by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 16, 2009

It began a century ago with an idea shared by two friends. One was Louis Bamberger, a prominent Jewish philanthropist and CEO of Newark’s leading department store.

The other man was John Cotton Dana, the city’s chief librarian.

Together, they officially incorporated the Newark Museum Association in 1909, little dreaming it would become the largest such institution in New Jersey and one with international recognition for its achievements in the arts, science, and history.

“At the turn of the 20th century, Newark had advanced to the point where its leading citizens felt there needed to be a place to display their cultural contributions,” said Linda Forgosh, executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest.

One hundred years later, the museum is about to celebrate its centennial with a 100-hour marathon — an open house that begins on Wednesday, April 22, and runs until April 26 at the building the institution has occupied on Washington Street since 1926.

All year the museum will display exhibits created especially for the centennial year; a Centennial Ball will be held on May 2.

On Tuesday, May 12, Forgosh will be the guest speaker at a Museum Tea, featuring a program called “Louis Bamberger and the Newark Museum: Perfect Together!”

She’ll talk about the museum’s modest first home on the fourth floor of the nearby Newark Public Library. “Dana’s domain,” Forgosh calls it.

As his idea for a museum grew, people donated all kinds of items that over a period of years “overflowed one storage room,” Forgosh said.

Together with Bamberger, Dana convinced elected officials to buy property one block west of Broad Street, and for $200,000 the city acquired land for a museum and a lease in perpetuity.

In January 1923, Bamberger made a surprise announcement, telling reporters he was donating $500,000 for a museum building, an amount that spiraled to $650,000 as construction costs rose.

“Nobody knew that Bamberger was going to do such a thing,” Forgosh said. “He was known to be a pretty shy guy, quite elusive and not one for the public spotlight.”

In the historian’s view, his largesse was his gift to the city as a “thank you” to Newark’s citizens, who anchored what would became a major department store chain in the Northeast.

The Newark Museum was officially dedicated on May 14, 1925, and opened in 1926 with 60,000 square feet of space. “But in truth, Bamberger believed down the road more space would be needed,” Forgosh said. “I think there were a number of prominent Jewish citizens who lent their support in those early days, but for the most part it was Bamberger acting almost alone.”

One exception was Moses Plaut, a competitor of Bamberger’s who owned a store called The Beehive and also gave generously to the museum.

By the time of his death in 1944, Bamberger had given the museum more than $1 million; an additional $50,000 was left in his will.

Other generous gifts came from Bamberger’s business partner and brother-in-law, Felix Fuld, and Fuld’s wife, Carrie Bamberger Fuld.

“The Jewish community had always supported healthcare issues and social issues, but they had not supported the arts in Newark until Bamberger’s gifts,” said Arlene Lieberman, the Hoboken resident who currently chairs the museum’s board. “Bamberger wanted to show that the Jewish community should support the arts. That was the beginning.”

To this day, the museum remains a beneficiary of much Jewish philanthropy, in and outside the MetroWest suburbs where Newark’s Jews eventually migrated.

“The Jewish community has always put their children first in terms of providing them with enrichment opportunities and educating them about various cultures,” said the museum’s deputy director of marketing and public relations, Mark Albin. “Certainly, the Jewish community is well thought of and an active part of our support.”

Lieberman became active at the museum when she moved to New Jersey from Baltimore in the 1980s.

“My involvement with the museum has nothing to do with the fact that I’m Jewish,” Lieberman said. “I’ve always loved the arts.”

A student of painting who was fascinated with the worlds of art and design, she had considered volunteering her time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “But a friend of ours encouraged me to become a volunteer at the Newark Museum. I realized the Met did not need me. It had 600 volunteers,” she said.

Having “lived through the renaissance in Baltimore, which had been a pretty down-and-out city,” Lieberman said, she was determined to do her part to restore a cultural vibrancy to a fading Newark.

“I became a docent and got involved with women who were born and raised in Newark. They came to work at the museum because they loved the city so much and wanted to give something back. It was just wonderful. It is a pretty incredible museum.”

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