— The nomadic Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education will have a new and permanent home next year.

The museum’s executive director Judy Margles and board chair Elaine Coughlin announced Wednesday the purchase of a $5 million space in Oldtown at the former location of the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

For more than 25 years the museum had been renting spaces around Portland, but for the first time will be able to settle into a permanent and much larger space where it will also be able to house its own permanent exhibits.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Rabbi Joshua Stampfer founded the museum in the late 1980s to educate the public about Jewish art and history with a program of temporary exhibits. Over the years it came to focus more specifically on Oregon’s Jewish history.

The move will more than double the space from its current 6,900 square feet to 15,000, allowing the museum to have more extensive exhibits, as well as a 100-seat auditorium, a small cafe and a gift shop.

Margles said that the new location will give them the ability to house core exhibits. Margles said they are assembling an exhibition about the Jewish experience in Oregon, about discrimination and the history of the Holocaust, “but through the eyes of our local survivors,” Margles told OPB.

According to the Jewish Federation of Portland, the city’s Jewish population is nearly 50,000, including a recent influx of Orthodox families.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount