is pleased to present the virtual tour of
the special exhibition

November 8, 2022 - March 21, 2023

How Jews
Became Citizens:
Highlights from the Sid Lapidus Collection

Emancipation was the centuries-long process by which Jews secured, and continued to defend, civil and political rights. European leaders’ and thinkers’ debates about the terms of Jews’ admission to a country, settlement, occupations, and civil liberties shaped both law and public opinion. For their part, Jews were proactive and fully engaged in the process, never mere passive recipients of rights.

Sid Lapidus’s book collection, recently donated to the Center for Jewish History, tells this complex story of how Jews became citizens—primarily in Western and Central Europe, though Jews in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire also experienced this process. The Lapidus Collection reveals the social conditions, intellectual life, and gradual emancipation of the Jews of Europe from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Many of these books address one another and point to how Jewish emancipation was a constant negotiation.

Ivy Weingram, Guest Curator

Virtual Tour

ENTER

How Jews Became Citizens: Highlights from the Sid Lapidus Collection
has been made possible by the generous support of Sid and Ruth Lapidus, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom,* public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Center for Jewish History
Peter Baldwin, Board Chair
Gavriel Rosenfeld, President
Rio Daniel, CEO
Rachel Miller, Chief of Archive and Library Services
Ivy Weingram, Guest Curator

Lauren Gilbert
Sarah Hopley
Shayna Marchese
Sean Naftel
Ilana Rosenbluth

Exhibition academic advisors
Sharon Liberman-Mintz,
The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary
Marsha Rozenblit, University of Maryland
Daniel Schwartz, The George Washington University
David Sorkin, Yale University, chief advisor

With thanks to the Center of Jewish History Academic Advisory Council, Yeshiva University Museum, Bernard J. Michael, Beth Brideau, Andrey Filimonov, The New Jewish Home, and Terry Baranoff

Film “Eight Over Eighty,” a short video created by The New Jewish Home when honoring Sid Lapidus in 2020 Produced and Directed by Nick Davis and Mark Rosenberg © 2020 Nick Davis Productions Courtesy of The New Jewish Home, New York

* Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibit do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for Humanities.

is pleased to present the virtual tour of the special exhibition

is pleased to present the virtual tour of
the special exhibition