(photo: wikipedia)

Right alongside Philadelphia’s Independence Mall (you know, National Constitution Center, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall), at Market and 5th Street is the National Museum of American Jewish History, a five-story exhibition space, opened in 2010. You start at the top, in the special exhibit space, and work your way down.

On the top floor currently is a exhibition of Richard Avedon’s portrait photos from the 1970s. Quite a rocky trip down memory lane seeing the pictures of the Nixon-era politicos practically giving off whiffs of scandal and napalm.

The next three floors are devoted to the permanent exhibition,a chronological exploration of Jewish history in America. They are a warren of connecting galleries that makes the most of the space and the creative display of information. The first (top) of these floors is themed “Foundations of Freedom,” about the earliest Jewish arrivals, in the period 1654 to 1880. Their experiences as immigrants, earning a living and becoming established in communities across the country were fascinating. While we think of the early 20th century Ashkenazi settlers from Germany, Poland, and Russia as representing American Jewry, many of the earliest settlers were Sephardic and came from Spain and Portugal via London and South America. Thus, Charleston, as a southern city, was an early settlement hub and in 1800 had the country’s largest Jewish population.

The “Dreams of Freedom” exhibit on the third floor covers the period 1880-1945, including the big migration years, the shift of the Jewish population center to New York, and the impact of two World Wars. A portion of this floor covers the contribution of Jewish people in many areas of life–manufacturing, industry, marketing, the labor movement–as well as to the arts and entertainment industries, including a film clip of Groucho Marx’s classic, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It!” newly relevant today. The second floor reviews 1945 to today, and we’d run out of time and didn’t linger. There’s a lovely gift shop and a café.

We ate lunch a few blocks away at the Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar. It was too early in the day to take full advantage of the rum bar, but the Old Havana atmosphere was fun and the food and service good. This restaurant is an outpost of a small chain that also has restaurants in Washington, DC, Orlando, and Atlantic City, NJ.