#public programs

Keeping up Appearances: American Jews & Fashion

Sunday, September 8th at 1:00 pm

Speaker Jenna Weissman Joselit, George Washington University

Get Tickets Now (JMM Members – Reserve Your Seats!)

In Baltimore and throughout the United States, earlier generations of American Jews made much of novelty and of being up-to-date, especially when it came to what they wore.  In her illustrated talk, Jenna Weissman Joselit, noted Tablet columnist and Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies & Professor of History at  George Washington University, explores the hold that fashion has held on the collective American Jewish imagination ever since the 19th century.

This past summer the City of Denton launched a new program, Denton Citizen Academy. At their first Saturday meeting I spoke with Sarah Kuechler, Assistant to the City Manager, about their plan and their goals.

What is the Denton Citizen Academy? This is our inaugural program, it’s our first time doing it. We really created the program to try and get more citizen engagement, help them learn about what city services we provide, what’s going on in the city, and really provide a face for things that go on. So that way they’re more willing and able to reach out when they have questions, and also to be our communicators that can go out in the community and explain what’s going on, and why an ambulance might go along with a fire truck on a call, things like that. That’s kind of the idea behind it, and we’re hoping to have a lot of success this first time, and we’re going to continue to do it each summer. We have these programs for our police academy as well. So really the thought behind it was let’s take it and expand it. Let’s not just do public safety, let’s make it city services and all-encompassing.

How does the Citizen Academy work?

The first session was on Thursday about our form of government, so our city council and city manager, as well as on finance & budget. They also went over our internal audit functions. Then we spend 4 Saturdays together, from about 9am to 3pm, and each Saturday will have a theme. Today is on Public Safety, so we’ll be at the fire department and police department. Next Saturday is utilities, so we’ll be at Denton Municipal Electric, water, wastewater, solid waste. Another Saturday is Parks & Recreation. We try to package the services together that way, almost to match our strategic plan. On Tuesday, August 1st, they’ll have a graduation ceremony at a city council meeting, where the mayor will read a proclamation.

What are some things they get to in the Citizen Academy?

They’ll see some presentations mostly, but they’ll get to do some hands-on things as well. For example, here at the fire station they’re actually going to do a few mock calls, where they’ll call 911 and see the emergency responders react to the call. So they’ll get to see how it plays out from beginning to end. It sounds like it’ll be a fun exercise for everyone involved, and really help put them in the shoes of our first responders as well.

What do you most hope people get out of this experience?

Sometimes they don’t always have exposure to the internal operations, or really all the services that are provided. Public safety is more common, since they’ll see them out & about, they’ll interact with them more often, but for example, with water, or wastewater, or going to solid waste and just getting to see everything behind that operation. Finding out ‘where does my garbage go once it goes from my curb to the landfill?’ and all the really neat programs that we have for the residents.

Dr. Alan Kreizenbeck is a theatre practitioner with a love for popular entertainments. Come learn about the history of vaudeville, famous Jewish vaudevillians (in both Yiddish and “mainstream” theatres), Harry Houdini’s vaudeville career, and vaudeville in Baltimore. Corny old jokes will be re-told, songs will be presented, and many photographs will be shared.

We're super excited for the Festival of Jewish Literature, which kicks off tonight! 

From groundbreaking exhibitions to bold public programming to impactful educative initiatives, the Brooklyn Museum is proud to embody the diversity and vibrancy of its home borough and Brooklyn’s motto: “Unity makes strength.”

Give to the Brooklyn Museum today!

Your gift to the Annual Fund enables us to strengthen our roots and continue the courageous conversations that can only be found here. Highlights from the past year include:

Canon-expanding, blockbuster shows that couldn’t happen anywhere else, such as Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern and We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85.

Organized in conjunction with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and Google, The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America was an unprecedented union of digital storytelling, scholarly research, and works from the Museum’s permanent collection.

A forty percent increase in school visits to the Museum!

10 year celebration of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Museum with the opening of Roots of “The Dinner Party”: History in the Making.

The first annual Brooklyn Conference welcomed Kirsten Gillibrand, Charles Blow, Jodi Gillette, and more for three days of dynamic programming examining the role of art in shaping policy and creative resistance. Watch footage here.

And the excitement continues in March 2018, when the internationally acclaimed David Bowie is will come to the Brooklyn Museum for the final stop on its world tour. The show is the first retrospective of the extraordinary artist’s five-decade career—don’t miss it!

All of these programs, and so much more, are made possible by your invaluable support through the Annual Fund. Join us in ensuring that the Museum remains a common ground for Brooklyn and the world beyond. Thank you for giving as generously as you can.