A new home here for Diaspora Jewry

A few weeks ago, outgoing President Shimon Peres was the guest of honor at a glittering event held at Tel Aviv's Beit Hatfutsot, or Diaspora Museum. The occasion was the official cornerstone-laying ceremony for an additional wing that the institution calls the Museum of the Jewish People. Beit Hatfutsot is currently undergoing an extensive refit, and the laying of the cornerstone marked the official launch of the institution's new phase, due to open in 2017. The event was attended by around 400 guests from Israel and abroad, including 100 students and other youngsters. The evening was also an opportunity to thank the guest of honor, Peres, for his lifelong efforts and commitment in service of the Jewish people. Irina Nevzlin Kogan, chairwoman of the Beit Hatfutsot board of directors, was of course delighted to have Peres on board for the occasion and said that, in addition to acting as the ceremonial head of state, his life story as well as the work he has undertaken during his long career to-date sit well with the museum's ethos. “Throughout his life, President Peres has dedicated himself to the entire Jewish people,” she noted. “His remarkable story makes him the natural choice to lay the cornerstone for the new museum, which will inspire and connect the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.” Dan Tadmor, CEO of Beit Hatfutsot, added more kudos. “The laying of the cornerstone for the new museum is a unique opportunity to thank President Peres for his enormous contribution and his lifelong efforts for the Jewish people.” And Peres did not return to Jerusalem empty handed. He was presented with his family tree displayed on leather parchment – specially created by artist Ira Obolski. Obolski made the most of her client's database and delved into research work that Beit Hatfutsot had undertaken into Peres' family, with a little help from the president's daughter, Dr. Tsvia Walden. But while the ceremony was an impressive affair, the 34-year-old Russian-born Nevzlin Kogan is naturally aware that there is much more to running the institution than the official presentational stuff. It may be a moot point, but it seems to make perfect sense to have an immigrant as head of an institution devoted to Diaspora Jewry. In fact, Nevzlin Kogan brings wide professional experience to the post she took up a few months ago. “I did an interesting transition from being a professional working in public relations and lobbying, to becoming someone who runs the family philanthropic foundation [NADAV Foundation], to becoming a little bit involved in the project that was there before my time [the new museum] – who gets more passionate about the project as it progresses, gets on the board [of Beit Hatfutsot], becomes the deputy chair and finally becomes chair of the board,” she says, exuding boundless energy and enthusiasm. “I have been through a learning process.” Nevzlin Kogan's CV features executive positions with the Israeli Center for Better Childhood, a place on the governing board of the Jewish Funders Network and membership in the Prime Minister's Round Table, a forum that finds ways for the private and nonprofit sectors to collaborate, in order to influence positive change in Israeli social policy. While Nevzlin Kogan's rise to head the museum may seem meteoric, she says that in fact, she set out on the long road to where she is today quite a few years ago. “The reasons for me being here today started when I was a child, at the age of seven. I grew up in the Soviet Union and I didn't really know I was Jewish. I was born into a normal Jewish family – you know, engineers, teachers, dentists. We were middle class.” Nevzlin Kogan's parents wanted to live a quiet life and steer clear of trouble with the authorities. “The one thing my parents never told me was that I was Jewish. They didn't want me to talk about that on the street, because their experience of being Jewish limited them from going to university, from becoming what they wanted to become. They managed okay, but their choices were not their own.” The cat eventually escaped from the bag. “When I was seven, someone at school told me I was Jewish. The only Jews at the school were me and my grandmother – she taught there.” Nevzlin Kogan does not recall the new information being broken to her in a particularly offensive manner, but it was a bit of shock all the same. “Being Jewish meant I was different and, you know, being different in Soviet ideology is bad. The Communists wanted everyone to be much of the same, and to believe in the same thing, which was the Communist Party.” Discovering her ethnic allegiance did not have too much of a bearing on Nevzlin Kogan for a number of years. “I went home and asked my family about it, and my grandmother told me I wasn't allowed to talk about being Jewish out on the street.” So that was that – until Nevzlin Kogan started high school at the age of 14. Everything changed. “I moved to a new school because my old one was not challenging, to say the least, and a friend of mine – who was Jewish but at the time, I didn't know she was Jewish, because we never talked about it – recommended this high school, which was Jewish.” Nevzlin Kogan traces her ambition to get to where she is today back to that transition. “I didn't really know anything about being Jewish before I went to that school. I think that is the reason why I am here, because I am always looking to thank the donors of the first Jewish, non-religious school in Moscow. I don't know who they were, and I'd really like to find out. They deserve a thank you from me.” Listening to Nevzlin Kogan talk, one increasingly gets the impression that she is tailor-made for the job. She experienced the Diaspora in the fullest sense of the term, and invested great effort in developing her Jewish consciousness. “At the school I was surrounded by smart, curious students who wanted to learn everything we could,” she recounts. That also took in a surprisingly wide choice of Jewish fields of knowledge. “We studied the history of the State of Israel, the history of Zionism, the history of the Jewish people, and a little bit of Hebrew, although not at the level that I wanted. I was ambitious. It opened up for me a world that I didn't know existed. I didn't quite know, up until that time, that I belonged not only to my parents and to my family, but I also belonged to a global family of 12 million people.” No brochure by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry or, indeed by Beit Hatfutsot, could have put it better. “If you look back to that experience, 20 years ago, that's what brought me here to this place,” she declares. She happened to take up her new position just as plans for the new museum were moving up a gear or two. “We have been working on planning the Museum of the Jewish People in Beit Hatfutsot for around the last six years,” notes Nevzlin Kogan, adding that the new facility will be about much more than just storing knowledge about Jewish heritage and the customs of the past. “We felt there should one place in the world which not only tells the history of the Jewish people, but also talks about the current state of Jewish affairs, and also gives the ability for a better future.” Nevzlin Kogan is savvy enough to know that practically anything you do in this part of the world, and certainly on such a grand scale as Beit Hatfutsot, is liable to be misconstrued as having some political undertones. “We believe there is a need for a pluralistic platform which will be a home for every Jew,” she states. “We are not political, we are nondenominational, we are not rabbis, we don't choose any battles. We are here for everyone, for everyone to meet and to be together, and to build together for the future – which we believe the Jewish people deserve.” The Beit Hatfutsot head has her sights firmly set on keeping our youngsters engaged and within the Jewish fold. “We all want the younger generation to want [being] Jewish to be a part of their identity. I think there is no quarrel about that. So there is no [political] friction over that.” The institution has a heavyweight intellectual phalanx on board, to ensure the museum's all-embracing approach is adhered to. “We have a team of about 30 professors who are there to check one thing – that when we talk about having a pluralistic narrative, we have that. Our task is a very positive one, of making sure everyone exists, rather than figuring out who is Jewish and who is not. In that sense, our life is a lot easier. Our only agenda is to give a platform for everyone.” While the institution's name immediately indicates a non-Israeli take, Nevzlin Kogan is keen for everyone to find a common language. “The experience of being a Jew in Israel is very different from being a Jew in New York, and most probably is very different from being a Jew in Costa Rica. We want to reduce friction by closing the gaps, and to see how not-so-different we all are.” Beit Hatfutsot and its incipient fledgling museum are perfectly placed to help make that harmonious vision happen. “We have the ability to showcase the whole spectrum of the Jewish people, for people to see how similar they are in what they believe in, how similar they are in what they do, and why they do things.” While it is perhaps easy to see why Diaspora Jews may need to avail themselves of Beit Hatfutsot's highly appealing and state-of-the-art facilities and exhibitions, for us Israeli Jews, surely just living in this country is enough? “I don't think so,” counters Nevzlin Kogan. “It is less of a problem to be Jewish here because of the environment. But I think there are two problems in Israel. First of all, it is also easy to substitute 'Israeli' for 'Jewish.' It is wonderful to live in Israel – I made aliya, so I certainly appreciate that – but I think there is so much beauty to belonging to a global family.” Nevzlin Kogan feels that we may very well have invented the global village long before the advent of the Internet. “Globalization was something that was part of the nature of Jewish life throughout the centuries. We all had family in other places, and we knew they were there. But when you live in Israel, it is very easy to forget that. You can decide you are Israeli, and not part of the bigger world. “Everyone has relatives somewhere else in the world. Some you know about, and some you doubt. We can help you find out about that, and expose yourself to a much bigger picture than just living in Israel.” The next step in the museum's multistage renewal project will take place at end of this year, with the launch of Beit Hatfutsot Online. The interactive tool will feed off Beit Hatfutsot's extensive research databases, which are accessible to all and sundry, anytime, anywhere. Peres enjoyed a sneak preview of the museum's brave new world, when he created and uploaded his own family tree from his official residence via his own computer. One of the exhibits that most visitors to Beit Hatfutsot recall is the display of the fascinating Synagogue Gallery. By the summer of 2015, the gallery will be fully renovated and will show models of synagogues from all sorts of ethnic sectors from around the world to their best advantage, through the use of immersive multimedia technology. “We want Jews to feel a bond, but we also want to celebrate the uniqueness of our traditions,” explains Nevzlin Kogan. The museum head feels the institution and the Jewish people as a whole are moving in the right direction. “You know, life these days is very much about being happy. I think, if you want to be happy, you need to belong to something, some kind of social setup, and feel you are a part of something.” Nevzlin Kogan is certainly happy with her lot. “I am so privileged,” she says. “I come to work every day and I do something that I completely believe in. I love my job.”

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