Museum of Jewish Heritage

The Museum of Jewish Heritage, located at 36 Battery Park Place, Manhattan (New York City, USA), was created as a living memorial to the Holocaust. The hexagonal shape and tiered roof of the building are symbolic of the six points of the Star of David and the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. It opened September 15, 1997.

In addition to a large permanent exhibit on the Holocaust entitled The War Against the Jews, it also contains two other permanent exhibits on Jewish culture: Jewish Life a Century Ago, and Jewish Renewal. The three permanent exhibits are arranged chronologically, with Jewish Life A Century Ago on the first floor, The War Against the Jews on the second floor, and Jewish Renewal (focusing on contemporary Jewish culture, especially Israel) on the third floor.

Temporary exhibits and Safra Hall, a theater, are to be found in the Robert M. Morgenthau wing. There is also a memorial garden, “Garden of Stones” designed by Andy Goldsworthy, in this wing. The garden consists of 18 boulders, each with a dwarf oak sapling growing from inside the hollowed-out stone. They symbolize resiliency. The number 18 was chosen specifically because the Hebrew word for life, chai, has a numerological value of 18.

Monitors, speakers, and projectors playing interviews of relevant persons punctuate the exhibits. 800 artifacts (many of them personal belongings) and 2,000 photographs are on display.

As of 2005, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau is the chairman of the Museum.