What a lovely little museum! Actually, not that little.. there was quite a bit to see. Everything was well organized and curated. We saw the exhibit of RBG collar photographs as well as a delightful exhibit on Coney Island. One of the highlights is a room packed with Jewish artifacts. Unfortunately, a school group came into that room and we had to vacate, but the exhibit had wonderful descriptions of the use and history of the artifacts. The museum is right off Central Park a few blocks beyond the Metropolitan Museum. Personally, I prefer intimate museums like this to huge and overwhelming museums like the Met. The museum has a small but nice gift shop that had interesting books and Judaica gift items. Some of the items related to the plagues were a little kitchy but it was a fun place to browse.

At the upper reaches of Museum Mile is this wonderful offering. Housed in the historic Felix M. Warburg mansion, it has both a permanent collection as well as specialized exhibitions. I visited on a rainy Friday morning, as there were three current exhibits I wanted to see. The first was a replica of Frederick Kiesler's modern, innovative home library set up. Next up was a short history of Coney Island and its long-standing Jewish connection, told through photos and two carefully carved carousel horses. Lastly, several of the late Justice Ruth Baser Ginsberg's beautiful legal collars and jabots were shown, side by side with ornate tribal jewelry from all over the world. A great spot to begin your museum day, as I did, or round it off. And it's close to a sweeping view of the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir in Central Park at Engineer's Gate.

They now have on show the 1st non-Jewish mention of the house of David (the 9th century BC Tel Dan stele). Wonderful piece of archeology; but for Hebrew-readers it would have helped to have a transliteration into modern Hebrew letters, and a chart (e.g. the one the Israel museum sells) comparing the 2 alphabets).