Jewish American history museum moves closer to joining Smithsonian amid political tensions

Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is moving closer to joining the Smithsonian Institution at a time of significant upheaval for the storied museum network.

A new congressional commission will study whether to make the museum part of the Smithsonian. Its members were sworn in Tuesday, when they also held their first meeting.

In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the commission’s new chair Philip Darivoff, a former longtime chair of the Weitzman, and vice chair Dara Horn, a New York Times bestselling author, said that the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian would send a powerful message that Jews are a crucial component of the history of the country.

“It’s a different statement that our country makes when it says that the study of Jewish American history and culture is important to this nation,” Darivoff said. Both he and Horn also hope that a boost in the Weitzman’s profile could combat what they called an “epidemic of ignorance” among Americans when it comes to knowledge of Jewish history and culture.

“This really would be an elevation of the Jewish community,” Horn, author of People Love Dead Jews and The Final Solution to the Jewish Question, told JTA. “The place that Jews show up in a school curriculum is typically more about the Holocaust” - an area that the author has written critically about in the past as too limiting a view of Jewish life.

Horn believes in the Weitzman project, she said, because she hopes to emphasize the ways that Jews have contributed to American founding ideals such as religious pluralism.

“I’m really interested in the connections between the Jewish story and a lot of our foundational ideas in this country,” she said. Jewish ideas such as the Exodus from Egypt in the Passover story “were inspiring to Americans,” she added.

The wheels for the Weitzman joining the Smithsonian began turning in 2024, when Congress passed legislation in 2024, then signed by President Biden, to establish the commission. The group spent the next two years putting the commission together, and has two years from its first meeting to research and publish a report on the feasibility of such a move — though Darivoff said he hopes to finish the work well before the deadline.

Adding a new member to the Smithsonian has taken years, if not decades. The two most recent additions, the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, were both long in the works.

Founded in 1976, the Weitzman is already an existing, fully functioning institution — and also already a Smithsonian affiliate, meaning it can share resources with other museums in the system. Unlike a museum being built from scratch, the Weitzman already has a building and collection, which proponents hope could speed the process.

Dan Tadmor, the Weitzman’s CEO, told JTA that joining the Smithsonian would improve their educational mission.

“We have a national footprint for our educational programming, but of course we’d like to widen it,” he said. “Who would say no to a curriculum that’s been developed by a Smithsonian museum?”

The Weitzman bid for greater prominence within the Smithsonian comes as the Trump administration has sought to exert greater control over the latter- home to storied institutions such as the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Zoo.

This summer the White House issued a report alleging “radical ideology” in the museums’ content, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently announced plans for signs accusing Smithsonian leaders of ideological bias. Observers say such signs are indicative of larger administration priorities opposing the teaching of historical subjects such as slavery. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III is stepping down at the end of the year.

A representative from the Smithsonian declined to comment to JTA on the Weitzman’s bid, or on its current political conditions. 

The commission’s chair and vice chair of the new Weitzman said that the current political upheaval shouldn’t affect their work. The Smithsonian, Horn said, “has lasted through many political winds.”

“I think we see this as a long-term project that’s about the place of Jewish Americans in this country’s history,” Darivoff said. “The Smithsonian is a really important institution for this country, and it is the great museum complex of our nation. God willing, it will be flourishing for centuries to come. It’d be an honor to be included in the Smithsonian.”