In 1931, Yiddish was the mother tongue of 99% of the Jewish community within Montreal and served as a cultural cornerstone throughout the 20th century. However, the number of Yiddish speakers within Montreal has been on a steady decline since the 1950’s and is now classified as “definitely endangered” by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages.

The oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish dates from 1272: it was a rhyme inscribed inside the empty spaces of five large Hebrew characters that formed part of a Hebrew blessing, and is sometimes used to suggest the subservience of Yiddish to Hebrew within the broad sweep of Jewish literature.

In parallel to how Vilna was often referred to as the Jerusalem of Lithuania, Montreal was likewise referred to as the Vilna of North America. The JPL was the focal point for Yiddish literary figures and intellectuals in the early 20th century, and our earliest circulating collections were formed from the aggregate libraries of leftist Yiddish groups whose energy and incentive were geared towards sustaining Yiddish language and culture. The Ephemeral Collection, as it is still referred to today, comprises 102 linear metres of clippings, chapbooks, small monographs, catalogs, and other miscellaneous curiosities covering the intellectual production of Jews in the diaspora and Israel dating from the late 19th through the mid to late 20th century – a large proportion of these material is in Yiddish. A similar collection in scope focusing on Jews and Jewish life in Canada is the Jewish Canadiana Collection, which acts as an adjunct research area that is often used in tandem with the JPL Archives – also with substantial Yiddish content. As is the case with many cities around the world, Montreal has been enjoying a Yiddish renaissance for some time, and yet while JPL’s oldest Yiddish collections have been known to researchers for many decades, they were not in the public eye. However, with the generous support of the Gonshor Family (in memory of the late Chana Gonshor), combined with funding from the Azrieli Foundation as part of a 3-year digital transformation initiative, we have begun to showcase the works of writers, intellectuals, and ideological movements within the field of Yiddish studies in our permanent and continually expanding exhibition series, A Celebration of Yiddish.