New York City’s newest Jewish museum is located in — loosely speaking — the city’s oldest Jewish neighborhood.
The recently opened visitors’ center of the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, an exhibition space that features artifacts and original videos that reflect the tenor of family life and cultural life in what is inarguably the city’s most feted Jewish neighborhood, is based on Grand Street, not far from where the original 23 Jews in the United States arrived in 1654.
The visitors’ center (nycjewishtours.org; [212] 374-4100) is the centerpiece of the United Jewish Council of the East Side’s outreach to the wider Jewish community, offering tours, a new public school curriculum and, next month, a photo exhibit by Julian Voloj.
Located between Clinton and Suffolk streets, in a building formerly known as Ruby’s Fruit Store, the site is “an easy walk to ‘Shtiebel Row’ … in the heart of the living Lower East Side,” says Laurie Tobias Cohen, executive director.