NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust announced that Anita Kassof has been named Deputy Director. Robert M. Morgenthau, Museum Chairman, says, “Anita brings to the Museum a significant background in both Jewish history and the Holocaust, as well as impressive management and curatorial experience. We will look to her decades of experience in strategic planning and program development to help strengthen the Museum’s offerings as we enter this new exciting chapter in our history.”

As the Associate Director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM) in Baltimore for the last decade, she shared management responsibility for all Museum departments and activities as well as developing exhibitions. During her tenure, she served as co-curator of The Synagogue Speaks and Voices of Lombard Street: A Century of Change in East Baltimore, for which she also co-edited the exhibition catalog. She also curated Lives Lost, Lives Found: Baltimore’s German Jewish Refugees, 1933-1945, edited the accompanying catalog, and produced an award-winning exhibition DVD. She has authored several publications, including Lights & Shadows, a memoir of Holocaust refugee Arnold Fleischmann, and The Synagogue Speaks, a children’s book based on the exhibition of the same name.

Creating relevant links between non-Jewish audiences and culturally specific museums has been the focus of her work in Baltimore. “One of my proudest professional accomplishments has been developing exhibitions and programs that encourage visitors to draw connections between their own lives and the Jewish experience. I’ve always admired the way the Museum of Jewish Heritage makes meaning for its many audiences. I look forward to joining the staff and helping to lead the Museum to new successes.”

Prior to her service in Baltimore, Ms. Kassof served as the associate curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) from 1988-2000, where she helped to develop the Museum’s collections policy and build the Museum’s permanent collection of Holocaust artifacts, documents, and photographs. At the USHMM, she was the associate curator of Assignment Rescue, the Story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee, the inaugural temporary exhibition, which subsequently traveled nationally, and co-authored Flight and Rescue, which chronicled the flight of Polish Jews to Japan and Shanghai.

“I look forward to welcoming Anita as my colleague and deputy and know that I will rely on her deep experience, broad knowledge, and keen intellect,” said Museum Director David G. Marwell.

Ms. Kassof received her B.A. (with honors) from Duke University and her M.A. in Modern European History from the University of Maryland. She is married to Joshua Neiman and has two children, ages 16 and 13.