On November 18, 2020, the Montreal Holocaust Museum and the Montreal Jewish Public Library were joined by the Zelikovitz Centre and CHES from Carleton University for a collaborative workshop featuring rare books and objects from their collections. These historic artifacts chronicle over 350 years of the complex connections and disconnections between the Jewish and Christian communities of Europe. The presentation was entitled “Relations, Resistance, Resilience” and focused on rare books and Holocaust-era artifacts available at the Montreal Jewish Public Library. The Montreal Holocaust Museum offered a glimpse into four artifacts of their rich 13,500 artifacts collection. The webinar included interesting information about the history of the Montreal Jewish Public Library and the Montreal Holocaust Museum.
This webinar was recorded on November 18, 2020.
In the years leading up to 1914, a number of recent Jewish immigrants from across the spectrum of the political left, would gather in Hirsh Hershman’s tobacco store on rue Hermine to gamble, read the Yiddish newspapers, and argue politics. This evolved into a series of other meeting places in which members of the Hovovei Zion, the Poalei Zion, the Workmans Circle, the Dorshei Zion, and other groups would bring books from their own collections and formed reading circles. The first reading rooms were housed in the BDH Institute, but it was only near the end of 1913 that a man named Yehuda Kaufman convened 2 conferences that resulted in the official launch of the JPL in 1914. The great Hebrew essayist, Reuben Brainin who had been headhunted to become editor of the Keneder Adler left his job there to become its first director. While the library was initially and ostensibly a second home to new Jewish immigrants with collections primarily in Yiddish, it’s grown since then to about 170,000 volumes in many languages and is not only an internationally-recognized research centre, but a neighbourhood lending library whose paying members are served in 5 languages, a vibrant cultural programming roster of lectures, workshops, and films, an extraordinary Archives and a children’s library. We’re not really funded by any government body and given the very unusual nature of our collections and expertise, it’s rather remarkable in my opinion that after 106 years, we’re still a robust and dynamic place that welcomes everyone irrespective of cultural or religious backgrounds.
