Senate Approves Subsequent Step for Weitzman Museum to Be part of Smithsonian

The US Senate handed a invoice on Tuesday that might develop a plan to switch the Weitzman Nationwide Museum of American Jewish Historical past in Philadelphia to the Smithsonian Establishment. The unanimous vote follows the passing of a companion invoice by the Home of Representatives in September that paved the way in which for the method.

The invoice handed by the Senate would create an eight-member fee appointed by members of the Home and Senate that might assess the practicability of the Weitzman becoming a member of the Smithsonian, a belief of museums and analysis amenities owned by the US authorities and partially funded by federal coffers. 

Inside the final decade, Congress approved the event of two new museums to the Smithsonian: The Nationwide Museum of the American Latino (accepted in 2022), and the Smithsonian American Ladies’s Historical past Museum (2020). The Weitzman, if transferred, would turn out to be the Smithsonian’s solely establishment devoted to Jewish American historical past.

“Bringing the Weitzman Museum absolutely into the Smithsonian household would give it expanded entry to not solely artifacts and paperwork, however sturdy instructional assets, experience and employees coaching to assist within the ongoing mission to protect and promote the tradition of American Jews,” Sen. Bob Casey (PA), who led the passing of the invoice, mentioned in an announcement. The switch has obtained bipartisan help and an expedient legislative course of, a rarity in current Smithsonian historical past.

The development of the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition was completed in 2016, 13 years after its legislative institution. The Nationwide Museum of the American Latino, in the meantime, has confronted successive hurdles from Republican opposition. In 2022, an op-ed authored by three conservatives critics referred to as for its funding to be withheld in protest of the museum’s perceived Marxist agenda.

The Weitzman was based in 1976 because the Nationwide Museum of American Jewish Historical past; it was renamed in 2021 in honor of a big, undisclosed donation from shoe designer Stuart Weitzman. It’s at present an affiliate of the Smithsonian.

“Educating all People—from all around the nation—concerning the superb contributions Jewish People made to our nation not solely raises consciousness however helps dispel dangerous prejudices about our neighborhood,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), one of many invoice’s 4 co-founders, mentioned in an announcement. “Welcoming [the Weitzman] into the bigger Smithsonian household would deliver that imaginative and prescient nearer to actuality.”