Tamar and Milton Maltz, shown here after winning a 2013 Cleveland Arts Prize at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, will receive the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Leadership Award on Monday (Scott Shaw/The Plain Dealer Publishing Co.).
BEACHWOOD, Ohio — Tamar and Milton Maltz — founders of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood — will receive the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s National Leadership Award during a ceremony Monday.
The fourth-annual award ceremony will take place at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights. The Maltzes, who also created the Maltz Family Foudation, are the first Clevelanders to win the leadership award from the Holocaust museum.
Jed Silberg, deputy director of the Holocaust museum’s Midwest Regional Office, said the Maltzes stand out for two reasons.
“They’ve been extraordinarily generous financially to the (Holocaust) museum but more than that they’ve been good partners — with the Maltz museum — in bringing our programs and traveling exhibits to the Cleveland community,” Silberg said.
The most recent Holocaust museum traveling exhibit that appeared at the Maltz museum was “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda.”
Milton Maltz said he will cherish the award because it’s coming from the Holocaust museum and its director, Sara Bloomfield, a Shaker Heights native.
“I was delighted she was able to climb the ladder of success and provide the world the inside story of the Holocaust,” Maltz said Tuesday.
Maltz said telling that story is more important than ever because there are organizations that deny the Holocaust’s existence.
“We proved otherwise by building the Holocaust museum,” said Maltz, who added that the Maltz museum’s purpose to to reach out to everyone, not just the Jewish community, and build bridges of understanding between races and religions.
Milton Maltz founded Malrite Communications Group Inc., an operator of radio and television stations, in 1956. He has been involved in several philanthropic and civic groups, including the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, the Anti-Defamation League, Montefiore, the College of Jewish Studies and Cleveland Play House.
Tamar Maltz won the Trailblazer of the Year Award in 1994 from Planned Life Assistance Network for her efforts to provide opportunities for those with mental illness. She has been involved in the National Association for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
At the May 18 award ceremony, Mona Golabek, a Grammy-nominated concert pianist and author, will talk about her mother’s escape from Austria during the Holocaust. She will also perform an excerpt from her one-woman show, “The Pianist of Willesden Lane.”
Also, Bloomfield will speak. The event is expected to draw about 500 museum supporters, including 50 area Holocaust survivors.
For tickets and information, contact Jed Silberg at 847-433-8099 or [email protected].