Core Exhibitions
9,000 square feet of permanent exhibition space
Orientation Film
Shalom. Make Yourself at Home
The Mintz Family Theater is home to our award-winning eight-minute orientation film, Shalom. Make yourself at home. Bringing to life the voices and faces of the Jewish South, this film lays the groundwork for the history and experiences visitors will encounter throughout the museum, evoking the texture of Jewish life in thirteen Southern states across three centuries. It takes a big-picture approach, asking: Why does the Southern Jewish experience matter? and What can it teach Jews and non-Jews, Southerners and non-Southerners? The Mintz Family Theater also serves as home to many of the museum's public programs, from lectures to film screenings to musical performances.
Gallery 1
From Immigrants to Southerners
The story of the Southern Jewish experience begins thousands of miles from American shores. Tracing the major migrations of Jews to the American South beginning in the 1700s, this gallery explores how Jewish immigrants journeyed to American ports and navigated into the interior of the South. From establishing stores to synagogues, From Immigrants to Southerners touches on themes including merchant life, social institutions, and religious practice.
Don't Miss:
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The silver kiddush cup made in 1677 and brought to Louisiana by Felix Fraenkel in 1852
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The Civil War diary of Simon Mayer of Natchez, Mississippi
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A pistol given to Bernard Mansberg after he survived the 1900 Galveston Hurricane to ward off looters
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A Coca-Cola bottle declared kosher by Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen in 1936
Gallery 2
Foundations of Judaism
"Foundations of Judaism," housed in the Feil Family Foundation Atrium, focuses on the diversity of Jewish beliefs and practices, from holidays and life cycle events to the values that are foundational from Jews from the American South and around the world. This interactive gallery includes an art installation of reproduction stained-glass windows from nearly twenty synagogues across the American South.
Don't Miss:
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The Delta Tallit, woven from cotton grown on the Grunfest Farm in Cary, Mississippi
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The stained glass windows from eighteen Southern synagogues
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Holocaust survivor Albert Daube's haggadah brought from Germany to Ardmore, Oklahoma
Gallery 3
Entering a New Era
The final core gallery investigates Southern Jewish experiences during World War II and the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement, suburbanization of the rural American South, and Southern Jews in popular culture. The gallery concludes with a review of Southern Jewish life today and the Community Quilt Interactive, which provides a creative space where visitors can explore their own identity and community while reflecting on the diverse experiences of Jewish communities in the American South.
Don't Miss:
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Thirteen-year-old Ilse Hamburger's diary chronicling her journey from Germany to McGehee, Arkansas, in 1936
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Handwritten letters from 4th graders at St. Patricks School, in Meridian, Mississippi, to the rabbi of Beth Israel expressing sorrow for the KKK bombing of his synagogue, in 1968
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Sam Stein's cash register from his Greenville, Mississippi, store that eventually became Stein Mart
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Our Ruth Bader Ginsburg Mardi Gras float used in 2019 by the Krewe du Mishigas
Special Exhibition
Holocaust Survivors in a New Land: The New Americans Social Club of New Orleans
“Holocaust Survivors in a New Land” tells the story of how those who suffered under the Nazi regime made it to the United States after WWII, were helped by local Jewish communities, and made new lives for themselves in the South.
Online exhibitions
“Greetings from Main Street: Southern Jewish Postcards from Our Collection”
These postcards attest to the presence of Jews across the South. They reveal how the non-Jewish population encountered the Jewish presence in their communities in ways large and small, often on a daily basis.