Yeshiva University Museum

Visited this museum as part of my quest to see every museum in NYC and maybe write a book about it. Still visiting museums, no book as of yet.
One of the benefits of visiting lots of museums is that you develop a nice little routine. Some steps necessary, others mere symptoms of OCD. No need to delve into the OCD here but I will share a few of the more useful steps.
1. My most importan tip, VISIT the website of the museum, close to the time and day of your trip. In this case —
. This will help you to avoid awkward situations like standing helplessly outside of the closed museum and watching all the pretty people inside drinking wine and having fun for a PRIVATE event. It will also remind you of important nuggets like when the museum offers free or discounted admission. Yeshiva University Museum happens to free on Mondays.
2. Stalk the museum on social media (Twitter @yumuseum, Instagram @yumuseum, FB
) This will give you a sense of the more popular and selfie worthy exhibits to either prioritize or avoid based on your preferences. The museum was cool, quiet and virtually empty when I visited, leaving me free to peruse the gorgeous photos of the highly-​lauded Borscht Belt exhibit, at my leisure.
3. Ask the museum staff for their recommendations. Even with all my research, I didn’t realize that the building for the Yeshiva University Museum (The Center for Jewish History) actually housed four additional partner institutions, the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. And while the Yeshiva University Museum gallery was the only exhibit actually open at the time of my visit, the helpful front desk staff gave me the inside scoop on an upcoming event where I could be one of the pretty people on the inside and not on the outside, staring in.

It is a small, but decent museum. Come in on one of their free days/​hours. I went on Friday from 11 – 2:30 when they are free. They have some good things to see. And since I did not pay anything. It was worth the trip.

I was in New York a few months ago with my daughter. Doing the college tour thing, she applied to NYU and a few others. She ended up not applying to Yeshiva but we did make it to the museum. I love this entire area and the museum is a gem. I think that they have some permenant exhibits and then rotate other items out, not really sure.
But while we were there we saw some «sacred letters» and some other I guess what you would call modern artifacts? The entire staff was friendly and knowledgable and we must have come at a great time of the day becuase even though it seemed like the streets were bustling, the museum was not too crowded.
Definately a great place to check out for Jewish history.

Great little museum. It helps a lot to read up on the exhibitions before you stop in. (
) I would recommend an hour or so long visit, and it is a really quiet place so its good for a solo visit.

I went when it was free (Mondays 3:30−8!) and it was basically empty. It’s very specific in terms of subject material but can be very enlightening, if you’re interested in this type of thing. A lot of the exhibits feature normal Jewish people’s histories/​letters/​stories, but some exhibits have great art to represent Jewish experiences over time. Overall, it was small but full of information. I wouldn’t really pay to get in though.