{"id":70567,"date":"2025-12-25T21:36:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T21:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70567\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T21:36:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T21:36:05","slug":"philadelphia-jewish-museum-celebrates-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70567\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Jewish museum celebrates Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

For her set, expect bubble machines, a parachute, scarves and original music to groove to for the performance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI love everything about being a children\u2019s performer,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cI love that magic when the first chords hit and the kids all turn their attention to you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat magic is more important now than ever before for us to be able to tap into that joy,\u201d Hopwood said. \u201cTo be able to just create an environment where it doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s going on outside the building. It doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s going on outside the space. It\u2019s about joy. It\u2019s about love. It\u2019s about being creative, being curious.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Philly Suns dancers are performing in bright, colorful handmade costumes \u2014 working in sync to mimic a lion\u2019s movements. The troupe is part of a local grassroots youth organization that began as a basketball team in Chinatown and has since expanded.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLion dancing is both our cultural and our athletic portion of our team,\u201d said Harry Leong, the president of the Philly Suns. \u201cWe work closely with a number of community organizations, particularly focused in Chinatown.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Leong is excited to share a piece of Chinese heritage with the community on Christmas, but he\u2019s also excited for his dancers to learn more about the museum.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an opportunity to share cultures,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have an opportunity to walk through the museum and see Jewish histories \u2014 Jewish culture in the museum. \u2026 As humans, we need to know each other and getting to know each other\u2019s culture is a major component.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

A Christmas for all cultures<\/p>\n

Leong is a second-generation Chinese American. He grew up in Philly\u2019s Chinatown. In some ways, he is accustomed to sharing Dec. 25 with Philly\u2019s Jewish community.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a very young age, my family owned a restaurant, so during Christmas we would have many Jewish customers come in,\u201d Leong said. He noted that he finds many parallels between the two cultures.\n<\/p>\n

For his part, Samuels has long been a supporter of the Philly Suns.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been coming out,\u201d Leong said. \u201cHe comes out and actually supports our events when we host public events.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, this idea of just showing up and engaging with the community, reflects the purpose of \u201cBeing ____ at Christmas.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spirit of this for me is getting people together, and that\u2019s the spirit of this job for me all through the year \u2014 adult programming, kids programming, everything,\u201d Samuels said. \u201cGetting people out from behind our computers \u2026 actually shoulder to shoulder, face to face. Sharing humanity together, sharing space together, that\u2019s what arts and culture spaces are about. That\u2019s what the Weitzman Museum is about. That\u2019s what I\u2019m all about.\u201d
\n\"KidsKids play with bubbles at The Weitzman. (Shoot from Within Photography)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For her set, expect bubble machines, a parachute, scarves and original music to groove to for the performance.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5527,69,71,70,19318],"class_list":{"0":"post-70567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-christmas","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-weitzman-national-museum-of-american-jewish-history"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}