ro T HE occ• P' • Gift Baskets • Sweet Trays • Muffins • Soups • Cookies Everything Made Fresh Daily Setting Goals For national Holocaust museum, money and relevance are key challenges. he chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, Fred Zeidman, sees a wide range of new goals for the institution as it enters its second decade. "We are truly at a watershed point in the museum's history," Zeidman told JTA in a recent interview. "The first 10 years were truly the honey- moon period. When the museum opened, people — knowing the need for this museum — really were incredibly forthcoming philanthropi- cally, and the survivors were all here to tell the story." Fundraising remains constant even with the survivor generation in its twilight, Zeidman said, but the chal- lenge of spreading the museum's mes- sage takes on a new urgency. A longtime ally and fundraiser for President Bush, Zeidman was nomi nated to the council - chairmanship by the president last year. He has pledged to keep politics out of muse- um operations, while maintaining a focus on the Holocaust itself. "We've got to keep this story alive; we've got to make it breathe," Zeidman said. "There are 2 million people a year that come to the muse- um," but "there are so many people who can't come to the museum. "We've got to take it to the rest of this country. There are 280 million people in this country, every one of who needs to be knowledgeable about what we do here," he said. "We need to be America's national educator." Toward that end, Zeidman said he wants to increase teacher-training programs, work with more museums with traveling exhibitions and increase existing cooperation with law enforcement officials. Police officials in Georgia, for example, are speaking with the muse- urn about setting up daylong training visits similar to existing programs with departments from Maryland, Virginia and Washington. "We've got to take it to the people with the greatest potential to impact society, the caretakers of democracy, the educators, the law enforcement officials, the judiciary, the military, the civic leaders," Zeidn-ia.n said. In addition to the yearly Days of Remembrance ceremonies in April, a number of special events are planned for this year In June, to honor the anniversary year, the museum will sponsor a new exhibit of some original writings of Anne Frank, the first time the writ- ings will be shown outside of Amsterdam's Anne Frank House. In late summer or fall, the museum will host a special night for Holocaust survivors and their families. That will arguably be the last time that this will ever happen," Zeidman number of traveling exhibitions, and more than 350 Washington school- children, most of them African American, have participated in the "Bring the Lessons Home" program, a project that includes a summer internship and educational classes. At the close of the program, the students use their training to lead community members on a tour of the museum. The museum also has become a model for the new generation of Washington museums. Its success helped spur the development of Washington's National Museum of the American Indian and the planned National Museum of African American History and Culture. Holocaust museum offkials have met with the planners of those other efforts to lend their help, Zeidman said. "This broke the ground for that kind of place," Talisman said. "There had been attempts for decades to build an African-American history museum." Officials planning the construction of a Sept. 11 memorial in New York also visited the museum recently to gather ideas. Over the next decade, one of the main challenges for the museum will be maintaining its Jewish character. After all, survivors originally had ELI KINTISCH Jewish Telegraphic Agency ITI said. "We'll have a special night so that survivors can bring their chil- dren and grandchildren and hopeful- ly tell their stories and show the museum to their kids. There has been a tremendous reticence on the part of so many survivors to truly tell their story." But, Zeidman said, the museum has given many people a chance to tell their stories, keeping the institu- tion's research department busy. "We're trying to record every story we can possibly get," he said of the research efforts. "The real problem is that we don't have a lot of time left." Noting that the museum so far has weathered the nation's economic downturn, Zeidman said he sees a bright financial future for the museum. "I've been pleasantly surprised," he said. "I'm not hearing, 'I'm not giv- ing this year because the stock mar- ket's down; I'm not giving this year because I had to give to Sept. 11. I'm not giving this year because I'm crivincr to Israel,'" he said. giving "The more money I can raise pri- vately, the less dependent I am on the federal government," Zeidman said, adding that a "key goal" of the coming decade was to raise an endowment for the museum. As for the fear that the Holocaust may be seen to lose relevance with every passing year, Zeidman said that the history the museum repre- sents remains as important as ever. The incidences of terrorism and Sept. 11 are bringing the reality of this kind of activity home," he said "It's just reinforcing the importance of telling our kids, 'Let me tell you what happens when this starts and we don't do anything about it.'" El Voted Best Challah. Bread! $1.00 Off Any Bread Order 1 coupon per order Expires 4/30/03 Not good with any other discount or special offer. Not valid on. holiday orders. 24-hour notice please on specialty items (some exceptions) 6579 Orchard Lake Rd. in the Boardwalk Plaza 248-626-9110 .604270 Our advertisers are thrilled with the results they get from the Detroit Jewish News "Thanks to the loyal readership of the Jewish News, which is our only means of regular worried that in opening a national museum on federal land, the Holocaust might be enshrined as an event that included Jews, rather than a specifically Jewish event. "They were still ready to take the risk," said the national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, a sur- vivor who sat on the Holocaust council while the museum was planned and launc*1. But Foxman admitted that he and other survivors still worry that future generations maintaining the museum might reduce its Jewish content. "How do we make sure 20 years from now that Shoah' is a word that resonates?" he asks. ❑ advertising, we are proud to have become one of the finest