NMAR Invited to Participate in Summit About Religion and Museums

The museum was invited to participate in a summit that explored reimagining museums as engines of religious literacy, entitled "Sacred Ground: Why America's Museums Need a New Dialogue on Faith." It took place on November 13th at the Eldridge Street Museum (https://www.eldridgestreet.org/) in Manhattan's Lower East Side. 

Keynote address: Religious Fluency as Democracy's Lifeline with Stephen Prothero

​Sessions: 
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Faith: Humanity's Oldest Operating System, moderated by Regina Stein, Scholar-in-Residence, Museum at Eldridge Street

Weaving Religious Awareness into Society's Fabric, moderated by Michael Glickman, Founder, jMUSE 

Sacred Space: Keepers of Collective Memory, moderated by Barbara Drake Boehm, Paul and Jill Ruddock Curator Emerita, The Met Cloisters

Sacred Community: Rituals as Living History, moderated by Chris Stevenson, President and Co-Founder, The National Museum of American Religion

A Conversation on Religion and Civic Life, moderated by Alice Greenwald, former President and CEO, National September 11 Memorial and Museum

The Eldridge Street Synagogue, built in 1877, was the first synagogue in America purpose-built by immigrants from Eastern Europe. The synagogue began to decline following the introduction of the 1924 Immigrant Quota Laws. That new policy, combined with an increasing exodus to outer boroughs, caused a sharp and steady decline in the population of the Jewish Lower East Side. In the 1940s, the congregation relocated to the synagogue’s lower-level chapel and closed off the massive space above them. In 1986, one hundred years after the synagogue first opened, the hidden sanctuary was rediscovered. Immediately, new generations rallied to save the building. The Eldridge Street Project pursued the restoration of the priceless building for nearly 20 years. In December 2007, the restoration was finally complete, and the building was rededicated as the Museum at Eldridge Street.​