Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

Much needed in museum in the south... It shows a lot of struggles for other peoples who relocated here and other southern states. Great front and staff very well done

When visiting a new City, I often seek out a local Jewish Museum (or Deli) as I'm drawn to our multi-faceted culture/religion and the associated history. Before visiting NOLA, my last experience was the South Africa Jewish Museum in Johannesburg. And although Gayle would have preferred a visit to the nearby WW2 museum, I deeply appreciate that my dear Wife knows that my Jewish identity is important, especially since October 7. MSJE is a cool little museum that honors the settlement, growth, and life of the Jewish Community in the Southern States. The Museum is easily traversed in about an hour and consists of 3 main sections: Early settlement and life (including small towns), religious objects and practices, and modern influences. Of course there's a Holocaust section, as there is a very interesting one on the Civil Rights era. NOLA is covered well, but I appreciated the regional approach provided. The 8 minute film is also worth your time. My only quibble was the "Women of Valor display that was missing the one and only Florence Kusnetz. MSJE also has a nice gift shop of which I snagged a mezuzah made from a Bourbon barrel and crafted by...the BourbonRabbi. Gayle and I had a fabulous time here and I learned some new things, particularly regarding my previous southern Jewish community experiences in New Orleans, Houston, Baton Rouge, College Station, Austin, and Mobile.

Time very well spent. This is a beautiful telling of the experience of the Jews of the southern states from 16th century to the present. Covers the highs and lows of the experience as well as the story of the broader fight for civil rights. For Jews and others visiting NOLA - Highly recommended.

Fun museum. You don't have to be Jewish to find it interesting. SJE doesn't try to be comprehensive. If you're looking for a no-stone-left-unturned museum go up the street to the WW2 museum. But it does place the Southern Jewish experience in context from colonial times to the present. And there's a strong focus on the small towns across the South where a Jewish merchant set up shop and tried to fit in asa small minority among Christian neighbors and customers. There's data and there are individual stories that make the data relatable. While this is a Jewish museum founded and run by Jews, the SJE doesn't shy away from unpleasant facts: 25% of Jews in the South before the Civil Wars were enslavers. And plenty of Southerners fought for the Confederacy. And while SHE details Jews who battled for equal rights in the 1960s and 70s, the museum notes that the overwhelming majority "sat on the side lines."The rotating exhibit is about Rosenwald schools in the South. Don't miss it. This didn't get taught at the religious school at my synagogue or at my public school. White school boards wouldn't build schools for black children Julius Rosenwald, the CEO of Sears, teamed up with Booker T. Washington to build almost 5000 schools for Black children across the US South

This is a relatively new museum as of this writing. I'm well-versed in diverse museums, including several Jewish ones, but the idea of a Southern Jewish museum was novel to me. Apparently, the collection existed in Mississippi in some other form before migrating to New Orleans, which is probably a better destination. While New Orleans is very distinctive, it is broadly part of the American South, and the museum has a broad geographic focus with only a minority of content dedicated to the city in which it now resides. It is a beautiful historic Warehouse District building and there is some intriguing content, but I left thinking that it just wasn't fully developed.The building apparently has other uses, so the museum runs only a couple of rooms on one floor and a relatively non-intuitive staircase leads to the second floor room, which was displaying an art exhibit. As such, the museum crams in a lot of narratives without going into any real depth on any one particular story. A shocking story of a Jewish man being lynched draws eyes, but no context is given as to the history that led to it. A wall of examples of people fleeing the Holocaust or reacting to it is valuable, but only if you really understand what happened (and surveys show that a disturbingly large proportion of Americans to not). The most detailed content was a set of computer terminals at the end which display stories on specific Jewish communities. I looked up several in locations familiar to me.At the end, there was a lot of reading and not enough from my perspective to show for it. And while they touch on the complex relationship between the Jewish communities and African American civil rights, there is not nearly enough nuance or detail for someone to really wrap their head around that subject, let alone any other. Particularly given the $15 (plus fees) admission fee, I didn't think it was a sufficiently engaging or in-depth take on the subject matter. I could imagine that perhaps one day someone might buy out the rest of the building and make it into several floors to give more space for telling a proper story, but for now I suspect it will be a niche attraction for those bad weather New Orleans days.

This is such a well done museum. Fascinating presentation of how Jews came to and settled in the south from centuries ago to more recent. The exhibits are clear and we truly appreciated the museum. We went on a Thursday morning in May. There were a few others there but not crowded. Parking near by on the street was easy.

Professional and a great place for high school students to learn about Jews in America , of course , namely the south .

This was a great museum experience.The museum was just about a year old when I visited. Everything was shiny and brand new. You begin with the film which was engaging on how many different facets of the southern Jewish experience there are - being in a relatively blue neighbourhood of a big city in a red state is a much different experience than being in a small town in a very red state. In just a few minutes (it is supposed to be about 8 minutes long but I wasn't timing the old gal) the film captures the essence of this by focusing on the contemporary people and their stories that you got a slightly different aspect of later when you climbed the staircase to see their portraits in the gallery above. This was such a fun slice of oral, local, social history. This was like getting someone interesting drunk at dinner and letting them just talk so you could learn things from them talking, but they were just volunteering this stuff.For vibes, the museum design and experience did really well to capture the history and snapshots of life (good and bad) that pre- and post-date the Holocaust. There was ashkenazi/sephardic/mizrahi joy before and after the Holocaust. This is not a Holocaust museum, but obviously the Holocaust had a huge impact on such things as the size of my family, almost nobody made it out of Austria in the 1930s and the remainder died between the 1940s and 70s of other things so as a not-1-year old I only had a tween/teen/young adult relationship with one surviving grandparent and zero great-grands. Whereas most non-ashkenazim often have four grandparents and even more great-grands still alive by the time the big 4-0 rolls around.There was an interactive touch screen exhibit in the second room for those that tired of reading in the first room about the travelling salesmen and how they kept kosher with hard boiled eggs. (Believe it or not, Frank Reynolds' "May I offer you an egg in this trying time?") actually is historically accurate for his ashkenazim forebears in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia). The touch screen exhibit was fun to confirm I had an approximate third grade educational reference point for all things ashkenazim like the difference between tzedakah and a shanda, just like kugel without raisins!!!! (I ain't giving you the actual answers to the questions so don't slide up in my DMs unless you at least caught the Andi Mack reference).The final contemporary room was interesting to see where the modern timeline ended, with Charlottesville basically. The hate crimes have been way up on the rise and keep getting higher, so this portion of the museum will alway need adding to, which is just our reality. So unfortunately there will be new exhibits as the tail end of the modern era keeps getting pulled forward with one terrible headline after another as the crime statistics continue to worsen. I was expecting to see something about the devastating slaughter of Blaze Bernstein in California by a member of the atomwaffen in 2018. My only criticism of the museum seems to be an aversion to anything LGTBQ+, of which there is a lot of interplay (besides Blaze's homicide) in the intersectionality of hate crimes, both in Nazi Germany and in the modern era with actual elected congresspersons unironically talking about Jewish space lasers these days.To not end things on a down note, you exit through the gift shoppe. I got in an Uber and went to Shaya afterwards because nothing says ashkenazim joy like putting some hummus on it - if you are considering visiting this museum I will safely assume you have seen You Don't Mess with the Zohan and understand that hummus goes on (and improves) everything.Five star experience for a meaningful and important new museum's addition to one of the world's finest cities. If you have done (or are planning to do) the WWII museum nearby don't miss this one right after.

This is not a particularly big museum, but it still has interesting exhibits. So what is it about? Well, I think it's best to view it as a "What was life like in the historic South like?" But with a focus on Jewish people. So for me at least, as a non-Jewish person, it was a mix of familiar and non-familiar history. It covers initial immigration and settling in the USA, anti-immigration sentiments, anti-Semitism, the Civil Rights movement, etc. It also highlights some prominent Jewish business people from the local area, like Touro.I think the weakest part of the visit was the little intro movie. It wasn't bad, but it felt kinda like fluff/filler.The museum is split between two floors. Visitors can plan on spending a couple hours here. If you like history then it's worth the visit.

I visited this museum this past weekend with my husband and friend. Based on a few negative reviews I was skeptical, but overall the reviews were great. I'm so glad we went! As someone stated, yes compared to other museums it may be small, but every museum can't be like the MET! Although "small", it's small, but mighty. There is sooo much history! The exhibits were displayed very nicely. I was surprised to see so much history from small towns that I have personally visited. The director was very nice and engaging. I wish we had more time, but I tried to take pics of what I missed to read later. My friend wasn't interested in the museum at first,but ended up loving it! My husband and I love history and this was a great experience for us. Also, I loved the postcard experience at the end!