By Debra Shein
If you were on hand for OJMCHE’s recent relaunch of the Portland Jewish Film Festival, you may have spotted a new face among the staff — Mariah Berlanga-Shevchuk, the museum’s recently-hired Head of Public Engagement. One of the core organizers who worked tirelessly to make the festival such a resounding success, Mariah came on board last fall in a position new to OJMCHE. In this role, she will be dedicating her efforts to broadening the museum’s public programming offerings and its audience. In addition to organizing offerings such as the film festival, guest speakers, and educational programming in support of both special and core exhibitions, Mariah’s efforts will be devoted to putting on a wider spectrum of events featuring celebrations of Jewish holidays and culture designed to engage children as well as adults.
Gail Mandel, OJMCHE Chief Operating and Advancement Officer, says that she’s “Thrilled to have this new position. It’s wonderful to have one person who has their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in terms of engaging the public. We’ve never had one individual focused on this before.” In addition to organizing the types of programming just mentioned, Mariah will be working with the OJMCHE Speakers’ Bureau, which fields talks around the state where local survivors of genocide and mass violence share their stories. She will also oversee the museum’s volunteer educators (formerly known as docents), provide internal learning opportunities for staff and volunteers, and otherwise work in support of the education department.
One upcoming public event that Mariah’s currently plugging is the Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon to be held on March 10 at OJMCHE as a part of Women’s History Month. Attendees will be working on contributions to Jewish women artists’ Wikipedia pages. Stay tuned for more news on that soon.
When asked about her overall goals for her new role, Mariah emphasized that one of the most important things will be to further existing efforts “to connect with the rest of the state. We’ve done a good job in connecting with Portland, but it’s important to connect to Jewish and other communities in other parts of the state as well. Especially in working to combat antisemitism, it’s vital to spread the word.” As someone who identifies as Mexican American and also as an Ashkenazi Jew, Mariah is particularly interested in bringing in non-Jewish audiences and showing how Jewish culture and history is relevant to everyone. Another key focus will be forging community partnerships with a wide range of organizations, national as well as local, to support events such as the film festival and collaborate on joint programming.
Mariah, originally from Tucson, comes to OJMCHE after formative experiences in a variety of museums. Her bachelor’s degree in anthropology with minors in both classics and religious studies first led to an interest in Judaic/Holocaust studies and a position as a Holocaust education intern with the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. She then earned a master’s in museum studies at the University of San Francisco and held additional internships at the Contemporary Jewish Museum there and at the Museum of Tolerance in LA.
After this, she worked as an educational and curatorial assistant at the Petersen Automotive Museum, also in LA, and worked with the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, organizing programming focused on young adults. In a stint as associate curator at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum and hub of Latinx culture (a Smithsonian affiliate), she created the exhibition “afroLAtinidad: mi casa, my city,” after which she took a position with the Five Oaks Museum here in Portland (formerly the Washington County Museum) in support of their transformation to focus on the wider, multicultural story of our area, where she stayed for nearly four years. She is pleased to have curated their current exhibition, “Replenish the Root: Six Centuries of Gathering Under the Oaks.”
But despite her enjoyment of her previous jobs, Mariah had been waiting for the opportunity to work in the field of Jewish and Holocaust studies, which she was so strongly drawn to, and when the chance came to apply for a position at OJMCHE, she was elated. Mariah loves living in Oregon, where she enjoys taking walks with her fiance and their dog Macy, going thrifting, celebrating Shabbat and Jewish holidays, and cooking Mexican food.