This past February, I started digging into the history of Maryland iron furnaces, a quest that has led us into the woods and next to streams in search of the towering brick structures I’d never noticed in the landscape before. To be honest, before February, I didn’t even realize that Maryland had much of an Read More
Congress Food Market at 5th and East Capital Streets, NE, was owned by the Gimble family, one of many small Jewish-owned grocery markets in DC. A century later, there are still food markets on these busy corners. The Lee family, immigrants from Korea, purchased Congress Food Market in the 1980s. Authors: Lisa Del Read More
Comet Liquor was opened by Oscar Gildenhorn at 18th And Columbia Rd, NW in 1940 and became an institution in the neighborhood. In the 1980s, new owner Sidney Drazin added a deli counter and seating, transforming it into what the Washington Post called a “kind of plastic-chaired neighborhood salon.” A diverse band of “regulars” spent Read More
If you’ve checked your email lately, and if you’ve ever given money to a political party or a candidate, you’ve surely noticed a lot of requests for volunteers and increasingly desperate calls for money. I was on vacation last week, not checking email—something I highly recommend, incidentally—and came back to approximately 40,003 emails from the Read More
Milton Kronheim grew up in DC in the neighborhood around L and 4 ½ St. SW. He came from a liquor family—his father Jacob owned a saloon on Capitol Hill. He dropped out of high school and opened a liquor store in 1903, but when Prohibition put him out of business he worked as a Read More
Join us at the Capital Jewish Food Festival for Michael Twitty’s analysis of the origin of a recipe drawn from our collection. Recipe: Honeyed Chicken, Ruth Sackadorf Image: “Jewish Creative Cooking: 200 years of Jewish Cooking in American” compiled by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, 1975. Capital Jewish Museum collection. Gift of Read More
It’s probably not true that all museum curators think about sex all the time (at least not at work). However, if we’re doing our jobs right, certainly it is important to talk about sex, sometimes. (But only when appropriate, in case my boss is reading this). As an avid museum visitor, I can probably count Read More
Being from Houston, Texas, I didn’t grow up with much concern about history. After all, when a building was about 30 years old, it’d be torn down for a “better” one. It was 1995 before Houston had its first historic preservation ordinance, so while my lack of curiosity about history is not defensible, it is Read More
Every year on the Jewish holiday of Tu B’shvat (the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, which fell this year on January 17), observers celebrate what is affectionately known as the new year of the trees, or “Jewish Earth Day.” In the 1950s and 1960s and beyond, many American synagogues and organizations also Read More
In this current election cycle (Nov 2020), I miss seeing people display their candidate pins on their clothing or backpacks and shoulder bags. We are all staying home more, and wearing a pin is not our first choice to share thoughts about candidates and issues. I am seeing many more graphics, memes and slogans these days on social, digital, streaming and print media on Read More