Exhibitions
Current
Gallery
April 4, 2023
to April 30, 2023
Periphery is an evocative photographic and film project that bears witness to ethnic diversity in the Jewish community.
Virtual
January 1, 2023
to December 31, 2023
The OJA is celebrating 50 years of collecting our community’s history! Each week, a new collection will be revealed, showcasing a variety of organizations, individuals, and events from over 170 years of Jewish history in Ontario.
Gallery
April 17, 2023
to November 12, 2023
This international exhibition is brought together with assistance from Canadian architect Douglas Birkenshaw and through architectural photography by celebrated Dutch photographer Iwan Baan.
Gallery
March 1, 2023
to March 29, 2023
Portraits of both the artist’s ancestors and people in our community who are helping to repair the world.
Window Gallery
February 21, 2023
to June 30, 2023
Earth, artifacts, movement and memory come together to form this new installation created for FENTSTER by Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks.
Gallery
November 30, 2022
to April 30, 2023
A two-part collaborative project with the OJA and Baycrest honouring Jewish women and their vital contributions to our community.
Gallery
November 3, 2022
to September 15, 2023
The Manor holds a special place in our community’s memory and the Ontario Jewish Archives is working to ensure that this important part of our heritage is preserved for research and future generations.
Virtual
February 14, 2022
to February 14, 2024
Whether examining a highly formal, early-twentieth-century studio portrait or a glamorous 1940s bridal portrait, these images offer an opportunity to get lost in the romance and history of a flourishing community.
Virtual
May 1, 2021
to May 31, 2023
A virtual tour of Toronto’s historic Kensington Market. Scroll through all eight stops and watch the streets come to life though guided videos presenting the sights and sounds of the one-time Jewish Market.
Virtual
November 11, 2020
to November 11, 2025
Over 17,000 Canadian Jews enlisted in the military during WWII. Through their personal collections, preserved at the OJA, we can learn about these Canadian Jewish servicemen and women and the Jewish organizations that aided them.
Upcoming
Gallery
April 4, 2023
to April 30, 2023
Periphery is an evocative photographic and film project that bears witness to ethnic diversity in the Jewish community.
Gallery
April 17, 2023
to November 12, 2023
This international exhibition is brought together with assistance from Canadian architect Douglas Birkenshaw and through architectural photography by celebrated Dutch photographer Iwan Baan.
Archived Exhibitions
Gallery
March 1, 2023
to March 29, 2023
Portraits of both the artist’s ancestors and people in our community who are helping to repair the world.
Gallery
January 5, 2023
to January 31, 2023
This collection features the art of older adults at the Bernard Betel Centre in watercolour, acrylic and pencil.
Gallery
December 2, 2022
to January 3, 2022
Sculpture and mixed media artist Jeff Mann returns to the MNjcc to address our dependency on cars.
Gallery
November 9, 2022
to November 30, 2022
Explore the moving and dramatic history of the Kindertransport and learn about the fate of these Kindertransport children through their personal objects and the stories they tell.
Gallery
November 2, 2022
to March 5, 2023
Artist nichola feldman-kiss explores global migration and flights from homelands in a multidisciplinary exhibition.
Window Gallery
September 28, 2022
to January 19, 2023
TSVISHN (Yiddish for ‘between’) is a series of pop up projects in the window while we’re in between exhibitions.
Gallery
October 3, 2022
to October 31, 2022
City Life Captures of Toronto takes you on a journey of Toronto, through a different lens.
Gallery
October 13, 2022
to November 28, 2022
In celebration of 100 years of Jewish Immigrant Aid Services in Canada, the OJA and JIAS Toronto invite you to visit Refuge Canada Tent, a traveling exhibit created by the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, and Love the Stranger, a complementary exhibit curated by the Ontario Jewish Archives.
Gallery
September 12, 2022
to November 15, 2022
Photographed by the talented Yahav Gross, his photos bring the colorful marine life of Eilat, Israel to life in this stunning exhibit.
Virtual
September 1, 2022
to September 30, 2022
Love the Stranger is an archival exhibition that shares the story of Jewish Immigrant Aid Services (JIAS).
Window Gallery
September 3, 2022
to September 5, 2022
Discover the history and myriad interactions of two historic peoples living side by side on Ukrainian lands, through texts, maps, graphics, paintings, photographs and other images.
Virtual
August 1, 2022
to August 31, 2022
Celebrating the Virtual Gallery at the J’s 2021-2022 artists and exhibition partners.
Virtual
June 1, 2022
to July 31, 2022
Patrick Hunter’s stunning exhibition reflects his Ojibway heritage and living loud and proud as a 2Spirited person.
Gallery
May 6, 2022
to May 30, 2022
Presenting the winning student artworks with the theme “Jewish Music and the Holidays.”
Virtual
May 2, 2022
to May 31, 2022
An MNjcc early childhood education exhibition showcasing art made using the Sheva Framework and foundation of each lens within the creative projects.
Gallery
May 1, 2022
to June 1, 2022
Presenting a collection of anecdotes, images and films, the exhibition is a tapestry of the communal experiences that have forged the South African Jewish identity.
Window Gallery
April 26, 2022
to September 8, 2022
Parchment is an installation of community collected parchment papers exploring the mark made by baking challah bread for Shabbat, leaving an imprint of memory.
Virtual
April 1, 2022
to April 30, 2022
Canadians were encouraged to make art inspired by Shmita rooted in ritual objects, texts, music and practices that facilitate both a personal and collective engagement with Jewish cycles of time.
Virtual
March 1, 2022
to March 31, 2022
A celebration of female artists for International Women’s Day! The Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC) is the longest-standing arts organization of Canada.
Virtual
February 1, 2022
to February 28, 2022
This virtual exhibition of a series of images and designer silks, titled “NEO-KENTE” represents the next generation of contemporary cloth-making, integrating digital design and ancient and modern symbols of intersectional Black identities.
Virtual
January 4, 2022
to January 31, 2022
Collaborating with a courageous and diverse group of dancers during the COVID-19 lockdown, photographer Kyle Adler has crafted a stunning visual testament to how we share a need to create even while each of us owns a unique story.
Gallery
December 3, 2021
to February 13, 2022
The Spiders and the Bees is a survey exhibition by French-Canadian, Venice based artist François Xavier Saint-Pierre, including his most recent body of work following a residency at the Villa Medici in Rome.
Virtual
December 1, 2021
to December 31, 2021
Drawings in oil and graphite have a gestural immediacy in their depiction of churning ocean and cold light that provides a counterpoint to the major canvases.
Window Gallery
November 22, 2021
to April 23, 2022
An abstracted tree without roots hangs in the FENTSTER window gallery, its limbs and leaves composed of many double-sided drawings created by Yaara Eshet (Toronto) and Aya Rosen (Brooklyn), longtime transplants to North America from Israel.
Window Gallery
November 12, 2021
to November 27, 2021
This project features disabled people telling their own stories through narrative and visual art, woven into a 10 minute multi-media piece that will be projected onto exterior building walls.
Virtual
November 1, 2021
to November 30, 2021
A virtual exhibition for Holocaust Education Week, including painted portraits of child survivors of the Flossenburg concentration camp.
Virtual
October 1, 2021
to October 31, 2021
Through painted portraits, viewers will encounter a survivor, and feel echoes of their individual strength and courage.
Gallery
September 25, 2021
to November 14, 2021
Sameer Farooq’s major solo exhibition that tackles the fraught and violent histories of anthropological and encyclopaedic museum collections, their colonial origins, structures and impulses.
Gallery
October 4, 2021
to March 20, 2022
Periphery will illustrate the ways that Jewish people in Ontario, with intersecting social identities, negotiate a sense of place and recognition and reflect on what periphery means to them.
Virtual
September 1, 2021
to September 30, 2021
Showcasing the work of young artists with disabilities to illustrate the story of what the theme of bloom means to them. Each photo reflects the individual’s focus, chosen by each artist who took part in a 7-week Disability/Visibility photography program.
Virtual
August 3, 2021
to August 31, 2021
Photographer Jack Micay captures both posed and candid shots of soon-to-be and just wed couples from around the world in his exhibit Bride and Groom.
Window Gallery
June 17, 2021
to November 17, 2021
New York-based artist and architect Daniel Toretsky invents a part-performance, part-ritual, part-sculpture for an imagined distant Jewish future in a dystopian North America.
Virtual
June 1, 2021
to June 30, 2021
queer at the root is a virtual art exhibition featuring 18 Jewish, queer and or trans artists across North America displayed by the Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto in collaboration with Jewish Queer Trans Vancouver.
Virtual
May 3, 2021
to June 10, 2021
Almost every family has a shoebox filled with old photos tucked away in a drawer or closet. But our shoebox is special. In it are images taken by my father during the l940’s and 50’s that have danced around in my head for years.
Virtual
May 1, 2021
to June 30, 2021
Part studio portrait, part collaboration, Martha Davis empowers senior citizens to fulfill their longings virtually, using the magic of green screen photography.
Virtual
March 8, 2021
to April 9, 2021
Amanta Scott celebrates International Women’s Day with Eyeing Medusa, 25 encaustic paintings depicting some of the most iconic women of our time such as Greta Thunberg, Margaret Atwood, Tarana Burke and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Window Gallery
March 26, 2021
to May 16, 2021
A Jewish creative response to real-world plagues of our time. In Toronto, Bareket Kezwer’s mural at the Miles Nadal JCC engages with the plague of binary thinking.
Virtual
January 4, 2021
to February 28, 2021
The text in each print is customizable to reflect a couple’s distinct union. These prints juxtapose a modern-day aesthetic with a long-standing tradition.
Virtual
February 1, 2021
to February 28, 2021
This series weaves together the visual vocabularies of communal Jewish prayer and the artist’s own objects of pain management.
Window Gallery
January 25, 2021
to June 1, 2021
A new, site-specific installation referencing the immigrant experience, environmental fragility, and resilience. Artist Rachel Miller creates a textured, tapestry-like assemblage from repurposed and natural materials taking inspiration from Jewish folk art and speaking to the urgent need for ecological healing.
Virtual
December 15, 2020
to January 31, 2021
Celia Brandao is a Toronto-based ceramic artist and educator with an extensive background in commercial graphic design.
Window Gallery
December 8, 2020
to January 4, 2021
For Hanukkah, the windows of the MNjcc have been covered with the work of Bareket Kezwer, who has added a burst of colour to the corner of Bloor and Spadina.
Virtual
October 1, 2020
to November 30, 2020
Archive is a combined series by multimedia artist Myriam Nafte, inspired by medieval Jewish communities and celebrating their contributions to the arts and sciences.
Window Gallery
September 25, 2020
to January 21, 2021
The site-specific installation, by Toronto-based photo-video artist Ella Cooper, features a self-portrait series, presenting faces of grief and sorrow through the lens of a mixed race artist of Jewish heritage.
Gallery
September 23, 2020
to November 15, 2020
Vancouver artist Carol Sawyer assembles a fiction as truthfully as possible to tell a needed story.
Virtual
September 1, 2020
to November 30, 2020
Gail Geltner is a visual artist and illustrator. All images have been selected from the book, What You See, published by Second Storey Press in 1992.
Virtual
September 1, 2020
to September 30, 2020
In the exhibit entitled Life, the artists explore different perspectives using a technique known as “Modern Batik Art” to bring their pieces to life!
Virtual
August 19, 2020
to September 18, 2020
Celebrate 25 years of the Ashkenaz Festival by exploring the festival’s archives in this virtual exhibition at the MNjcc Virtual Gallery.
Virtual
August 18, 2020
to November 30, 2020
A Koffler Digital exhibition that uses food, and the cultures that surround it, to examine our relationships to one another, society and the world at large.
Virtual
May 14, 2007
to May 10, 2021
A selection of historic tzedakah boxes from the holdings of the Ontario Jewish Archives and Beth Tzedec Reuben and Helene Dennis Museum.
Virtual
May 14, 2007
to May 10, 2021
An online exhibition by the OJA examining the various ways the Jewish community made a living during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Virtual
May 14, 2007
to May 10, 2021
This OJA exhibition explores the heroic participation of the Canadian military’s Jewish servicemen (and later women), who fought side-by-side with other Canadians in the wars of the past century.
Virtual
May 14, 2007
to May 10, 2021
This online project by the OJA that looks at the history of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association.
Virtual
May 17, 2004
to May 10, 2021
This online project by the OJA investigates the rich history and cultural significance of some of Toronto’s first synagogues that are still located in their original buildings.
Virtual
May 11, 2009
to May 10, 2021
An online project by the OJA including original historic text, photographs, audio and video clips, archival documents, maps and architectural plans.
Virtual
August 1, 2020
to August 31, 2020
A digital showcase of the Jewish Music Week’s Student Art Contest winners, submitted under the theme of “My Favourite Jewish Music.”
Virtual
July 6, 2020
to September 30, 2020
In collaboration with the Koffler Centre of the Arts, Youth Leaders from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital took part in a unique photography project during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Virtual
July 3, 2020
to July 31, 2020
Exciting new photography from 17 students, curated by Steve Kean and Effie Biliris, and Stephanie Avery’s photographs that explore abandoned buildings around the world.
Virtual
June 1, 2020
to June 30, 2020
An exhibition for Pride Month at the J, featuring the work of Cee Lavery and Saul Freedman-Lawson.
Virtual
May 13, 2019
to May 10, 2021
The Southern African Legacy Project documents the fascinating stories of Ontario’s Jewish immigrants from South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Virtual
May 6, 2019
to May 3, 2021
Storefront Stories tells the history of the Jewish businesses in Kensington Market.
Virtual
July 4, 2016
to July 5, 2021
Self-Loving Jew by Jonathan Rotsztain is a series of autobiographical comics claiming a secular, cultural Jewish identity on Koffler Digital.
Virtual
April 13, 2020
to May 3, 2021
Eleventh House is a Koffler Digital project exploring the rituals of astrology reading and horoscope writing.
Window Gallery
April 26, 2020
to September 21, 2020
A recreated stained glass window by Toronto artist Robert Davidovitz in the FENTSTER window gallery honours familial and artistic lineages.
Window Gallery
October 1, 2019
to April 24, 2020
The artist duo behind the internationally successful Warsaw-based Judaica company MI POLIN create a new site-specific art installation for the FENTSTER window gallery in downtown Toronto.
Virtual
November 4, 2019
to April 29, 2022
Thresholds is a new Koffler.Digital podcast hosted and produced by Maya Bedward in collaboration with members of Holland Bloorview’s Youth Advisory Council.
