Connecting Community

Welcome FY 2020 Board Members

We are excited that Anita Kassof will be rejoining our ranks on the board side. She is currently the Executive Director of the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Anita has served as Deputy Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, and was the Associate Director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Previously she co-founded Historic Jonestown, Inc., and served as a curator at the Baltimore City Life Museums and was on the founding staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

And we are thrilled to welcome Iris Krasnow, an award-winning author and journalist to the board.  This summer Iris is putting the finishing touches on a book about the lasting power of summer camps, which is due for publication in 2020. Her writing has been featured in many national publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and AARP The Magazine. She has been a guest on numerous television and radio programs. Iris is also a journalism and relationship studies professor at American University in Washington, DC.

Represented among our FY 2020 Board Members’ professional affiliations are fields ranging from medicine and health to real estate, construction, and law. Our Board Members’ backgrounds include nonprofit work and education—representing everything from cultural programming, museums, academia, to Jewish communal services. Also represented is expertise in fine art, interior design, marketing and public relations, investment banking, engineering, and public service. JMM’s Board Members serve on the Boards of local synagogues as well as on Boards and in volunteer capacities with other community organizations.

FY2019 Year in Review

The JMM board and past presidents are, as a whole, a very engaged group, active in in all aspects of JMM stewardship! Throughout the year board members participate with museum life in a myriad of ways.  Each member of our board serves on one or more committees including: Board Education, Board Nominating, Collections, Development, Finance & Auditing, Visioning, Facilities, Marketing, and the Executive Committee.  More than a third of our board members made time this year to enthusiastically welcome museum visitors, introducing films, speakers, and programs.

In fiscal year 2019, the Board Education Committee—comprised of six Board Members and three staff members—introduced a series of Board engagement sessions designed to offer Board Members behind-the-scenes experiences and deepen Board Members’ knowledge of museum management, exhibit design, collections management, and education, connecting Board more closely with the daily projects of JMM staff.

>In January, six Board Members attended the first Tuesdays with Marvin lunchtime lecture with Executive Director Marvin Pinkert, where they learned about museum management, ethics, mentors, and more.

>In March, three Board Members (including one Past President) and three eager staff members joined collections staff Joanna Church and Lorie Rombro in an exploration of purple objects from the collection—a total of nine objects including Pikesville High School cheerleading pom-poms, a Baltimore user’s guide from Jewish College Services, and a beaded handbag originally belonging to Henrietta Szold.

>In April two Board Members joined 43 seventh graders and four teachers from John Ruhrah Elementary/Middle School to see JMM’s lively school programs in action—led by staff members Ilene Dackman-Alon and Paige Woodhouse. Board members joined students as they conducted research and created stories based on objects on display in the Fashion Statement exhibit, observing as students thought critically about what we can (and can’t) learn about someone based on their clothing choices. The class also experienced the Lloyd Street Synagogue through the eyes of a student learning about the Jonestown neighborhood and the immigrant community.

In addition to the series, the committee helped make our Board Retreat possible. On November 13, 2018, at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, seventeen board members joined four staff and one facilitator (Acharai’s Beth Gansky) for a three-hour process of discovery and discourse, as we learned more about the whys, whats, hows, and how-I-loves of JMM. (Watch for another board retreat this September, tentatively scheduled for September 17th.)

Thank you to our fantastic board for their counsel and guidance in the year ahead: Robert Keehn (President), Nancy Kutler (Senior Vice President), Jeffrey Scherr (Vice President), Len Weinberg (Vice President), Jerry Macks (Treasurer), Arnold Fruman (Secretary), Duke Zimmerman (Immediate Past President), Toby Gordon, Saralynn Glass, Judy Pachino, Ira Malis, Bob Gehman, Erica Breslau, Robert Manekin, Stuart Rosenzwog, Angela Wells-Sims, Steven Hawtof, Alan Dorenfeld, Bonnie Heneson, Abe Kronsberg, Lola Hahn, Lee Rosenberg, Claire Tesh, Roberta Greenstein, Suzanne Levin-Lapides, Sheldon Bearman, Neri Cohen, Rikki Spector, Iris Krasnow, and Anita Kassof.

We are looking forward to an exciting new year together!

~Tracey & Jess