The other JMM

A blog post by Deputy Director Tracie Guy-Decker. Read more posts from Tracie by clicking HERE.

Almost exactly one year from now, we will be opening an exhibit we’re borrowing from the Jewish Museum Milwaukee (the other JMM), called **Stitching History from the Holocaust.**

We’re pretty excited about this show, which brings to life the innovative dress designs of Hedy Strnad, a soul and a talent lost to the Holocaust.

The other JMM is also very excited about this exhibit, and they are re-mounting the exhibit, with some enhancements, this spring. Coincidentally my sister, Emily, lives in Milwaukee with her family, and she invited me and my family to visit for Seder.

Beshert, I thought. I could go visit the exhibit IRL, and not just the link I shared with you above. I was to be in Milwaukee from March 29 through April 2. The other JMM opened the exhibit on April 8.

Womp womp.

I didn’t get to see Hedy’s dresses in real life. However, I did get to visit the other JMM, and meet some of my colleagues there.

They shared some of what they’re working on for future exhibits. I told them about some of our plans. We shared impressions of the recent CAJM conference in Washington, DC. I also had the opportunity to enjoy their core exhibition.

Since I was there with my 6-year-old daughter and my nephews who are 7 and 4, I wasn’t able to linger the way I might have (though my sister did an admirable job of keeping the kids occupied so that I could peruse. Thanks, Em!).

Even in my somewhat abbreviated time in the exhibit, I was struck by a few things:

I was reminded that Harry Houdini (with whom this JMM is currently deeply involved, as our original exhibit ***Inescapable: The Life and Legacy of Harry Houdini*** comes together) spent some of his youth in Milwaukee.

I was surprised to read all about the German-Russian divide in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Milwaukee Jewish community. I am well aware of the same divide that beleaguered the Baltimore Jewish community (my family’s stories include the tales of my grandmother’s grandmother who immigrated from what was then Prussia and refused to speak a word of Yiddish, referring to the language as “cussing”). Somehow I naively thought that it was a past that was unique to Baltimore.

And I was taken with a visual family tree/timeline that the other JMM did about the Jewish congregations in the city, visually representing how different schuls splintered and splintered again.

Marvin often tells visitors about how many active congregations in the Baltimore area can trace their roots back to the Lloyd Street Synagogue. The other JMM created a kind of map of those connections (spoiler alert, I’ll be looking into creating our map in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned).

In short, from JMM to JMM, it’s worth the visit!*

*Did you know that Premium-level JMM Members get free reciprocal admission to the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee, as well as at 11 other Jewish museums around the country? Become a premium-level member today!

The other JMM

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