Past Exhibitions
The Jewish Museum & Archives of British Columbia develops and tours special exhibitions from its collections, sharing the unique stories of British Columbia Jewish life with audiences around the world.
For more information about our travelling exhibitions, contact:
Executive Director/Curator:
Email: executive_director@jewishmuseum.ca
Phone: (604) 638-7289
Past Exhibits:
Vancouver: Bridging its History, 1895-1980
on display May 6, 2009 - February 19, 2010
Exhibit Overview:The exhibit features hundreds of black and white photographs of Vancouver area bridges shot by Otto F. Landauer, Vancouver’s renowned mid-century Modernist Jewish photographer. The images in this exhibit have been chosen from the Leonard Frank Photos Studio fonds.
Visitors take a photographic journey through Vancouver’s era of bridge construction, collapse and renewal. The exhibit allows borrowers to choose up to 60 images by acclaimed photographers Leonard Frank and Otto Landauer. The exhibit is available mounted on foam core or matted and framed. Ready for traditional hanging. Exhibit available for 1-3 month rentals.
Fashioning Lives: Questions of Identity
on display September 21, 2008 - March 19, 2009
Exhibit Overview: An exhibition about the life journeys of Lore, Walter, and Claudia Wiener, as the circumstances of their lives make their Jewish heritage undeniable. In spite of intermarriage and conversion in one family, the elder Wieners left Germany and Austria as refugees of Nazism. Similarly they were considered stateless Jews in Shanghai, the haven where they met and married. Immigration to Vancouver in 1949 led to the development of their successful couture business with little regard to any religious life.
In a twist of fate, the secular identity that the Weiners fashioned for themselves over the years would be upended when their adult daughter, Claudia, whom they had baptized Anglican, serendipitously discovered her parents’ Jewish heritage and painstakingly researched her own place within that tradition.
The exhibition featured the fashion designs of Lore Marie Wiener, who brought haute couture to Vancouver from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Support of this exhibition comes from the BC 150 Years Community Exhibits program.
Rabbi Among the Lions
on display January 17, 2008 - February 19, 2008
Exhibit Overview:This photographic exhibition by the award-winning photographer, Tobi Asmoucha, poignantly captured her brother, Rabbi Nathan Asmoucha, serving the small and aging Bulawayo Jewish community in Zimbabwe. The country’s only rabbi lives and serves among a Jewish community seeking to hang onto their Jewish traditions in an environment that seems left in the 1950s and set amidst the exotic African landscape. Rabbi Nathan Asmoucha was born and raised in Vancouver, BC.
Exhibit sponsored by The City of Vancouver.
Esn Un Fresn: Eating and Snacking in Jewish Kitchens
on display March 26, 2007 - December 31, 2007
Exhibit Overview: Food is an important part of Jewish culture and tradition. This exhibit looks at how four Vancouver-based Jewish families from different backgrounds (an Ashkenazic Eastern European family, a Sephardic Middle Eastern family, a family that keeps kosher, and a Jewish-style caterer) prepare foods that are quintessentially Jewish.
