Jewish Heritage-NY - Jewish Community Relations Council

PROGRAMS:

Jewish Heritage-NY (JHNY) expanded Jewish Heritage Week more than 25 years ago, promoting year-round celebrations highlighted by the national Jewish American Heritage Month in May.

JHNY, a decades-long project of JCRC-NY, was designed to show how the New York Jewish community’s status as the center of the American Jewish experience has helped to shape the landscapes of New York, America, Israel and the world. JHNY events and activities focus on the history, culture, people, values, traditions, achievements and contributions of the New York Jewish community. It seeks to increase awareness within the Jewish and non-Jewish communities of New York’s extraordinary Jewish heritage and encourages New Yorkers and out-of-towners to visit our wide variety of Jewish cultural and historical institutions.

Due to reduced staff resources, the project has been limited in recent years, focusing on celebrations with elected officials and occasional Jewish Heritage Day theme outings at sporting events. We are indebted to Jewish Heritage Week Founding Chair Judith Shapiro and JHNY Founding Chair Howard Teich for their dedication to both projects. Howard continued his efforts to recognize Jewish New Yorkers, and we encourage you to visit the websites of the Jewish Historical Initiatives that he founded in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan as well as the Jewish Historical Societies on Long Island and Staten Island. The Society in Queens was operational from 2005-2017, and its archives are available at The Center for Jewish History.

More recently, we have increased our involvement in Jewish American Heritage Month and will post updates here in the future.

Questions – Contact – Jewish Heritage-NY

The Toby Nussbaum Jewish Heritage-NY Writing Contest

The contest was suspended beginning in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participation in the contest decreased even before the pandemic due to educational reform that diminished the effectiveness of contests in engaging students.

In 2008, Toby Nussbaum’s family dedicated the annual Jewish Heritage-NY Contest in her memory. We are truly grateful to the Nussbaum family, in particular Bernard Nussbaum, z”l, for his most generous support of the contest, and Dale Nussbaum and JCRC-NY Board Member Michael Nussbaum, for co-chairing the contest for more than 20 years. Toby, JCRC-NY Vice President and Member of the Board of Directors for many years, was a compassionate, accomplished woman who truly represented the best of New York and its Jewish community. The contest impacted thousands of students and helped shape their perspectives on the Jewish people and our values and contributions and better appreciate the commonalities between diverse ethnic and religious groups.

2021