People leave a Rivington Street synagogue during Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in 1911. (Photo courtesy of Library of Congress/Creative Commons) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save The Tenement Museum in Manhattan’s Lower East Side kicked off a “Lived Religion” series on Sept. 22 by immersing visitors into the High Holidays celebrations and shared apartments of 20th-century Eastern European Jewish immigrants.
The tour is the first in a series that will help visitors understand religious traditions and holidays outside houses of worship and, instead, inside homes and neighborhoods. Part of the museum’s aim is to elevate stories of past immigrants, migrants and refugees at a time when the country is divided over immigration policy. “I just hope people think about what it’s like to be a newcomer in a city, in a city like New York, that has so many pulls,” said Annie Polland, president of the Tenement Museum.
“What it’s like for individuals, for families and communities to think about how to re-create their holidays and their holiday calendar here in New York.” The idea for the tour was inspired by museum staff finding a pair of High Holidays tickets from 1908 under the floorboards of one of its tenements. A 1908 High Holiday ticket found by Tenement Museum staff in New York City.
(Photo courtesy of Tenement Museum) At the turn of the 20th century, the Lower East Side hosted a large Yiddish-sp.