Jewish Museum Milwaukee Opens

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MILWAUKEE - It has been 20 years in the making, but Monday the doors to the Jewish Museum Milwaukee finally opened to the public. The Jewish Museum is a walk down memory lane. Some of it painful. Some of it powerful. "I think it's a nice way to show an ethnic community involvement with this city," said educator Ellie Gettinger. Gettinger walked us through the museum where there are exhibits and stories about the Jewish heritage and culture in Milwaukee as waves of Jewish people arrived here in the 19th and 20th centuries. "I think our exhibit on immigration is an amazing way students to learn about why one group came to this country," said Gettinger. There are tragic stories like Paul Strnad and his wife who wrote a cousin in Milwaukee for help in getting a visa. They later died in concentration camps. "It shows you there are people here who are a part of the six million Jews that died in the Holocaust and how they are connected to people in Milwaukee and Wisconsin," said Gettinger. Then there's the story of Milwaukee's Golda Meir. She came here in 1906 when she was 8-years-old. The Russian immigrant who later became Israel's Prime Minister was very active in Socialism and Zionism in Milwaukee. "So she was really part of an active movement and it gave Meir her political beginnings," said Gettinger. It cost $2 million to open the museum. The Jewish Museum Milwaukee is inside Helfaer Community Service Building at 1360 N. Prospect on Milwaukee's east side.