MILWAUKEE – Jewish Museum Milwaukee, a program of Milwaukee Jewish Federation, is to open this month, with new health precautions in place.
The museum has been hosting virtual events online, but it is now slated to open its physical space in the next several weeks. The museum will start out briefly with a smaller pool of patrons, its members, to get accustomed to new procedures before opening to a larger crowd, said Executive Director Patti Sherman-Cisler. The dates have not yet been set.
“We are being very conservative in bringing people into the museum,” Sherman-Cisler said.
Expected precautions include limiting the number of people in the museum at once, requiring face masks and making touchless hand-sanitizer available. There will be a Plexiglass shield between patrons and the ticket taker, as well as signs encouraging social distancing, Sherman-Cisler said.
The museum consulted with the Federation, the city of Milwaukee and information provided by the American Aliance of Museums.
Other precautions are to include wipes at the bathroom door and disabled drinking fountains. Patrons will be required to walk one way through the exhibits, and there will exclusive hours for seniors and people with health conditions.
Virtual programming will continue, and groups may request a virtual tour or a talk.
The Girl in the Diary exhibit extended
An exhibit about a Holocaust-era diary has been extended until the end of August. It examines the content and context of a diary found in the rubble of the liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which went unexamined for more than 60 years.
“The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka From the Łódź Ghetto” was first mounted by the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, Poland in 2017. The Milwaukee exhibit opening in January was its United States premiere.
The exhibit is about a 112-page diary written by Jewish teen Rywka Lipszyc, on her life in the Łódź Ghetto between October 1943 and April 1944, discovered by a Red Army doctor at Auschwitz in 1945.
Jewish Museum Milwaukee is at 1360 N. Prospect Ave. Contact 414-390-5730 or JewishMuseumMilwaukee.org.