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CRUISE

489-5888

L I N E

GROWN AND AACKE0 BY

SHIPS' REGISTRY: BAHAMAS. ©1992 NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE.

YORBA ORANGE GROWERS ASSOCIATION

YORBA DISTRICT
PLACENTIA, CALIFORNIA

The Cruise & Vacation Shoppe of

ti

6UMMIT MAVEL

Hours: 9AM-5:30PM (Eve. & Sat. by appt. only)

28859 Orchard Lake Rd.

(Between 12 & 13 Mile Rds.)

ORANGE COUNTY

GROWN IN U. S. A.

12. c .;1 4.E X

1

A sample of advertising in the American Jewish life
exhibition.

Stuff of Jewish Life
Is Exhibit's Focus

RUTH ROVNER

Having 25 for
the holidays?

Let Royal Viking serve You for the
next 10 days in the M editerranean.

If you liked the Sea Goddess and the Seabourn...
you'll love the Royal Viking Queen.

Sailin, October 9,1992

cr

Fabulous rates include:

-2 nights pre-cruise in Venice at the Hotel Danieli
10 days cruising Italy, Greece and Turkey
-2 nights postcruise in Istanbul at the Ciragin Palace
-Roundtrip air from Detroit

-

(

S E RA

For rates & information ask for Susan Jacobs

ROYAL INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

(313) 644-1600

out-state only (800 521-1600

31455 Southfield Rd., Birmingham

Fall Passions Coming September 4th

62

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1992

Special to The Jewish News

S

ometimes it's the
seltzer bottling mach-
ine that intrigues
visitors most. Or they linger
over the spice boxes with the
names of spices written in
Yiddish, or the National
Jewish Fund tin ashtray.
"People react so strongly
when they see these familiar
things in a museum exhibit,"
says Joyce Weiss, a guide at
the National Museum of
American Jewish History on
Independence Mall in Phila-
delphia.

It's the nation's only mu-
seum devoted exclusively to
American Jewish history, and
its latest exhibit, on display
through October 1st, has been
drawing many visitors.
Titled "Ordinary and Ex
traordinary Lives: Five Years
of Collecting," it is an exhibit
of 140 objects, some of them
quite mundane, that present
a wide-ranging view of Amer-
ican Jewish life.
Shabbat candlesticks, fami-
ly photos, bar mitzvah invita-
tions — all are on display. So
is the mah jongg pouch used
by the co-founder of the Na-
tional Mah Jongg League,
Marion Banks. There also•are
the first known Yiddish
language cookbook printed in
America, dated 1914, a Bart
Simpson suede yarmulke, a
Bella Abzug campaign but-
ton, and sheet music that in-
cludes "Jake, Jake the Yid-
dische Ball Player," written
by Irving Berlin in 1913.
People just go crazy when
they see all this," says Ms.

Weiss. "They're amazed to see
such humble objects displayed
in a museum."
But such objects are a le-
gitimate part of this museum.
"The items we collect repre-
sent a new interpretation of
Jewish and ethnic history,
one that includes objects
usually seen as everyday and
ordinary," says curator Karen
Mittelman.
"We want people to know
that the artifacts of their dai-
ly lives and the lives of their
parents, grandparents, and
even their children, are the
stuff of which history is
made."
While some visitors are de-
lighted to see familiar objects,
for others the items are not at

It's the nation's
only museum
devoted
exclusively to
American Jewish
history.

all familiar. One third of the
museum's visitors are not
Jewish, and many of them are
from foreign countries.
As a docent, Ms. Weiss has
met visitors from France, Ger-
many, England, Italy, Japan,
Canada, Israel and all over
the United States. "And
they're often amazed at the
size of the museum's collec-
tion," she says. That collec-
tion has grown considerably
since the museum opened in
1976 with only 40 objects. lb-
day, its collection includes
over 6000 artifacts, half of
which were added in the last
five years.
Of course, not everything is