JUNE 2025
der zamler
JPL’S ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS NEWSLETTER
Jonathan Slater, Miriam Bordon, Maya Pasternak and Josh Tapper with image of remote panel chair David Koffman at the ACJS Conference, May 2025. Courtesy Janice Rosen.
JPL Archives’ Reference Archivist Sam caught up with 2024 intern Aurora in France on a recent vacation.
We hope all of our community members had a joyous and restful Shavuot!
At the end of May, Archives Director Maya Pasternak was honoured to speak on a Digital Humanities panel at the Association of Canadian Jewish Studies conference in Ottawa. Not only does the archives support many digital humanities projects by supplying historic materials, but the JPL Archives itself is a very complex digital humanities project.
Maya introduced the innovative shift required to build a sustainable online archives — the move from discrete to durational production. What does this mean? Take the example of a finding aid. This is traditionally a printed document that summarizes a collection so that a researcher can navigate through it. Researchers understand that a printed document is as up to date as its date of creation. Today, our descriptions live online (at JPLArchives.org or CJHN.ca). Our expectations of the online environment is different, however — that it is perpetually up to date in a sort of never-ending now. Discussions around sustainability aren't always sexy, but without them, one confronts a graveyard of digital humanities zombies.
More recently, our Reference Archivist Sam also visited France and caught up with Aurora, an intern who, over a several-month stay in Montreal in 2024, helped to de-mystify our graphic materials collection and assisted in the acquisition and processing of the ALEPH materials into the CSUQ Fonds. Most recently, she has been working at the musée Gadagne in Lyon - a two-fold museum for the history of the city of Lyon and of the art of puppets! It’s always a treat to find out where our former staff, interns, and volunteers go when they leave the JPL.
On the topic of volunteers, in addition to our long-term roster of Yiddish translators, rare-book encasement creators, and biographical sketch writers, we have two new summer volunteers who are busy supporting the migration of the Archive's vast photo collection by creating file level descriptions. This added organizational boost will make the gems we have in this collection way simpler for our users to discover and enjoy.
Eddie Paul has announced his retirement after more than 30 years serving the JPL’s communities.
Speaking of people we appreciate: for anyone in our communities who has any words they’d like us to share with Eddie Paul on the occasion of his recent retirement, we’ve created a form, linked below, to compile stories and well wishes.
FOR THE RECORD:
A blog about all things JPL Archives
Three women reclined together at beachside, n.d. Courtesy of the JPL Archives, Photograph Collection, ID: 1255_PR017844.
We’ve Been Here Before
After attending the Montreal Holocaust Museum’s recent conference on teaching Antisemitism, our Digital Archivist reflects on drawing strength from Montreal’s Jewish heritage.
Please note that our For the Record blog will be taking a summer break for July and August. Stayed tuned in September!
exhibitionS
Close-up of Our Voice After the Unimaginable exhibition on now across from circulation at the Jewish Public Library.
*Last chance to see the physical exhibition!*
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE MONTREAL HOLOCAUST MUSEUM:
our voice after the unimaginable
APRIL 1, 2025 - JULY 1, 2025
In-House & Virtual Exhibition Launch
Jewish Public Library, across from circulation desk
In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen and as part of the Paul and Babey Trepman memorial lecture series, the Jewish Public Library Archives and the Montreal Holocaust Museum are pleased to co-present this exhibit. We invite you to learn about the period post-Liberation, and to discover how survivors took to documenting their experiences as a form of healing.
Coming this July:
Team Spirit:
The Sports Days of Ida “Wisey” Bly
Stayed Tuned!
recollections with the jpl podcast
Cover art for recollections with the JPL.
Der zamler is a Yiddish term meaning “the collector” and is related to the verb zamlen, which means “to gather.” In using this name, we join a long history of people dedicated to gathering and preserving Jewish culture around the world. A heartfelt thank-you goes to Sam Bick for the initial idea and to Anna Fishman Gonshor for providing the cultural context.
All non-archival photography, unless otherwise credited, by staff of the JPL Archives.
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