Exhibitions

Current

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.

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 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

Archived Exhibitions

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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

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

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.