted by non-Jewish artisans, look out onto the modernist art on the floor below. The display is not about Hanukkah, but the significance of light in all cultures.
Even in a section devoted to largely pre-diaspora archaeology, where families can dig through foam rubble for potsherds, a touchscreen invites the visitor to read about “interactions among peoples.”
Imperial coins and helmets of Hellenic occupiers are on view. So too, are ritual objects from other Levantine groups, some several thousand years old, up to a 20th-Century bridal pin from Baghdad. The Jewish story, these objects insist, can’t be understood in isolation.
The post A revived Jewish Museum spotlights the story of Jewish endurance appeared first on The Forward.
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Brown University to Conduct ‘Campus Climate Survey’ Following Antisemitism Complaints
Over 200 Brown University students protesting for divestment from weapons manufacturers amid the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Amy Russo / USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Brown University will next week launch a “campus climate survey” to meet the conditions of an agreement it reached with the Trump administration in July to restore federal funding and settle investigations of how it handled anti-Jewish discrimination.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Brown University agreed to pay $50 million and enact a series of reforms put forth by the Trump administration to settle claims involving alleged sex discrimination and antisemitism.
Among other items, the agreement obligated Brown to reduce anti-Jewish bias on campus by forging ties with local Jewish Day Schools, launching “renewed partnerships with Israeli academics and national Jewish organizations,” and boosting support for its Judaic Studies program. The forthcoming “climate survey” aims in part to collect raw data on the campus experiences of Jewish students and their perceptions of how the administration responds to their bias complaints.
As reported by The Brown Daily Herald on Monday, the survey “will ask whether students feel safe reporting acts of antisemitism on campus and whether they believe Brown has adequately responded to ‘reports of alleged antisemitism.’” The paper added that Christina Paxson, the university’s president, issued a statement regarding the matter.
“We are asking direct, necessary questions about the experiences of harassment and discrimination, including those related to antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and transphobia, among other critical issues,” Paxson said. “Your honest answers are the only way we can understand confront these problems head-on as a community.”
Paxson added, “We want your voices to be central to the university’s future plans. Completing the survey is an important way to demonstrate a commitment to continuing the work of building a better Brown. I urge you to complete the survey when you receive it. We look forward to hearing what you have to say and to sharing the results with the entire campus community in the spring.”
Other components of Brown’s deal with the federal government touch on gender ideology, requiring the university to provide women athletes locker rooms based on sex, not one’s self-chosen gender identity — a monumental concession by a university that is reputed as one of the most progressive in the country — and adopt the Trump administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” as articulated in a January 2025 executive order. Additionally, Brown has agreed not to “perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child’s appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”
“The university’s foremost priority throughout discussions with the government was remaining true to our academic mission, our core values, and who we are as a community at Brown,” Paxson said at the time. “This is reflected in key provisions of the resolution agreement preserving our academic independence, as well as a commitment to pay $50 million in grants over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island, which is aligned with our service and community engagement mission.”
Brown University’s record of combatting antisemitism is mixed. On the one hand, Paxson, backed by the Brown Corporation, has vocally opposed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. However, in September, her subordinates reinstated Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a notorious anti-Zionist group widely recognized as a leading driver of campus antisemitism, following a suspension it served as punishment for misconduct at anti-Israel demonstrations last year.
National Students for Justice Palestine, as well as its affiliate campus chapters, have led punishing and unrelenting campaigns to intimidate university officials into boycotting Israel and banning expressions of Zionism from higher education. As The Algemeiner has previously reported, SJP also has trafficked in hate speech, destroyed property, and trumpeted its support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and overthrowing the government of the United States.
“Brown leaders have continued to work to ensure that all members of our campus community understand the expectations and community standards for demonstrations and protests on campus,” university spokesman Brian Clark told The Brown Daily Herald, which first reported the story, explaining the decision to reinstate SJP. “While Brown’s policies make clear that protest is an acceptable means of expression on campus, it cannot interfere with the normal functions of the university.”
Amid this climate, the vast majority of Jewish students around the world are resorting to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism, according to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS).
A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.
Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.
“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Graham Platner, Anti-Israel Senate Candidate in Maine, Covers Tattoo Recognized as Nazi Symbol
Graham Platner, a Maine Democrat running for the US Senate, in October 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Maine, on Wednesday said that a skull and crossbones tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.
“Going to a tattoo removal place is going to take a while,” he told the Associated Press. “I wanted this thing off my body.”
Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran, said that while his campaign initially said he would remove the tattoo, he decided to cover it up with another tattoo due to the limited options where he lives in rural Maine.
The first-time political candidate has come under fire after downplaying revelations that he possessed a tattoo resembling a symbol of Hitler’s paramilitary Schutzstaffel, or SS, which was responsible for large-scale atrocities against millions of Jews and other victims in Europe during World War II.
The controversy intensified on Monday, when Platner, who has been mounting a progressive campaign against Republican incumbent Susan Collins, appeared on the left-wing podcast “Pod Save America.” Host Tommy Vietor played a clip shared by Platner’s campaign from a decade ago of the now-candidate dancing shirtless, with the tattoo visible, at a bar while lip-syncing to a Miley Cyrus song at his brother’s wedding. Vietor noted that “political opponents” had been telling reporters that Platner had a tattoo “with Nazi affiliation.”
Platner attempted to downplay the revelation, explaining that he requested the tattoo 18 years ago during a night of drunken partying with a group of fellow Marines in Croatia. He claimed that he and his fellow Marines did not recognize the tattoo as having any connection to the Nazis.
“We chose a terrifying skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines and skulls and crossbones are a pretty standard military thing,” Platner said. “And then we all moved on with our lives.”
Platner added that he is not a “secret Nazi” and has a history of publicly advocating against antisemitism and racism.
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner said. “Actually, if you read through my Reddit comments, I think you can pretty much figure out where I stand on Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general.”
He later said he was unaware of the tattoo’s associations with Nazi Germany until his Senate campaign.
“It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” Platner said in a statement to Politico on Tuesday. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called Platner’s tattoo choice “troubling” and suggested that the candidate “repudiate its hateful meaning.”
“This appears to be a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo, and if true, it is troubling that a candidate for high office would have one,” said Jessica Cohen, an ADL spokesperson. “We do understand that sometimes people get tattoos without understanding their hateful association. In those cases, the bearer should be asked whether they repudiate its hateful meaning.”
Platner launched his Senate campaign in August, framing his insurgent candidacy as an anti-establishment challenge to unseat Collins. The progressive firebrand has focused on the Israel-Hamas war during his campaign, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and vowing not to take any money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the preeminent pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.
Platner has come under fire after recently surfaced Reddit comments showed the candidate making disparaging remarks about black people, asking why the racial group “don’t tip.”
“I work as a bartender and it always amazes me how solid this stereotype is,” he wrote. “Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15-20% tip, but usually it [is] between 0-5%. There’s got to be a reason behind it, what is it?” he wrote on Reddit in 2013.
In 2021, Platner called himself a “communist” and repudiated white, rural voters as “racist” and “stupid.”
Despite Platner’s assertions that he did not know the Nazi affiliation of the tattoo, his former political director claimed that the candidate knew of its meaning.
“Graham has an antisemitic tattoo on his chest. He’s not an idiot; he’s a military history buff. Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have covered it up because he damn well knows what it means,” Genevieve McDonald, Platner’s former political director, wrote in a social media statement.
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These Jewish baked goods made the New York Times’ list of ‘25 Essential Pastries’ in NYC
Inspired by the “bakery renaissance” that’s currently underway across New York City — if you spot a line somewhere, there’s a very good chance there are baked goods at the end of it — T: The New York Times Style Magazine has assembled a list of “The 25 Essential Pastries to Eat in New York City.”
Among those on the list are several Jewish treats, including a buttery, chocolatey babka that’s made New Yorkers’ mouths water since 2013 and a tiny knish filled with sauerkraut and dill from a buzzy new bakery on the Lower East Side.
To assemble their of list 25 standout pastries — a tough task, we imagine — the magazine assembled a panel of renowned bakers: pastry chef and writer Tanya Bush; pastry chef Camari Mick; chef and Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi; Bánh by Lauren founder and pastry chef Lauren Tran; Shaun Velez, executive pastry chef at Daniel; and baker and cookbook author Melissa Weller.
Among the panel’s picks are some beloved old-school sweets like Lloyd’s Carrot Cake and the sour cream glazed doughnut from Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop; upscale creations like the Lysee mousse cake from Lysee and four Jewish-inspired desserts. Keep scrolling to see, in alphabetical order, which Jewish pastries are on the Times’ list.
1. Agi’s Counter’s cheesecake
Opened in 2021 by Brooklyn-based Jewish chef Jeremy Salamon, Agi’s Counter (818 Franklin Ave.) was inspired by Salamon’s grandmother, Agi, a Hungarian Jew and a Holocaust survivor.
“Most people, when they hear Hungarian, if they have any idea the first thing that comes to mind is probably paprika or goulash — maybe chicken paprikás,” Salamon, a James Beard Award-nominated chef, told the New York Jewish Week last summer. “The concept is so limited.”
The cheesecake at Agi’s Counter has been on offer since the restaurant opened — in fact, for a while, it was the only dessert on the menu. “A riff on the dense, creamy New York style often credited to Arnold Reuben, who made it a century ago at his Jewish diner, Reuben’s Restaurant in Midtown, and later popularized at diners like Junior’s, which first opened in 1950 in Downtown Brooklyn, Salamon’s version is a thick wedge made with Philadelphia cream cheese on a crushed graham cracker crust,” the magazine describes.
The cheesecake at Agi’s Counter with a blueberry compote. (Screenshot via Agi’s Counter Instagram)
At Agi’s Counter, the “well-executed take on a classic” is served topped with extra virgin olive oil, Maldon salt and a lemon wedge during dinner service. As part of the weekend brunch menu, it is topped with a blueberry and coriander compote.
“It was like $18, and I was there for lunch, so the dessert was actually the most expensive part,” said Tran. “I thought, ‘Oh, bold.’ And then I was blown away.”
While you’re there, don’t miss Agi’s Counter’s tuna melt, which features “oily, slow-cooked tuna, alpine Cheddar, pickled peppers, celery, dill and Kewpie mayo. Last year, it was one of 11 Jewish sandwiches on the New York Times’ list of “57 Sandwiches That Define New York City.”
2. Breads’ chocolate babka
The chocolatey, buttery, braided babka at Breads Bakery has been delighting New Yorkers since 2013, when the Israeli-inspired spot first opened near Union Square.
Breads’ buttery, laminated dough — “crispy-edged, springy and oozing with a Nutella-and-chocolate filling” per the Times — reignited the popularity of this Ashkenazi dessert across the city (and eventually in Paris, too.)
Today, Breads has six locations around the city, and its babka has become a New York icon — the bakery reportedly sells over 1,000 babkas a day during the winter holidays, per the Times. Co-founder and owner Gadi Peleg refers to his baker as “the house that babka built.”
According to panelist Weller, Breads “started a trend of babka, and also the trend of laminated doughs being used in different ways.”
Added Tosi: “He really defied the odds of how much chocolate one could put in babka.”
3. Elbow Bread’s potato sauerkraut knish
The Lower East Side’s buzzy Elbow Bread (1 Ludlow St.) opened last October, where baker Zoë Kanan has been busy creating old-school Jewish baked goods with a modern twist.
Backed by partners Eric Finkelstein and Matt Ross, the founders of the popular Flatiron Jewish luncheonette S&P, Kanan — who’s been called “a baker’s baker” by New York Magazine — turns out delicacies like bialys and rugelach, as well as contemporary hybrids like a challah honey bun, which is part croissant, part challah and “our sweetest ooey, gooey item,” Kanan told the New York Jewish Week.
“There aren’t many Jewish bakeries here anymore,” Kanan said. “I saw an opportunity to do something here [on the Lower East Side], in a location with so much Jewish history, and bringing my own personal style to it, which borrows from a lot of different techniques and ingredients. I love the classics and tradition is important, but what I find myself thinking about is ways to reinterpret.”
The pastry that made the T Magazine list is a savory one: a tiny sauerkraut knish, made of flaky laminated pastry wrapped around mashed Yukon Gold potatoes “flecked with crunchy salt and flavored with sauerkraut, onions, sour cream and fresh dill.”
“Knish was this thing that you just didn’t want,” panelist Weller said of the small pastry. “I love that she decided to reinvent it. Because it needed that.”
4. Fan-Fan Doughnuts’ guava and cheese fan-fan
After successfully launching the NYC mini-chain Dough Doughnuts and ice pop company La Newyorkina in 2010, Mexican-Jewish pastry chef Fany Gerson opened her Brooklyn doughnut shop Fan-Fan Doughnuts (448 Lafayette Ave.) in the fall of 2020. Despite launching during the pandemic, lines formed out the door.
In her work, as in her life, Gerson enjoys reflecting on the richness of her Jewish and Mexican heritages. “I feel like through time I’ve explored it through food and I’m kind of bridging the two worlds,” Gerson told the New York Jewish Week in 2021.
A close-up of the guava and cheese fan-fans at Fan-Fan Doughnuts. (Screenshot via Fan-Fan Doughnuts Instagram)
During Hanukkah, Gerson sells delicious and inventive sufganiyot, which are traditionally fried, round jelly-filled doughnuts that are enjoyed during the holiday. But the pastry that made the Times’ list can be enjoyed year-round: an éclair-inspired doughnut, known as a fan-fan, that’s filled with cream cheese, glazed with guava and topped by a brown butter walnut cookie crumble.
The treat is “inspired by the guava cheese roll from one of her favorite Mexico City bakeries,” according to the Times.
“That’s the thing about food, it’s not ephemeral,” Gerson told us. “How many memories are tied to food? A smell can take you back.”
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