A house RESOLUTION

TO RECOGNIZE AND HONOR Dale Rosengarten, curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston, UPON THE OCCASION OF HER RETIREMENT AFTER thirty YEARS OF EXEMPLARY SERVICE, AND TO WISH HER CONTINUED SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS IN ALL HER FUTURE ENDEAVORS.

Whereas, it is altogether fitting and proper that the South Carolina House of Representatives should pause in its deliberations to express gratitude to Dale Rosengarten for her significant contributions to the Jewish Heritage Collection as she begins her retirement on February 15, 2023; and

Whereas, after earning a bachelor's degree and a doctorate from Harvard University, Ms. Rosengarten moved to McClellanville in 1976, near the source of the coiled sweetgrass basket, an icon of Gullah and Geechee cultures. By 1986, she had authored Row upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry, the first comprehensive history of the coiled sweetgrass basket; and

Whereas, she founded the Jewish Heritage Collection in 1995 and served as its curator for twenty-seven years, during which she amassed a vast collection of family papers, photographs, memoirs, objects, and congregational and organizational records pertaining to Jewish life in South Carolina. In 2000, she expanded the mission of the Jewish Heritage Collection to include documentation of the Holocaust with photographs and artifacts from survivors and liberators who had ties to South Carolina; and

Whereas, working with McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, Ms. Rosengarten developed the landmark traveling exhibition in 2002, A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life, and co-edited a book by the same name, which has altered the perception historians have about Jewish history and the creation of American Jewish religious identity; and

Whereas, in 2014, Ms. Rosengarten, with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina and the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston, established the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture to broaden public knowledge of Southern Jewish experience; and

Whereas, for some three decades, she worked diligently with volunteers to record six hundred oral histories, including panel discussions, presentations, and interviews with individuals in towns and cities across the State to preserve the stories of three generations of Jewish South Carolinians; and

Whereas, along with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, Ms. Rosengarten planned and implemented numerous meetings of the Society across South Carolina. She served as the editor of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina's semi-annual magazine, producing nearly thirty issues; and

Whereas, in 2010, Ms. Rosengarten co-curated Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art, a ground-breaking exhibition at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.; and

Whereas, with her husband, Theodore Rosengarten, she led College of Charleston undergraduate and graduate students in study-abroad trips to Holocaust and Jewish cultural sites in Central and Eastern Europe. She was instrumental developing three pioneering digital public history exhibits; and

Whereas, in 2016, Ms. Rosengarten co-curated the exhibition, By Dawn's Early Light: Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the Nation's Founding to the Civil War, which was on view at the Princeton University Art Museum and then at the New York Historical Society; and

Whereas, in 2019, she was honored with both the Folk Heritage Award from the South Carolina Arts Commission for her work researching the sweetgrass-basketry tradition for over thirty years and the Order of the Jewish Palmetto, the highest honor of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina; and

Whereas, grateful for her many years of distinguished service to preserve the heritage of Jewish history in this State, the South Carolina House of Representatives takes great pleasure in extending best wishes to Dale Rosengarten as she transitions to a richly deserved retirement and the unhurried pace of the days ahead, and the members wish her much enjoyment in her well-earned retirement. Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:

That the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, by this resolution, recognize and honor Dale Rosengarten, curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston, upon the occasion of her retirement after thirty years of exemplary service, and wish her continued success and happiness in all her future endeavors.

Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be presented to Dale Rosengarten.

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