Exploring the open expanses of downtown Montreal’s Quartier des spectacles, it’s difficult to believe this was once a bustling garment district. Packed with factories and sweatshops, tailors and seamstresses, manufacturers and union executives, the relatively small Rue Ste-Catherine corridor between University and Boulevard St-Laurent was a hotbed of clothing production, class confrontation and radical politics.
Picture Ste-Catherine on a busy day in the 1920s and 1930s: steam billowing out of factory windows and grey snow covering the muddied streets; children ferrying newspapers and bales of cloth from building to building; thousands of weary workers flooding the streets for a brief lunchtime break; the mingling sounds of French, English, Yiddish, Italian, Russian . . .
Welcome to Work upon Arrival, a geographic and historic guide to Jewish immigrant labour at the beginning of the twentieth century. We invite you to explore the ways in which these newcomers changed – and were changed by – the work world they found in Montreal. Coming to an unknown country and speaking a foreign language, how did these immigrants find work with little financial support and few personal connections at their disposal? How did so many Jews end up in the garment industry, working as cutters, machine operators and even as manufacturers? And how did so many Jews get involved in labour politics?
In the early 1970s, Seemah C. Berson conducted interviews with Eastern European Jews who had immigrated to Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver in the first decades of the twentieth century. I Have a Story to Tell You (WLU Press, 2010) is a compilation of these oral histories. On this tour, discover the stories of six Montrealers whose lives help illustrate the immigrant Jewish experience of labour. These witnesses, most of whom worked in the garment industry, tell us in their own words about immigrating, entering the needle trades, enduring terrible working conditions, union organizing and striking.
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A Geography of Jewish Care
A virtual tour of 150 years of Jewish social services in Montreal. The year 2013 marks 150 years of continuous Jewish social service in Montreal, beginning with the founding of the Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society (YMHBS) in 1863 and continuing through the work of Ometz today. For the first century of its existence, from 1760 to 1860, the Jewish community of Canada was too small to require a formal charity. Montreal’s first Jews were British Sephardim, who arrived alongside the British conquest of New France. This small community initially established itself in business and trades.
The 1840s began several decades of mass immigration by Central- and later Eastern European Jews to Montreal. Many of these newcomers arrived with little money and had great difficulties adjusting to Canadian life. The established community responded, guided by the Jewish ethics of tzedakah (righteousness or justice) and tikun olam (repairing the world), by establishing a society dedicated to providing assistance to the newcomers. As the Jewish community of Montreal expanded and developed, so did its framework for community support.
Tenement Museum in New York
In addition to being essential for political representation and deciding federal funding, census data is crucial for historians. But to protect people’s privacy, historians can’t access census data until 72 years later. Every 10 years, another census record becomes available for the public to access. On April 1st of this year, NARA released the 1950 census data and for a museum dedicated to public records research, this is especially important.
In this digital exhibit, use an interactive timeline to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our Museum historians have used the census to learn how residents of the Lower East Side lived.
Moroccan Jewish Story
Today there is a growing lack of knowledge and amnesia of the Jewish element of the Moroccan cultural identity. If in 1947 there were more than 270,000 Jews living in Morocco, today (2018) there are only around 2,500 Jews left. These numbers are reducing as time passes by, so what we are actually witnessing these days is the disappearing of the Jewish presence in Morocco.
The Virtual Tours offer everyone the opportunity to visit the Jewish Moroccan heritage sites across Morocco. Following the disappearing of the Moroccan Jewish community, these sites are left to tell the story that must be told and heard. The tours are accessible easily any time and from any place. All you needed is a smartphone, a tablet or a computer, and a connection to the internet. You can also upgrade your experience using a VR headset which is supported (use the VR botton to switch the mode).
Jewish Museum Berlin
Ever had the experience of travelling to a destination and not being quite sure which sights to visit? More so, did you ever regret spending time and money on an attraction that didn’t meet your expectations?
As avid travellers, we at 360 Stories know the pain is real. But what if you could plan in advance, not by reading contradictory reviews and looking at photoshopped images, but by seeing for yourself first before making up your mind?
Sephardic Museum Toledo
The Sephardic Museum is located inside the Samuel ha-Leví Synagogue or as the Transit Synagogue is popularly known. However, since its origins, this synagogue has been the subject of various ups and downs and modifications, offering us an exciting testimony of the history of our country.
The origin of this spectacular building dates back to the 14th century, when it was erected by Samuel ha-Leví, an important figure of the time, who held various positions of great relevance in the court of King Pedro I of Castile, such as Oidor de la Audiencia, Diplomat or Royal Treasurer.
With the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the Catholic Monarchs ceded the Synagogue to the Order of Calatrava in exchange for some of their possessions, such as the Alcázar and the Palaces of Galiana with their church of Santa Fe.
Two years later, the building became part of the Priory of St. Benedict. At this time the first modifications take place and the area occupied by the rabbinical school and the Women’s Gallery are used as a hospital and asylum for the Calatrave knights, and the Great Prayer Room becomes a Christian temple and burial place, appearing in the documentation as the Church of San Benito.
During the 16th century, it ceased to be a hospital and asylum to become exclusively a church. At this time there were several architectural modifications, building an entrance door to the sacristy, as well as a recessed archsolio used to worship an image of the Virgin, both of Plateresque style. An altarpiece was attached to the central body of the old hejal and the main altar was placed on the primitive floor of the synagogue. The old Women’s Gallery was walled up and used as a dwelling. Likewise, a wooden parquet was placed for the choir on the west side.
In the seventeenth century is when the church of San Benito became commonly known as that of the Transit due to the painting The Transit of the Virgin External link, opens in a new window, which adorned the Plateresque altar since then. This painting was painted by Juan Correa de Vivar and today it is located in the Museo Nacional del Prado. External link, it opens in a new window.
In the eighteenth century, a certain decline of military orders took place, which also affected the once rich church of Nuestra Señora del Tránsito that now appears in the documentation simply as Ermita.
Subsequently, during the Napoleonic wars, the Synagogue was used as a military barracks, suffering a continuous deterioration throughout almost the 19th century, while it continued its use as a Hermitage until the confiscation.
In 1877 it was declared a National Monument and from then until 1910 a series of restorations were carried out to alleviate the poor condition of the building.
In 1910, the former Synagogue was entrusted to the Board of Trustees of the Museo del Greco governed by the Marquis de la Vega-Inclán, which proceeds to its restoration according to the criteria of the time. Thus, from 1910 to 1968, the Synagogue was under the protection and custody of the Vega-Inclán Foundations, the last restoration being carried out in the 60s, before its inauguration as a Museum, in which the old coral ashlars placed in the time of the Marquis was disappeared, plasterwork, flooring, carpentry were repaired and a silk upholstery that imitates
The Sephardic Museum
And this is where the history of the Sephardic Museum begins, as we know it today, since it was created by Decree in 1964 with location the Samuel ha-Leví Synagogue, the most important Hispanic-Jewish building in Spain and located in the heart of the Jewish quarter of Toledo.
In 1968 the Sephardic Museum was declared a “National Museum of Hispanic-Jewish Art,” and in 1969 the Transit Synagogue disassociated itself from the Vega-Inclán Foundations, an organization that had managed it since the beginning of the 20th century, beginning its trajectory as an independent center.
In 1971 the museum opened its doors to the public and since then it has undergone several improvements, carrying out a comprehensive remodeling plan of the building to adapt it to current museological needs, as well as a new museological and museographic project.
For this reason, architectural works, restorations of the plasterwork and coffered ceilings have been carried out, and archaeological excavations, in order to alleviate the diversity of actions suffered by the building over time and allow the Synagogue to be part of the new Museum as the main piece of its collection.
It is currently a state museum under the Ministry of Culture and Sport External link, it opens in a new window, attached to the General Directorate of Fine Arts External link, opens in a new window and managed by the General Subdirectorate of State Museums External link, opens in a new window, whose main mission is to preserve and transmit the Hispanic-Jewish and Sephardic legacy as a fundamental
Tuscon Jewish History Museum and Holocaust Center
We hope you will soon join us in person to tour both the Holocaust Center and the Jewish History Museum, housed in the first synagogue in the Arizona Territory. The Jewish History Museum explores the histories and contemporary experiences of Jewish people in Southern Arizona and purposefully places them in conversation with the experiences of other traditionally marginalized communities.
St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum Virtual Tour
Join staff and docents on a full tour of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. While learning Holocaust history is the key to understanding its roots, we have another duty: to use the history and lessons of the Holocaust to reject hatred, promote understanding, and inspire change.
Buenos Aires Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Buenos Aires Shoah Museum, the only of its kind in Latin America, serves as a museum, memorial and moral reminder by telling the story of the Holocaust and its impact in Argentina and wider South America.The museum is supported through the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, and was declared a ‘Site of Cultural Interest’ by the city of Buenos Aires in 2006.
Under the slogan, ‘To remember is to avoid repeating history,’ the foundation’s mission is to keep the memory of the Holocaust present, honor those lost and to serve as a poignant reminder of the atrocities that can stem from racism and xenophobia.
Anne Frank House Virtual Tour
We tell the story of Anne Frank, both in the museum and outside. Look around and discover the Secret Annex: the place where Anne Frank lived in hiding for more than 2 years during WWII, and where she wrote her diary. Watch videos about Anne Frank: her life, her diary, and the Secret Annex. The Anne Frank video diary will air on YouTube in fifteen episodes. All characters, locations, and events in the series are based on Anne Frank’s diary letters. Explore the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family in virtual reality with the free ‘Anne Frank House VR’ app, and view the Google Arts & Culture exhibition ‘Anne Frank; Her life, her diary, her legacy’, told in 20 languages.
