"Meet the Family" – online conversations series
"Meet the Family" – online conversations with the descendants of distinguished Polish Jews, moderated by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of POLIN Museum’s Core Exhibition.
- Start: 7 February (Sunday), 2:00PM EST / 11:00AM PST, 8:00PM CET, 9:00PM Israel
- Free admission, no registration needed
- The event was live-streamed POLIN Museum’s English profile
Each month, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett will meet the descendants of outstanding Polish Jews. Together, they will explore their lives and achievements and significance of their legacy today and for future generations. The conversations are streamed live on POLIN Museum’s English profile. This series accompanies the new Legacy gallery at POLIN Museum.
The 26 individuals featured in the Legacy gallery, when considered together, form a collective portrait of Polish Jews and their achievements. They made their mark in a wide range of fields, vary in their relationship to the Jewish world and wider society, and lived and worked in many places.
Together they form a constellation, a group portrait, rather than a list. All of them are Polish Jews. All of them were born into Jewish families and raised for the most part in Poland. Some of them abandoned the Jewish world and Poland but continued to feel a deep connection to both. Others made a uniquely Jewish mark on the world, whether they stayed in Poland or left for the United States or Israel!
The “Meet the Family” series will go beyond the 26 luminaries featured in the gallery and broaden the discussion to consider how their lives illuminate the history of Polish Jews, and how the history of Polish Jews illuminates their lives. The series will offer a unique opportunity to meet their descendants, some of whom are devoting their own lives to preserving the legacy of their distinguished forebears.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett will talk with them about their family history and the legacy of their accomplished ancestors. These conversations will explore how those who achieved so much overcame limitations, pursued their goals, and took responsibility for themselves and others. May those we honor in these conversations inspire us today and in the future.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, is the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews and University Professor Emerita at New York University.
Her books include "Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums", and "Heritage; Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864–1939" (with Lucjan Dobroszycki); "They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of Jewish Life in Poland Before the Holocaust" (with Mayer Kirshenblatt); "The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times" (with Jonathan Karp); "Anne Frank Unbound: Media, Imagination, Memory" (with Jeffrey Shandler).
She has received honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary, University of Haifa, and Indiana University. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was decorated with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of the Republic of Poland. She is the recipient of the 2020 Dan David Prize.
She serves on Advisory Boards for the Council of American Jewish Museums, Jewish Museum Vienna, Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, and advises on museum and exhibition projects in Lithuania, Belarus, Albania, Israel, and the United States.
