Pols Inaugurate Exhibit Floor

By COLlive reporter
Photos: Chaim Perl, Video: Yosef Shidler

400 guests and many elected officials and dignitaries joined the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights for the official opening of the museum’s fourth floor on Sunday evening.

The dinner and ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of the new 6,000 square-foot floor of exhibits entitled “A Journey Through Jewish History,” with the entire floor dedicated to the history of the Jewish people through the ages.

Honored with cutting the ribbon were Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Marty Markowitz, NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, NY State Assemblyman Karim Camara, and New York City Comptroller John Liu, who stood alongside Devorah Halberstam, director of Foundation and Government Services and the Museum’s Director Rabbi Yerachmiel Benjaminson.

In attendance were Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, New York City Councilman Dr. Mathieu Eugene, NY Assemblyman Nick Perry, and Councilman Lew Fidler.

Marty Markowitz said the museum, which has had more than a million and half visitors since opening, will now “share with people of all religions the beauty, the challenges, the sadness and the triumph of the Jewish people.”

Following a tour though the various exhibits, guests enjoyed a gala dinner, where the emcee Deborah Feyerick, a CNN Correspondent, spoke about her friendship with Halberstam.

Reading from a recent essay that Halberstam wrote on the 18th anniversary of her son’s killing by a Lebanese terrorist, it ended with the poignant line, “All I ask of you is that you remember Ari.”

Honoree Ray Kelly, who has recently been under fire for anti-terror security measures his department takes, said that “in the world that we live in today, we cannot have too many organizations promoting tolerance and respect for diversity.”

Sheldon Silver, the Albany powerhouse, received the Ari Halberstam memorial award and said he was proud to have been the one to author Ari’s Law in 1999 in memory of Halberstam. The same year, they attended the groundbreaking of the museum.

“Love and passion for survival keeps Ari’s name alive,” he said. “Our best hope for peace and unity and tolerance lies with our children. And this museum will open our children’s eyes to the truth – that violence and intolerance will never be a solution to our differences.”

Mrs. Halberstam, Ari’s mother, spoke about the freedom that each of us enjoy as citizens of a country such as the United States, the same freedom and redemption which we celebrate each Passover, which falls this week.

“My Ari was deprived of that freedom,” she said. “The universal message of Passover is that freedom and redemption are always within reach. Adversity brings out strengths we didn’t know we had,” she said. “This museum stands as a beacon of light.”