It's time for some good news! Despite the ongoing presence of
the pandemic we have had a very productive first half of the
year.
In early 2021 we made significant improvements to our computer
network so that the Archives staff was able to more efficiently and
effectively connect remotely to the database and other programs
normally used at the Archives. Through the use of this technology
and the efforts of Archives Assistant Hélène Vallée, we have been
able to launch a new feature on the cjhn.ca website, offering full
text access to the indexed "Inter Office memorandum" newsletters
published by Canadian Jewish Congress beginning in the mid 1940s.
(See https://www.cjhn.ca/en/list?q=fa2&p=1&ps=20
)
Meanwhile, while working onsite, we continued to prioritize
carrying out the document selection and digitization which allowed
numerous scholars and students to continue with their projects
without travelling to us. So far in 2021 we have been able to host
only a few research sessions on our premises, but we responded to
over 400 queries received via email and telephone. As of this
month we are again open to onsite researchers by appointment, and
bookings have resumed with enthusiasm.
During the month of February we had the help of a John Abbott
College student intern in Archives and Records Management. Since
the early weeks of her internship also had to be done remotely, we
used some of her time to revise last year's popular Facebook
feature "the Canadian Jewish Time Machine", and posted numerous
historical vignettes related to the month of February. (See: https://www.facebook.com/CanadianJewishArchives.)
This summer's Concordia University Public History intern has
been helping Archives Assistant Helene Vallée to inventory and
re-box a large donation of census-related studies donated in May
2021 by retired McGill Social Work professor James Torczyner. She
has also been digitizing some original 19th century Joseph family
photographs belonging to a fascinating collection of pioneer Jewish
family information received in July 2020 from the estate of the
late Anne Joseph.
Also this summer, a student intern from University of Toronto is
working under the remote supervision of the Archives Director while
sorting historical materials at the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue in
Westmount, Quebec. The results of this project may lead to an
accrual of material from the synagogue, or a cooperative
arrangement with regard to intellectual management of the holdings
there.
With the help of the technologies that have become so familiar
to us all in the course of the past year and a half, the Archives
staff continued to participate in Zoom-based events over the past
six months. In the first months of 2021 Archives Director Janice
Rosen spoke about the archives' holdings and resources to a McGill
University class "Living in Montreal: Ethnicity and Race from the
Past to the Present" and to a group of research fellows from the
Jewish Museum of Montreal.
On the larger stage, in July the TV5 series «39-45 en sol
canadien» showed an episode about Fascism in Canada for which
filming was done at the A D Canadian Jewish Archives in Sept. 2020.
It can now be seen online at https://www.tv5unis.ca/.../39-45-en.../saisons/1/episodes/11
In it archivist Janice Rosen is interviewed and the Canadian
Jewish Archives can be seen from numerous angles, first briefly at
7 seconds in, then more substantively starting at approximately
9:50 and 30:50. Scholars Pierre Anctil, Jean-François Nadeau and
Hughes Théoret, all researchers who have used our collections over
the years, speak in the episode as well, and most of the archival
still images and graphics are from the Canadian Jewish Congress
collection. Episode 9 in this series, on Antisemitism in Canada,
also draws heavily on our images.
We contributed archival photos to several online exhibits, for
example;"She Also Served: Jewish Canadian Servicewomen in the
Second World War", now online at https://live-ucalgary.ucalgary.ca/she-also-serves/exhibition,
and we provided pictures for several publications, for example;
many of our photographs, including the cover image, will be seen in
an upcoming survey of Canadian Jewish history by Frank Bialystock
titled Faces in the Crowd (https://utorontopress.com/9781442604414/faces-in-the-crowd/).
We also provided the cover image for the latest issue of
Canadian Jewish Studies, which again features a section devoted to
Archives, edited by Janice Rosen. (See Issue 31, Spring 2021, at https://cjs.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cjs.)