Reflection: Museum of Jewish Heritage.
There are many different elements of education that together supply the student with a solid understanding of a subject. This is especially true in such subjects as history, religion, and science. In order to complete my thorough understanding of the Holocaust and the events and culture that surrounded this tragic period, I took a trip to New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage. This provided me with an amazing hands-on experience of what is was like to live through such a time, aside from just reading and studying about it.
The most remarkable component of this museum was the organization and how it was set up. Other museums tend to display all of their exhibits in one large smorgasbord, which can be particular overwhelming to someone who is looking for something from a certain era or location. The museum broke the Holocaust and the general culture of Jews into three sections. These sections were Early 20th Century Jewish Life, The War Against the Jews (the period of the Holocaust), and the era of Jewish Reconstruction.
The first section was shockingly the most astonishing because it documented the everyday lives of the Jews. It covered all aspects of Jewish life, ranging from traditions and the general culture that they preserved to the operations of businesses and local governments. What made this section so astonishing was the fact that you were able to see how thriving the Jewish culture was and how they went about their everyday lives; but then within months everything changed. The museum supplied us with actual home footage and pictures of holiday celebrations and festivals. The main theme of these documentaries was to portray how peaceful these people were and the innocence that they conveyed before it all suddenly changed.
The second section, The War Against the Jews, documented the cultural and geopolitical changes that occurred in this region as well as the struggles that the Jews had to, or better yet, tried to, overcome.
