Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education

The only Jewish museum in the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon Jewish Museum maintains the largest collection of the documented and visual history of the Jewish people of Oregon. Through exhibits of original art and historical documents, it promotes conversation about identity, cultural distinctiveness and assimilation, providing people of all backgrounds with opportunities to understand the Jewish experience as a paradigm for pluralism. In 1996, the Museum acquired the archives of the Jewish Historical Society of Oregon, comprising major collections of organizational records, family papers, photographs and ephemeral materials dating from 1850 to the present—the largest collection of the documented and visual history of Oregon’s Jews. Today this collection forms the core of the museum archives and is available to researchers, students and scholars. Today the Oregon Jewish Museum endeavors to build a dynamic institution that embraces Jewish identity and community, illustrating, by example, the ways in which a community with traditional roots preserves, teaches, and lives by its values as a distinct minority. We believe in the power of culture to build and engage community in a flexible and dynamic way, using the lens of culture to shape dialogue about historical and contemporary issues.