Jewish people have been living in the District as long as there’s been a D.C. But it wasn’t until 1876 that the first synagogue was built at 3rd and G streets NW. In the years since, that original building has served multiple purposes—ironically, once as a pork barbecue—and, in 1969, was relocated to where it now sits, just a block away at the corner of 3rd and F streets NW. Today, the building finally has a new purpose too: It’s part of the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum.

Opening to the public on June 9, the free museum is the city’s first to explore Jewish life in the region. While the synagogue is the museum’s most prominent artifact—an intentional decision by the museum’s architects, who carefully integrated the old building into the design of the two-building space—it’s not the only thing on display. “If it’s Jewish, we have it,” a neon sign in the permanent exhibition reads. This is an apt description of the museum’s collection. 

The telling of Jewish Washingtonians’ stories has been years in the making. In some ways, the museum is an outgrowth of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, a nonprofit founded in the 1960s devoted to recounting Jewish life in the nation’s capital. (The society was responsible for organizing efforts to save and relocate the synagogue.) Many of the museum’s artifacts, including items related to the Soviet Jewry movement and the photos from the Giant Food archive, come from the original society’s collection. But as the museum’s executive director, Ivy Barsky, says, “this is the first public facing iteration of these stories.”

The museum is a diverse and interactive chronicling of the history of Jewish Washingtonians. It feels distinct from other museums in the area, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

“The Jewish story is about more than the Holocaust,” curator Sarah Leavitt tells City Paper. Instead, the Capital Jewish Museum spotlights a local lens on Jews, be it a shoemaker who served presidents, Supreme Court justices in synagogue congregations, or debates among leading economists in Jewish Community Center multipurpose rooms. It’s what curator and historian Eric Yellin likes to call “a capital twist” on stories that may otherwise feel familiar.  

“We’re not just adding Jewish people to what you already know about Washington, we’re telling a story in this museum in a Jewish way,” Leavitt says. 

This is quite evident throughout the gallery. Located in the bottom floor of the old synagogue, the orientation exhibit, which is meant to serve as an introduction to the museum, features a non-exhaustive timeline of Jewish D.C. Up the stairs, in the historic sanctuary, is a film scape—a combination of projected videos and sounds—that paints a picture of what services looked like in the late 19th century. 

But Jewish history isn’t just relegated to the 19th century. A bridge unites the old synagogue with the newer part of the museum space, literally and figuratively connecting “the past and present,” says museum president Esther Safran Foer.

The second floor exhibition explores the more recent past. One section of the room features plush cubes of 100 prominent Jewish Washingtonians—ranging from late disability activist Judith Heumann to Washington Wizards player Deni Avdija. “It’s multi-sided characters on multi-sided cubes,” Leavitt says. The section also features artifacts donated by locals, such as a hand mixer from renowned Jewish chef Susan Barocas and a mezuzah from Rep. Jamie Raskin.

Another section explores “Tikkun Olam,” the Jewish idea of repairing the world, which considers social justice movements such as abortion rights and climate change through a Jewish lens. One corner of the exhibit is devoted to the physical signs of the city’s Jewish storefronts over the years along with an animated map of local Jewish-owned businesses over the years. There’s also an interactive seder table, accompanied by a section on liberation movements, such as the Freedom Seder where Jewish and Black activists came together in solidarity a year after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 

A community action lab sits in another room. The interactive maker space is where “inspiration becomes action” through various guided activities meant to help visitors apply what they’ve learned in the exhibits to their own life. 

The third floor features a gallery that will house rotating exhibitions. The inaugural exhibit, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will examine the life and career of the late Supreme Court justice and occupy the gallery through Nov. 30. 

The project has been more than a decade in the making; its opening was pushed from 2021 to 2022 to this year, largely because of the pandemic. The space and its opening were funded primarily by major gifts from individuals, families, and foundations, but the museum has also received additional support in the form of local and national grants including from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Events DC. 

“There isn’t a book on the history of Washington Jews,” Yellin says when explaining why it took a decade to open the museum. Doing so meant learning how to tell this story while covering Judaism in all four quadrants of the city.

Local Jews—including yours truly—will certainly enjoy seeing community members they recognize in the museum, whether it’s someone from Jewish day school featured on a plush cube, or learning that your local liquor store was Jewish-owned. But the museum’s audience isn’t just relegated to local Jews. 

“We want to make sure everyone understands they’re part of the story,” Barsky says. “Whoever you are, whether you’re a Jewish Washingtonian, whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re a Washingtonian, regardless of where you come from, you have something to say and contribute to the story.”

And as she and many other staff emphasized, the story is always changing.

“We’re continuing to collect because this museum is about the present and future too,” Barsky says. “History goes on. We have more stories to tell, and we want to tell all of them.” 

The Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum opens Friday, June 9 at 575 3rd St. NW. Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Thursdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. capitaljewishmuseum.org. Free–$12.