Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina is the first major effort to document and present a remarkable story spanning more than 400 years. Six years in the making, this four-part project was organized by the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina (JHFNC). Former governor James B. Hunt Jr. is Honorary Chairman of the project.

“The Down Home multimedia project will present North Carolina’s Jewish past in a compelling and welcoming way that will be interesting to people of all ages, races and religions,” says Henry A. Greene, President of the JHFNC, based in Durham. “It will break down stereotypes and help people become more familiar with the Jewish experience in the state and also with what being Jewish is all about.”

Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina is comprised of a traveling exhibit, a critically acclaimed documentary film, a companion book published by UNC Press, and curriculum guides with DVDs for all North Carolina public schools.

“Down Home invites the people of North Carolina to see ourselves and our state’s history in new and surprising ways,” adds Leonard Rogoff, author of the companion book, historian, and exhibit curator.

As a multimedia project, Down Home presents the Jewish story from a variety of perspectives.

• The traveling exhibit opens Monday, June 14, at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Produced and organized by the JHFNC, the exhibit chronicles how Jews have integrated into North Carolina life by blending their own traditions into Southern culture, while preserving their ethnic and religious traditions. Down Home is enhanced with artifacts and re-created environmental settings depicting scenes of Jewish Life. Admission is free.

Down Home will close temporarily between July 11 and Aug. 1 but will reopen Aug. 2 and run through March 7, 2011. After it closes in Raleigh, Down Home will travel to Greensboro, Wilmington, Charlotte and Asheville. The exhibit is sponsored by the Leon and Sandra Levine Foundation of Charlotte and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

· The documentary film was produced by Emmy-Award winning filmmaker and historian Steve Channing. (The 60-minute film will air on WUNC-TV on Thursday, June 3.) The documentary brings to life this 400-year history with re-enactments, archival photographs, vintage films, and, most of all, entertaining oral histories from people who have lived the experience.

· The 432-page book was written by Southern Jewish historian Leonard Rogoff and supported by a distinguished editorial board of nationally recognized scholars in the field of American Jewish history. The beautifully illustrated volume presents a sweeping chronicle of Jewish life in the Tar Heel State, from colonial times to the present. The book incorporates oral histories, profiles of individuals, historic and contemporary photographs, and more.

· Educational DVDs and teacher resource guides will be available for use in “Peoples of North Carolina,” curriculum required in North Carolina for fourth and eighth grades. Currently, no educational material addresses Jews as a distinct cultural entity in the Tar Heel State.

For more information about the Down Home project, please visit www.jhfnc.org or call 919-668-5839. Copies of the 432-page book Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina by historian Leonard Rogoff are available for $35 in the Museum Shop. DVDs of the documentary are $19.95.

To learn more about the Museum of History, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org or Facebook®. The museum is located at 5 E. Edenton St., across from the State Capitol. Parking is available in the lot across Wilmington Street.

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The N.C. Museum of History’s hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The museum is part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archives and History, an agency of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. The department’s Web site is www.ncculture.com.