Our Collections
The OJA’s records span all segments of Ontario’s Jewish community. We have records from businesses, families, labour unions, organizations, and synagogues. These records date from the community’s earliest days to its present. What’s more, they come from all over Ontario and in every format you can think of. If you were to lay out all of our boxes, they would stretch from the foot of Yonge Street to Dundas Square!
Below you can find highlights from our newest acquisitions as well as collections that have recently been processed and added to our website search.
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Acquisition of the Month
In January, the OJA acquired material documenting the life and creative work of Joseph (“Joey”) Leventhal, a Toronto-born physician, Royal Canadian Air Force officer, and lifelong artist. After the war, Leventhal pursued medicine at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1950 and going on to practise family medicine in Weston, Ontario, for several decades, delivering an estimated three thousand babies!
What makes this acquisition particularly compelling from a visual perspective are the fifty-five drawings, which range from childhood works created between the ages of eleven and fifteen—many dated or inscribed—to later adult drawings that combine image and handwritten text reflecting on medicine, aging, and family life. One such drawing is shown to the left. Depicting a bearded rabbi in ink on paper, Leventhal created the drawing sometime between 1934 and 1935, when he was fourteen years old.