New York, NY – The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today announced the appointments of three new Board of Trustee members—Jane Oster Sinisi, Edward Rabinowitz, and Stacey A. Saiontz. As the 25th anniversary of the Museum approaches, these grandchildren of Holocaust survivors will help lead the Museum into its next quarter century.
Jane Oster Sinisi is the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors. She has been producing documentary and feature films for the last decade, and has produced or executive produced films, including A Call For Help, Eden, and, in 2016, The Birth of a Nation, a Sundance Film Festival hit which sold to Fox Searchlight Pictures for $17.5 million.
At Phipen Pictures, she is producing the upcoming films Centigrade, starring Vincent Piazza, The God Committee, starring Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles, and Colman Domingo, which was an official selection of the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, and Brighton Beach, starring FKA Twigs. She also is executive producing the upcoming major motion picture, Stowaway, starring Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette, and Plan A, which will follow a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors in 1945 as they plan the ultimate act of revenge against the Nazis by poisoning Germany’s water system.
Jane’s parents Ann and Abe (z’l) Oster helped found the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, and Ann continues to serve as a Vice Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. Their daughter has been involved in the Museum for many years, participating in Young Friends of the Museum programming in the mid-2000s and speaking at a gala for “A Caring Hand” hosted at the Museum in 2017.
She also is Co-Founder and President of the Gedenk Movement, a nonprofit organization that runs creative programs to promote tolerance to youth.
Edward (Eddie) Rabinowitz is the grandson and great grandson of Holocaust survivors. He was a featured speaker at the Museum’s 2019 Generation to Generation Dinner, and has been connected with the Museum since June 2019, when he attended the Young Friends Sunset Soiree. He has continued to remain active with the Museum since, through both philanthropy and event participation.
Stacey Saiontz is a lawyer whose grandparents survived the Holocaust. Their stories of survival have profoundly influenced her outlook and inspired her commitment to sharing all stories and lessons of the Holocaust with future generations.
She has served as a founding member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (USHMM) New York Next Generation Board and sits on the USHMM Museum’s Education Committee. She has been heavily involved with the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, and has served as Associates Division Co-Chair alongside Seth Weisleder. She also serves on the board of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation. In 2014, the Auschwitz Jewish Center honored Stacey and her husband, Marc, at their annual gala. Stacey is also the Co-Chair of the Town of New Castle Holocaust & Human Rights Committee.
Stacey shares her passion for educating the next generation with her children, who were featured in the HBO Documentary The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm. The HBO documentary details her grandfather’s story of survival through a conversation with her son Elliott and his great grandfather. The Museum produced an exhibition in partnership with HBO based on The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm that showcased the film and its animation by artist Jeff Scher.
“My personal mission is to ensure that my grandparent’s stories, the stories of all of the survivors, and the lessons of the Holocaust are passed on from generation to generation,” Stacey Saiontz said. “Our Museum teaches the universal messages of tolerance, the importance of taking action, and the perils of indifference and inaction. As a Trustee, I will help ensure that we Never Forget.”
For a full list of Museum Board leadership, visit https://mjhnyc.org/leadership/.
About the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of more than 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. The Museum is the home of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
Currently on view is the acclaimed exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. This is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America, bringing together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from over 20 institutions and museums around the world.
Also on view are Ordinary Treasures: Highlights from the Museum of Jewish Heritage Collection and Rendering Witness: Holocaust-Era Art as Testimony.
The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.