This embroidered parochet, which is framed with a blue satin border, comes from Ozerow, Poland. It was made for the High Holidays by the parents of Shlomeh Zalmen Birnbaum, of the Ger Chassidim, and was brought to Montreal, Canada on the eve of World War II, in 1939, for use at the Ozerow synagogue on de Montigny, and later on St. Urbain Street. It was donated to the Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee National Archives by the descendants of the Birnbaum family in the 1970s. From 1990 to 2000 the parochet was prominently displayed at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre's exhibit "Splendour and Destruction".
Although the CJCCC National Archives only has a few items from its art and artifacts collection on display at on the premises, many items from the collection have been or are currently on loan to Canadian museums and cultural exhibits.
The artifacts collection includes ceremonial silver items rescued in Europe after World War II and sent to Canadian Jewish Congress by the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Committee. The collection extends to textiles such as cantorial robes and a Jewish Boy Scout uniform, as well as to memorabilia illustrative of various aspects of Jewish life in Canada.
The art collection includes several original paintings by the early 20th century artist Eric Goldberg as well as works on paper by his wife Regina Seiden Goldberg, and portraits by well-known Canadian Jewish artists Alexander Bercovitch and Ernst Neumann. More recent paintings in the collection include paintings by Jan Menses, Fruma Sanders, and Boris Yefman.
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