Dr. Misha Galperin, President & CEO

Help shower us with healing and resilience. Help us to rise again. —Rachel Goldberg-Polin, in the eulogy for her son Hersh

Over the weekend we said goodbye to six souls, brutally attacked and kidnapped on October 7, now murdered by Hamas, and finally returned home to their families. Among them was a dual Israeli-American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

As a collective community we have hoped and prayed and gathered and written and posted and lifted our voices since October 7, because the worst act of violence perpetrated against Jews since the Holocaust did not result in a universal condemnation, and Jews were in fact blamed.

Now more than ever, as a community, we need to continue calling out hatred of Jews, refuting false narratives about who we are, proudly sharing the powerful and true stories of Jewish life in America, and calling for the release of the hostages, each of us pained as if they were our own family members. And for some American Jews, they are.

Even as we pray for our extended family members to return home—for the hostages to be released, alive and well—we are, as an American Jewish community, navigating antisemitism in our communities, public schools, campuses, and elsewhere, and seeing some who we thought were allies failing to stand up for us.

When the Weitzman Museum opened our new building on Historic Independence Mall in 2010, we spoke about antisemitism as if it were behind us. We believed the nation’s Jewish museum could stand proudly on the most historic square mile in the country—at the site of the establishment of American freedom—without fearing the hate and conspiracy theories of the past.

Less than a decade later, the hate seeped in and the conspiracy theories oozed out. We spoke and taught more intently about the important role Jews have played in making this nation what it is.

And then—quite honestly—all hell broke loose. Two things happened we thought wouldn’t happen: a pogrom was perpetrated by terrorists against our extended family members at a music festival and in family homes in Israel, and the climate and safety of Jews in America took an even sharper turn for the worse.

There are many organizations out there working hard to fight antisemitism at home and abroad. Our role as the nation’s Jewish museum is to teach truth and counter hate with education, rooted in history and scholarship, from our unique vantage in America’s birthplace. This is the work we have done for more than a decade—a need which is recognized by the highest levels of our government.

We will continue to do our part to ensure America remains a safe and viable home for its vibrant and diverse Jewish community who have played a critical role in shaping this nation since its inception.

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