Preserving Our Heritage for Future Generations
Written by: Eric W. Slavens, FCPA, FCA Chair, Ontario Jewish Archives UJA Federation of Greater Toronto

As the Chair of the Board of the Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre (OJA) at UJA Federation, I want to tell you about an important and easy way to help your clients preserve their legacies in perpetuity.

The OJA is the largest repository of the history of Jewish life in Canada, and its mandate is to document the Jewish communities of Ontario and to make this information accessible to the public. Our collection includes thousands of stories that teach us about our pasts; whether a family has roots in Kensington Market, survived the Holocaust and started a new life in Ontario, or is involved with a summer camp, shul or Hebrew Day School.

Enushevsky family baseball team (Lake Simcoe, ON), ca. 1916. Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, item 1889.

The OJA is committed to preserving these stories and others.

There are many different ways to explore the OJA’s collections. The OJA’s archivists are professionally trained to assist the hundreds of research requests received each year. One can make an appointment to look at photographs, films, Yiddish newspapers, hand-written correspondence, and even an original Superman drawing!

Your clients are part of this history and when their material is donated to the OJA, their stories can be accessed in perpetuity—online, in the classroom, by the hundreds of researchers who visit the OJA annually, and through the OJA’s innovative heritage programs. Placing your records at the OJA will provide the broader context needed to understand the diversity of contributions made by the Jewish community to the province of Ontario. The OJA invests the staff time and resources required to arrange, describe, preserve and store your records according to archival best practices and standards. In early spring 2015, the OJA’s state-of-the-art vault and research facility will open.

I encourage you to discuss the OJA with your clients during your estate planning discussions with them. By including the OJA in their wills and/or trusts, the OJA can become home to your clients’ personal stories, not only relieving the burden on family members, but ensuring preservation of this history. Of course, family members can and should firstly make the decision on what materials they prefer to keep. Arrangements can then easily be made for an OJA staff member to review materials for donation. One can schedule a house visit with an OJA staff member or a time to bring the material to the OJA located at the Lipa Green Building on Sherman Campus at Bathurst north of Sheppard. This is a “no cost solution” to what can often be an overwhelming familial responsibility.

The OJA can appraise donations internally and issue tax receipts for material valued up to $1,000. If the value of the donation is believed to be higher, a certified appraisal would need to be done at the expense of the donor. The OJA is also a designated heritage organization that can apply to the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board (CPERB) for certification of material that is “of outstanding significance due to its close association with Canadian history, its close association with national life, its aesthetic qualities, its value in the study of the arts, or its value in the study of the sciences; and it is of such national importance that its loss to Canada would significantly diminish the national heritage.” With this designation, the donor is exempt from capital gains tax on the certified cultural property; and donation receipts for the full fair market value of the certified cultural property are issued. The appraisals required for this application are at the expense of the donor.

I personally have donated material to the OJA and I have found it very rewarding to know that my family’s story will become part of the larger narrative of our unique and vibrant Jewish community. Further, as a professional advisor, I have advised families I counsel to use the clause below in wills and/or trust documents, and it has been vetted by one of Toronto’s most reputable law firms.

To the OJA, all stories matter. I believe in the work that the OJA is doing to preserve our heritage for future generations. I hope you will consider encouraging your clients to include this language in their wills and/or trusts. If you would like to learn more about the OJA, you can visit their website: www.ontariojewisharchives.org or contact OJA Director Dara Solomon. She can be reached at 416.635.5391 x. 5187 or by email: dsolomon@ujafed.org. 

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For more information about the Professional Advisory Committee at the Jewish Foundation, please contact Janice Benatar at jbenatar@ujafed.org or 416.631.5847 or visit our website at www.jewishfoundationtoronto.com.

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