Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre - Ontario Jewish Archives-

Back in 1973, the Ontario Jewish Archives, known as the Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, started to acquire, preserve and today, it is making available documentary sources related to Ontario's Jewish community. 

Now, the Government of Canada has announced that it will be providing $195,100 through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund to support a renovation project undertaken by the Ontario Jewish Archives Foundation. With this funding the Foundation will retrofit the vault and redesign and furnish the public access space and document processing area in the Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre. 

The Ontario Jewish Archives is the largest professionally maintained repository of Jewish archival material in Canada.

You can search their archives where they have over 5,000 cubic feet of textual records, photos, newspapers, films, and oral histories. 

The website is at http://ontariojewisharchives.org/

The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/OntarioJewishArchives

Family History/Genealogy at The Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (CJHN)

If you have Jewish ancestors, have you checked the latest addition to the genealogical database at http://www.cjhn.ca/en/family-history.aspx

You can search in the following databases -

· Jewish Colonization Association individual farm settler reports from Western Canada and Quebec (1906-1951) This includes a scanned form describing each individual farming family at various points in time.

· Yiddish obituaries from the Keneder Adler (1908-1932) This Montreal-based daily newspaper has been translated and indexed.

· Hebrew Sick Benefit Association of Montreal membership listings from 1897-1945. These records have been transcribed from the membership books, translated from Yiddish.

· Canadian Jewish Casualties in the Canadian Armed Forces These listings include servicemen who died while serving in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. These records often include additional details such as war stories and photographs. 

· Saint John, New Brunswick Jewish Residents, Businesses, Burials & Obituaries These records contain burial information dating back to 1873, hundreds of full text obituaries, detailed photographs of tombstones, and business and residential directory details about all the known Jewish residents of Saint John from 1863-1999.

· Jewish Immigrant Aid Services client name lists from 1922-1952 The CJHN) say that “The JIAS listings are the only records in this database which do not present all the available data online. Access to this information is restricted to the persons named in the file or, if deceased, their direct descendants. The archival records associated with these listings can contain a single index card to more than a dozen pages. Fees for copying and delivery apply; payment can be made to the CJCCC National Archives via Paypal or Canadian funds cheque”. 

White you are at the site, do not miss their extensive archival materials, digital images, and education material at http://www.cjhn.ca/en 

Community Historical Recognition Program

Did you know that Canada has the Community Historical Recognition Program under which they develop all-exclusive programs of the Chinese, Italian, South Asian, Jewish, Ukrainian communities of the country? Apparently, they plan to cover other communities in the future.

The Community Historical Recognition Program was established in 2008 to acknowledge and to educate all Canadians about how certain ethno-cultural communities were affected by wartime discriminatory measures and immigration restrictions applied in Canada.

I took the time to look through the different programs, and it appears to be quite well done. They have taken different aspects of the communities, and have centralized them into one area.

To learn about the Community Historical Recognition Program, click on the www.CIC.gc.ca/CHRP