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NEW ORLEANS (JTA) - Janis Rabin's family emigrated from Poland, eventually settling in Bogalusa, Louisiana. For years, she and her relatives had kept memories and stories of their family's Jewish experience to themselves, or shared them casually with friends.

So when Rabin entered this city's Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience the day it opened to the public, she was moved by seeing her family's history represented more formally.

"I look at the museum and it is such a beautiful representation of what it means to have your roots, your identity validated," she said.

Like Rabin, many...