When the venerable New York Times devoted a full page to a Netflix series about a family of Haredim, The Shofar decided it was time to take a look at “Shtisel,” an Israeli series in which the characters are, as Times writer Joseph Berger described them, “black-hatted, side-curled men and bewigged women of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.”

This insular subculture, unfamiliar even to many Jews let alone other faiths, vividly portrays the traditions and customs of the observant while endearing its viewers to the characters and everyday stories that occupy all families of all faiths. “Shtisel” tells the many intertwined stories of the Shtisel family, led by Shulem Shtisel, a proud Torah scholar, and his children, Akiva, as yet unmarried in spite of intense matchmaking, and Giti, a mother of six with an scheming husband. Together, the family’s storylines tell tales not so much of religious life in Jerusalem, but rather of universal drama — unrequited love, unfaithful husbands, and unfulfilled goals in the slog of daily life.

Watching the show, one is so caught up with the human drama and its comic asides that although the beards and black hats are there, they become secondary to the narrative. The response on social media has been so strong since the show started streaming on Netflix in December that the creators are contemplating a third season.

A lengthy article in The New York Times by Ralph Blumenthal and Joseph Berger detailed the replications to be mounted in an exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which will devote 40 rooms on three floors to 700 or more artifacts and settings designed to provide a vivid sense of the Nazi death camp where 1.1 million people were killed, a million of them Jews.

The exhibition is titled “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” It is aimed at “refocusing the heritage museum into one that will delve more deeply into the Holocaust at a time when Jewish leaders say anti-Semitism and other hate crimes are growing, and the memories of — and witnesses to — what happened to six million Jews and other victimized minorities three-quarters of a century ago are fading away,” The New York Times said.

Visitors will see a boxcar of the kind the Nazis used to transport people like cattle, the barracks where they slept, jammed into narrow bunks, the posts from fences that caged them, a canister once filled with the poison gas pellets that sealed their fate, plus small, personal items, remnants of a life once lived.

The exhibition will open May 8, 2019 and run through Jan. 3, 2020 at the museum, located at 36 Battery Place, in Manhattan. For tickets, visit the website or call 646-437-4231.

In the continuing fight to educate the world about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and to honor the millions who were slaughtered, Holocaust educators are rushing to preserve first-person testimony. Survivors are aging; the youngest remaining witnesses are reaching their 80s, and their inevitable disappearance weighs heavily on educators, who believe there is nothing more effective and moving than face-to-face testimonies.

“I don’t like to speak of the day when there won’t be any survivors,” said Shulamit Imber, pedagogical director of Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies, as reported in an article by Michael Chabin for Religion News Service. “To hear that six million Jews were murdered is overwhelming. To hear one story from someone who lived through the Holocaust makes a strong impression.”

While Yad Vashem has thousands of survivor testimonies in its archives, the importance of in-person survivor testimonies goes beyond anecdotal evidence, Imber said. In surveys, teachers who have participated in Yad Vashem’s multiday Holocaust education seminars listed face-to-face encounters with survivors as the most effective part of the program.

The race against time has prompted Yad Vashem to create a contextual kind of filmed testimony in which survivors travel to their hometowns in Europe and to the places where they experienced the Holocaust most acutely. Yad Vashem is also actively encouraging teachers to use its extensive archive of diaries by Holocaust victims, many of whom did not survive the war. “Everyone knows about Anne Frank’s diary, but there are thousands more, translated into many languages,” she said.

Survivors of Auschwitz arrive at the International Monument to the victims of Fascism at former Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Oswiecim, Poland, on Jan. 27.                                                      AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski