Volunteer Spotlight on Marty Buckman
Marty Buckman has been volunteering at the JMM for almost 2 years. His perseverance is admirable—he has been working on one project the entire time! He is building a database of birth announcements from the Baltimore Jewish Times dating from 1929 to present. To date, he has reached the issue dated June 6, 1952 and has entered 9,500 births. An important factor is that he is not only including the baby’s names but the parent’s too. He averages data entries of just over one year for each month he volunteers, he jokes that he hopes the project doesn’t outlive him! He has observed that the birth announcements used to average 10 per week, in comparison with today’s Baltimore Jewish Times, where there might only be 1 or 2. The most exciting aspect of this project is that he now recognizes Bar Mitzvah, engagement and wedding announcements for the names he entered as births! He also enjoys reading the old advertisements – it creates a sense of nostalgia. One of the most surprising announcements he came across was a wedding announcement for his wife’s first marriage!
Marty joined the volunteer corps at the JMM after a 28 year career in advertising. In particular, he was the Advertising Director in charge of packaging development in the food service industry. He now likes to spend time on the golf course with a foursome of players who are all 25 years younger than him, and with his 12 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. He also works on a photo history project for the Buckman family, which includes working with over 3,000 family photos he came across 5 years ago.
Marty says that he likes the experience of volunteering at the JMM. He feels it gives him something worthwhile to do and that it is important to perpetuate Jewish identities. We are in total agreement and appreciate his hard work.
A blog post by Volunteer Coordinator Ilene Cohen. The first Monday(ish) of every month she will be highlighting one of our fantastic JMM volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering with the JMM, drop her an email at icohen@jewishmuseummd.org or call 410-732-6402 x217! You can also get more information about volunteering at the Museum here.