Development comes as Truman Library & Museum prepares to reopen after $28 million renovation
Eleven minutes.
That’s how long it took President Harry S. Truman to officially recognize the newly proclaimed State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
But Truman had agonized over his decision in the preceding months, trying to balance political, strategic and personal considerations. His decision followed the announcement of the new nation by David Ben Gurion, then-chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel and soon to be Israel’s first prime minister.
Now, 73 years later, The Jewish Agency and the Truman Library Institute will work together to increase education about the history and ongoing benefits of Truman’s early support of Israel and the gravity of many other decisions Truman faced.
The Jewish Agency and the Truman Library Institute will collaborate on new and existing educational programs geared for audiences in Israel and the United States, The Jewish Agency announced in a June 16 news release. These audiences will include schoolchildren, opinion leaders, Jewish Agency shlichim (Israeli emissaries) who serve U.S. communities, and the U.S. and Israeli publics.
The educational programming’s details and timelines have yet to be determined.
“This new cooperation with the Truman Library Institute is a source of tremendous pride, both on a national and personal level,” Israeli President-Elect Isaac Herzog, who is also the outgoing chairman of the executive of The Jewish Agency, said in the release. “Educating the public about the role of President Truman in the history of our nation’s founding and the legitimacy of Israel’s existence will serve to strengthen the important connection between Americans and Israelis.”
The idea for the educational collaboration came to Karen Pack when she visited the Truman Library and Museum’s White House Decision Center about three years ago during a session on Truman’s recognition of Israel. Pack has been a member of the Jewish Agency’s board for 15 years and of the Truman Library Institute’s board for three years.
The Decision Center is set in a replica of the West Wing and gives students in grades six through 12 an opportunity to “step into the roles of President Truman and his advisors to tackle some of the greatest challenges ever faced by a world leader,” including Truman’s decision to officially recognize Israel, according to the library and museum.
“When I saw (the Israel recognition session), I thought this is something that is so critically important to young people but it’s also critically important to the world,” Pack told The Chronicle.
She said that the abundance of inaccurate information about Truman’s Israel decision was “shocking” and that it was important for Israelis, Jews worldwide and all supporters of Israel “to realize, understand and respect the strength, the character and the humanity that President Truman possessed in order to make this decision.”
After she attended that Decision Room session, Pack sought permission from Truman Library Institute Director Alex Burden and Truman Library and Museum Director Kurt Graham to share with Herzog her idea for the collaboration. She hopes the partnership’s programming will serve as a model for other educational institutions to teach about the decisions Truman faced.
Herzog tells a family story about Truman’s decision to recognize Israel. Herzog’s grandfather, Israel’s former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Isaac HaLevi Herzog, visited Truman at the White House. Rabbi Herzog told Truman that “God put you in your mother’s womb so you would be the instrument to bring the rebirth of Israel after 2,000 years.”
Truman was moved to tears by Rabbi Herzog’s expression of gratitude, his staff reported. His connection with Israel would prove to be long-lasting.
“We hope that our new partnership with the Truman Library Institute will perpetuate the deep connection between Israel and the U.S. for generations to come,” Herzog said in the release.
Graham said in the release that the relationship between Truman and The Jewish Agency’s leaders “played a critical role at an important moment in history.”
“The collaboration now between The Jewish Agency and those charged with keeping Truman’s legacy is similarly significant in our time,” Graham said. “The synergies leveraged in this new partnership will help bring this shared vision forward.”
The Jewish Agency, founded in 1929, helped found and build the State of Israel and works to support relationships between Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.
The announcement of the new educational programming comes as the Truman Library and Museum gets set to reopen this summer after a two-year renovation — a $28 million refurbishment that includes an expanded Israel gallery underwritten by the Shirley and Barnet Helzberg family.
“So many people don’t know the history of Israel, the recognition since 1948,” said Merilyn Berenbom, a Truman Library institute board member. “And when you think of all the eyes and ears that will see that story, that will be a critically important experience, not only for schoolchildren but for multigenerational understanding of Israel.”
The Israel exhibit also will have a new film about Truman’s decision to recognize Israel, narrated by Judy Woodruff, anchor of “PBS NewsHour.”
The exhibit “gets to the heart of who Harry Truman was, how he thought, how he made decisions, how he operated,” Graham said in an interview. “And I think it does a lot more justice to not just what Truman did but why he did it.”
The renovated library and museum illuminates decisions Truman made “that changed the world,” Berenbom said. Along with his recognition of Israel, those decisions include his desegregation of the military and involvement with the Marshall Plan and NATO.
Berenbom also thinks the new exhibit can shore up public understanding of how government works.
The overall expansion includes additional photographs and sound recordings that were preserved and digitized, giving a personal “measure of the man through his own voice, his own movements, his own word,” Graham said.
The new entrance on the building’s east side sits beneath an etched glass presidential logo. Just inside the entrance, a hallway provides direct visibility to the courtyard where the Trumans are buried.
The library closed for renovation in July 2019, though the archives and research room stayed open during construction until the COVID-19 pandemic paused construction and closed the entire building in the spring of 2020.
The renovation and expansion team comprises JE Dunn Construction of Kansas City; museum planning and design firm Gallagher & Associates of Washington, D.C.; the Kansas City office of architectural firm The Clark Enersen Partners of Lincoln, Nebraska; Monadnock Media of Hatfield, Massachusetts; and exhibit fabricator 1220 of Nashville, Tennessee.
The Truman Library and Museum originally opened July 6, 1957. It cost $1.75 million to build, financed by donations from more than 17,000 individuals and organizations nationwide. This is its fourth renovation.
It underwent renovations costing $310,000 in 1968, $2.8 million in 1980 and $15 million in 2001. It contains more than 16 million pages of documents, 325,000 feet of recorded film, 150,000 photographs, 32,000 artifacts, 2,600 sound recordings and 600 oral histories. As of this year, 15,000 researchers have used it.
Graham called the library and museum “a community treasure.”
“I understand there’s a lot of interest in it, as well there should be,” he said. “This is a great legacy. It is unlike any other presidential legacy. … It is unlike anything else in the presidential library system. Finally, we have an offering that is becoming of the nation’s 33rd president.”
