Coming To America: Items From The Maltz Museum Tell The Story Of Cleveland's Jewish Community

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage will come to the Main Library Auditorium on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. to present the illustrated lecture Coming to America: Cleveland’s Jewish Community. In a second program, the Maltz Museum will host a guided tour of the museum in Beachwood on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. These two programs are held in conjunction with the In a Nutshell:The Worlds of Maurice Sendak exhibit currently on display in the Main Library Second Floor Gallery.

The lecture will use objects and images from the Maltz Museum to illustrate how early Jews in Cleveland maintained tradition, and at the same time tried to assimilate into American culture. The struggle to become American parallels the experience of many Jewish immigrants, including a young Jewish boy in Brooklyn named Maurice Sendak. The In a Nutshell exhibit explores the same idea in many popular Sendak illustrations, revealing the conflict between ethnic identity and tradition with the desire to be American. 

The Maltz Museum will also be hosting a special guided tour at the Beachwood Museum on Sunday, February 12 at 2:00 p.m. A docent will lead the group through the American Story Gallery, which looks at the lives and concerns of Jewish immigrants who came to Cleveland during the first half of the 20th century. The Friends of the Lakewood Public Library have generously funded museum admission for a limited number of people; those interested should register at 216-226-8275, ext. 127. After the tour, attendees are encouraged to explore the galleries on their own. For more information on the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, visit: http://www.maltzmuseum.org/.

In a Nutshell was organized by the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia, and developed by Nextbook, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Jewish literature, culture, and ideas, and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The national tour of the exhibit has been made possible by grants from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Righteous Persons Foundation, the David Berg Foundation, and an anonymous donor, with additional support from Tablet Magazine: A New Read on Jewish Life. The exhibit was curated by Patrick Rodgers of the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The local contributors to this special exhibit and the accompanying programs are The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, CityMusic Cleveland and The Friends of the Lakewood Public Library.

The exhibit will be on display through Feb. 24 in the Main Library Second Floor Gallery.