MARCH 2025
der zamler
JPL’S NEWSLETTER FOR ALL THINGS
ARCHIVES & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Next stop: rochl korn!
Alternative metro map of Montreal, titled Montréal, Ville de femmes (Montreal, City of Women). Courtesy of the Société de transport de Montréal.
Following in the footsteps of London and New York, Montreal has now released an alternative Metro map featuring the names of some of Montreal’s most influential women to celebrate International Women’s Day!
Imagine pulling into Côte-des-Neiges on the blue line and hearing the poet Rochl Korn’s name ring out, hopping off at activist Léa Roback’s (Parc) station, meeting a friend at musician Ethel Stark’s (Namur) station, or stepping into actor Dora Wasserman (Côte-Sainte-Catherine) station on the orange line.
Our reference archivist, Sam, worked diligently to provide some imagery and context for a few of these amazing women, and you can learn more about each woman featured and the project as a whole at the Montréal, Ville de femmes site.
upcoming events
Event poster featuring an illustration of Claude Lemieux et Sonia Sarah Lipsyc by Ludmila Fishman, February 3, 2010. Courtesy of the JPL Archives, Communauté sépharade unifiée du Québec Fonds, ID: 1481-4-[106]-1.
aleph a quinze ans: une soirée-célébration du don officiel de ses archives à la bpj
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
6:30 - 8:00pm EST
Gelber Conference Centre
5151 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine
Event in French | In-Person
In honor of the CSUQ's donation of the archives and documents of ALEPH Centre d'études juives contemporaines, join us for an evening of conversation between Sonia Sarah Lipsyc, Anne Elaine Cliche, and their invited speakers.
Event poster featuring an illustration from the Unzer Szytme, Issue 4, 1945. Courtesy of the JPL Archives, Paul Trepman Fonds, ID: 1069_33.
The JPL Presents the 2025 Babey and Paul Trepman Memorial Lecture
Unzer Sztyme: Our Voice After the Unimaginable
In collaboration with the Montreal Holocaust Museum, the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, and the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
6:00pm - 9:00pm EST
Segal Centre for Performing Arts
5170 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine
$36 In-person, $18 Student, $5 Virtual | Registration required | Event in English | In-person event | Livestream option
Unzer Sztyme, Yiddish for Our Voice, was an unprecedented publication produced in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in the months following liberation. The Jewish Public Library Archives holds one of the few known collections of the publication in the world. April 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen camp, so we invite you to this multi-faceted program to commemorate both Unzer Sztyme and the anniversary of the liberation of its contributors.
Join us in for readings from Unzer Sztyme by actors from the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, a one-night only exhibition featuring materials from the JPL Archives and the Montreal Holocaust Museum, and a moderated discussion between Aaron Krishtalka and Elly Trepman to discuss the genesis of the publication and their ongoing translation efforts.
Event poster for Book Talk on Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish.
The Jewish Public Library presents:
Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish
with author Hannah Pollin-Galay in conversation with Eddie Paul
Thursday, April 3, 2025
7:30pm - 9:00pm EST
Virtual Event
Free | Registration required | Event in English | Livestream only
The Holocaust radically altered the way many East European Jews spoke Yiddish. Finding prewar language incapable of describing the imprisonment, death, and dehumanization of the Shoah, prisoners added or reinvented thousands of Yiddish words and phrases to describe their new reality. These crass, witty, and sometimes beautiful Yiddish words – Khurbn Yiddish, or “Yiddish of the Holocaust” – puzzled and intrigued the East European Jews who were experiencing the metamorphosis of their own tongue in real time. Sensing that Khurbn Yiddish words harbored profound truths about what Jews endured during the Holocaust, some Yiddish speakers threw themselves into compiling dictionaries and glossaries to document and analyze these new words. Others incorporated Khurbn Yiddish into their poetry and prose. In Occupied Words, Hannah Pollin-Galay explores Khurbn Yiddish as a form of Holocaust memory and as a testament to the sensation of speech under genocidal conditions.
Join Eddie Paul, JPL’s Associate Director of Special Collections, and Hannah Pollin-Galay, Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University, as they discuss her compelling new work on Khurbn Yiddish and its cultural history, philology, and literary interpretation.
FOR THE RECORD:
A BLOG ABOUT THE WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, AND HOW (OF ARCHIVING)
Screenprint of figure seated on a rocky shore. Courtesy of the JPL Archives, Joseph Prezament Fonds, ID: 1360_[3]_137.
What is a collection freeze, and why does the JPL Archives have one?
Our Archival Director, Maya Pasternak, explains what accepting donations entails and why we have implemented a collection freeze until April 2026.
news from the stacks
Interior snapshot of Dora Wasserman singing, surrounded by crowd in the lobby of the Saidye Bronfman Centre (now Segal Centre), 1975. Courtesy of the JPL Archives, Photograph Collection, ID: 1255_PR018112.
We did our own little celebration for International Women’s Day, and you may have seen this photograph in our Instagram post over the weekend. We can’t get enough of the joy Dora Wasserman radiates here, however, so we’re sharing it everywhere we can!
Sarah has returned to the helm of our digital archiving initiatives, jumping right into some of the biggest institutional fonds that we hold with the goal of having those searchable on our online catalogue in the coming months. We’re so thankful to Leah for steering all things JPLArchives.org in her absence. Sam has been extra busy with reference appointments, with researchers coming from as far as Finland to see our materials. Maya has been focused on the big picture for the JPL Archives, managing donor relations and funding reports, while Eddie is getting ready for his upcoming book talk with author Hannah Pollin-Galay. Ezell and Ellen are preparing their next virtual and physical exhibitions, featuring an exciting collaboration with the Montreal Holocaust Museum, happening in conjunction with our upcoming Unzer Sztyme (Our Voice) event. This event marks the 80th anniversary of the launch of the first Jewish periodical printed in Germany after WWII. In addition to the main discussion of the event, we’re very excited to be bringing you newly digitized video testimonials, and live readings from Unzer Sztyme. We hope you’ll join us, tickets are available above!
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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