Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
On Dec. 11, Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History drew a little closer to becoming the nation’s 22nd Smithsonian institution and the first museum under the umbrella to be solely focused on the American Jewish experience when President Joe Biden signed a bill that created a commission tasked with investigating the change.
The Commission to Study the Potential Transfer of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History to the Smithsonian Institution Act creates a board of eight people given a maximum of two years to create a report and recommendation on the matter to the president and Congress.
The bill, H.R. 7764, was introduced in the House by representatives Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) and Max Miller (R-Ohio), and in the Senate by Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). It was unanimously passed in both houses: first, in the House on Sept. 23 and then in the Senate on Dec. 3.
Philip Darivoff, the Weitzman’s chair emeritus, said the team at the museum is ecstatic to see the process reach this pivotal step.
“It’s a real celebration,” he said. “There are a lot of people doing the happy dance. We have an expression in our American culture to describe something as being impossible. You say, ‘Good luck — that’ll take an act of Congress,’” he said. “We started this process, and it’s pretty intimidating to get a bill from Congress, but we worked hard. We connected with practically every office. When you’re working on something this exciting and this important, you have to control your emotions, and you try to put things on the shelf and not think about them. And the timing of the president signing was kind of a surprise, so we’re just so excited.”
The commission will conduct interviews and research into the feasibility of the project, analyzing everything from logistics of ownership to how the move would transform the museum’s brand and reach. Upon the conclusion of the report, lawmakers will decide whether to pursue the museum’s movement to the Smithsonian umbrella.
Darivoff said that this won’t affect operations at the museum in the meantime.
“I don’t think there’s any changes that will occur at the museum as a consequence of this, other than [the fact that] the commission is privately funded, and we need to lead the effort to fund this mission,” he said.
The Weitzman has a sturdy donor base, and Darivoff said that initial feedback on the funding mission is overwhelmingly positive.
In a press release from earlier this month when the bill passed the Senate and went to the president’s desk, Wasserman-Schultz released a statement that this move is crucial because of the current climate of antisemitism.
“Educating all Americans, from all over the country, about the amazing contributions Jewish Americans made to our nation, not only raises awareness but helps dispel harmful prejudices about our community,” she said. “Welcoming the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History into the larger Smitsonian family would bring that vision closer to reality.”
Darivoff said in an interview a few weeks ago that the addition of the Smithsonian brand may open up the museum to a new crowd. He said visitors to Independence Mall might be spurred to visit a museum they wouldn’t have otherwise gone to because of the Smithsonian name. Boyle, who represents Northeast Philadelphia as well as some portions of Center City, said in another interview with the Exponent that he hopes the destination can become a staple of visitors’ trips to the city, just like Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell.
The Weitzman was previously known as the National Museum of American Jewish History until a gift from shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, which totaled in the tens of millions, was given to the museum in 2021. The gift pulled the museum out of bankruptcy and allowed for the purchase of its current building on Market Street in Center City.
Recent and current exhibitions at the Weitzman include one with artifacts from the Colleyville, Texas, synagogue hostage crisis, an exhibit on the rapid social change that the country has undergone since 2020 and an exhibit on photography from nearby Jewish high school students.
The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum complex, with more than 21 museums located across the Washington, D.C., area and New York. Other notable destinations under the Smithsonian umbrella include the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery. The Weitzman museum would be the first Smithsonian institution in Philadelphia.
Darivoff said the Weitzman is the perfect museum for this mission and that Philadelphia is the perfect city.
“When you consider the greatest contributions that Jews have made to the country, the notion of equal rights is the Jewish understanding of what it means to be created in the image [of God], and that’s enunciated in the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “They sought for society to be based on the values lifted out of the Hebrew bible, and so for Philadelphia to be connected on this topic … there is no better place.”
