Location: Suite C140 – 123 Doncaster Street, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3N 2B2
Contact: 204-477-7460; jewishheritage@jhcwc.org
Access: Open to the Public; For extensive research, it is recommended to call in advance and speak to an archivist; The JHC is in the process of digitizing their collections for online access
Website: https://www.jhcwc.org/
The Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada (JHC) is located at the Asper Jewish Community Campus and houses a research library, an extensive archive collection, museum exhibitions, photographs and artifacts at the Ed and Marion Jewish Museum of Western Canada and the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre. The Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada amalgamated with the Marion and Ed Vickar Jewish Museum of Western Canada and the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre to become the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada (1999). The Jewish Heritage Centre is now performing all the functions of the Museum, Holocaust Centre, and Historical Society. Its record collections emphasize the history of the Jewish people in Western Canada in the form of photographs, Jewish newspapers, cemetery information, oral histories, manuscripts, Yiddish music collections, and films.
Notable records housed by the Jewish Centre of Western Canada include an extensive ongoing oral history collection of over 550 interviews and interview transcriptions with Holocaust survivors, people in the needle trades and the trade union movement, World War II veterans, residents of the Jewish milieu of Selkirk Avenue, three-generation Jewish families, Jewish personalities and pioneers. A recent project entitled Jewish Involvement in Sports in Manitoba highlights the interviews of 30 professional and amateur athletes and sportscasters, team owners and team officials.
The JHC also contains an extensive archival collection of photographs, minutes, and hundreds of manuscripts and other documents from schools, synagogues, and other local organizations. These include personal papers, diaries and correspondence from prominent members of the community, passports, ship tickets, photos indicating various stages of acclimatization, family gatherings, outings, and individual portraits.
Various notable exhibits include A Stitch In Time!, highlighting the history of the garment industry and its relation to Winnipeg and the Jewish community, Journey Into Our Heritage, Selkirk Avenue Revisited, Image Before My Eyes, The Life Work of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and A Tree Still Stands: The Last Jews of Eastern Europe.