The Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, continues to host virtual programs while the museum remains closed during the COVID-19 crisis. All events take place at 2 p.m. Suggested donation for each event is $10.

For more information or to sign up for the following August Zoom events, visit mjhnyc.org/events.

Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through The Twentieth Century
Tuesday, August 11 | 2 PM
For centuries, the Greek port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family – leading publishers and editors who helped chronicle modernity as it was experienced by Sephardic Jews across the Ottoman Empire. As the wars of the twentieth century redrew borders around them, the Levys were gradually transformed from Ottomans to Greeks. Family members soon moved across boundaries and hemispheres, stretching the familial diaspora from Greece to Western Europe, Israel, Brazil, and India. In time, the Holocaust nearly eviscerated the clan, eradicating whole branches of the family tree.

In Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century, prize-winning Sephardic historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein uses the Levy family’s correspondence to tell the story of their sprawling journey. 

Author and Columbia University Professor of Israel and Jewish Studies Clémence Boulouque will discuss Stein’s book as well as Sephardic experiences during the Holocaust.

“No. 4 Street Of Our Lady”
Film Discussion
August 13 | 2 PM
Fran Malkin, her daughter Debbi Schonberger-Pierce, and filmmaker Judy Maltz will talk about their film, “No. 4 Street of Our Lady.”

Born in Sokal, Poland (now Ukraine), Fran “Fay” Malkin was 3-years-old in 1941 when the Germans invaded the Sokal region and shot and killed 400 of the town’s Jewish men, including Fran’s father. Fearing for their lives, Fran’s remaining family fled to the home of a Polish Catholic woman, Francisca, who hid them in a hayloft for two years, while passing off as a Nazi sympathizer.

In 1949, Fran moved with her family to the U.S., where she went on to become a successful real estate broker. In 2007, she returned to Sokal with her cousin, filmmaker Judy Maltz, to a documentary about her rescue. At war’s end, only 30 of Sokal’s 6,000 Jews had survived, half of them rescued by Francisca. The film draws on excerpts from a diary kept by Fran’s uncle Moshe Maltz, and incorporates testimonies from Fran, other rescued Jews, and Francisca’s two granddaughters as they reconnect on a journey back to Sokal.

“Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow Of Senator Joe McCarthy” with Larry Tye
Thursday, August 20 | 2 PM
U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the most controversial people in 1950s America, championing an anti-communist movement that often gave way to antisemitism. In Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, bestselling author Larry Tye offers a comprehensive portrait of McCarthy based on the first-ever review of his personal and professional papers, medical and military records, and recently unsealed transcripts of his closed-door Congressional hearings. Join Tye for a discussion of his new book and McCarthy’s complex legacy.