A piece of CJC history comes home
We
recently received an exciting donation in the form of a medallion
that had been worn by a delegate to the Founding Plenary Assembly
of the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1919. Despite the importance of
this item to the core collection of CJCCCNA, the Archives has never
owned one of these medals until now.
Measuring 3.5 centimetres (1 and 3/4 inches) in diameter, the
small, tarnished item shows a draped female figure holding the
scales of justice in one hand and a sword in the other, with a bell
at the bottom of the design. "Canadian Jewish Congress" is written
on a scroll above her and "Montreal / March 16, 1919" at the level
of her hips. The scroll on the bottom is in Hebrew characters,
indicating the date as "Purim" followed by the Hebrew calendar
year.
The medal belonged to Rivke Belansman (later Rivke Pascal) who
was the delegate representing the Peretz School, formerly known as
the National Radical School. It was donated by her daughter Naomi
Pascal Freeman, who also provided information pointing out her
mother in the famous group photograph of the event. She can be seen
highlighted in the image below.
In this detail of the group of 209 delegates gathered on the
steps of the Baron de Hirsch Institute, we can see that most of the
delegates are wearing their medalliions. The highlighted one below
is worn by General Secretary H. M. Caiserman. Caiserman is flanked
on one side by CJC's first President Lyon Cohen (in a bowler hat
and also wearing his medallion) and by newspaper publisher Hirsch
Wolofsky.
From 1919 to 2011 the Canadian Jewish Congress was the
democratic voice of Canadian Jewry for issues within Canada and
abroad.