Centretown-based community Canadian Jewish Experience is preparing a major exhibit that aims to commemorate and raise awareness of Jewish contributions to Canada for the nation’s 150th anniversary in 2017.
The Canadian Jewish Experience: A Tribute to Canada will showcase the achievements and stories of Jewish Canadians in an exhibition highlighting nine major themes, including migration, anti-Semitism, war and diplomacy, and the arts. There will also be a Wall of Fame featuring the photographs of 150 important Canadian Jews.
Some stories may be unfamiliar or surprising to visitors, says CJE founder Tova Lynch, who admitted she learned new things while putting the project together.
“For example, in the war and peace theme, we’re going to thank the Canadian army for liberating a transport camp in the Netherlands called Westerbork,” she said.
She is referring to a Dutch transit point where Jewish prisoners in the Second World War were kept before being shipped out to concentration camps such as Auschwitz.
“Many Canadians are not aware that it was the Canadian army that liberated Westerbork,” noted Lynch. “So we actually asked for a Second World War Jeep from the army to display.”
The exhibition will have a “dual purpose” that makes it fitting to open on Canada’s 150th anniversary, said Rabbi Reuven Bulka, an adviser on the project.
“On one hand, it celebrates what the Jewish community has contributed to the country; on the other, it celebrates the welcome and the facility Canada has had to allow something like this (exhibit) to happen,” he said.
The Jewish connection to Canada dates back to the mid-1700s. CJE acknowledges that Canada has welcomed Jewish contributions to the country, but the Canada has not always been open to settling Jewish migrants.
For example, in 1938, more than 900 German Jews who travelled aboard the S.S. St. Louis seeking refuge were denied entry to Canada. Between 1933 and 1939, Canada admitted approximately less than half of more than 800,000 Jews who came from Nazi Germany.
Lynch added that the exhibit will not only serve as a testament to Jewish Canadian contributions, but is a thanks “to Canadians for what they did for Jewish people.”
CJE partnered with the National Capital Commission to secure a venue at 30 Metcalfe St., near the intersection of Metcalfe and Queen Streets, the NCC announced in a statement in November.
The committee is hoping to raise a total of $2.9 million from government grants, private donors and the Jewish community to put the project in motion. So far, they’ve raised $300,000, which is far behind what they projected to have raised by now, Lynch said.
Aside from the challenge of fundraising, CJE has also faced the difficulty of having to pick and choose what to include in the exhibit out of the vast history of contributions, Bulka said.
“One of the difficulties we expect is that we can’t put everything in the exhibit, and exhibits like this always invite a type of public concern, but we’re hoping that (the public’s take-away impression) will all be very positive,” he explained.
The committee is hopeful that the exhibition will inspire members of other ethnic communities to reflect on how they can, or have, contributed to Canada, Bulka said.
CJE said it would also like to see A Tribute to Canada eventually become a moving exhibit that will go from city to city across the country.
The exhibit does not yet have an opening date, as CJE continues to work through plans of hiring a curator and reaching fundraising goals, Lynch said.