Inside the AJHS Archives – Some Ephemera @ AJHS

The various organisational ephemera collection overall contains twenty-one boxes with approximately 1700 individual items, collected and organised originally by the Australian Archives Judaica or AAJ.  AAJ was decommissioned in 2022, and its holdings was subsequently consolidated with AJHS’; all AAJ records are in the custodianship of AJHS.

The extensive ephemera collection at AAJ had been sorted alphabetically rather than organisationally. Therefore, these records were separated from its own individual organisational collection; it was not possible to reorganise these records due to absence of details such as consignments and transfers, so it has stayed collectively in its original alphabetical order.

Ephemera can be described as collectible items that have a short-term but intrinsic purpose such as invitations, promotional pamphlets, Calanders, newsletters, etc or what we refer to as the “pretty and fun records”. This collection includes invitations to organisational events, news articles, some photographs, programmes, booklets, promotional materials of varying formats from cloth to pins to badges and more. The collection contains various ephemera items from multiple Jewish organisations, including but not limited to, Board of Jewish Education (B39), The Great Synagogue (B18), State Zionist Council (B24), National Council of Jewish Women NSW (B12), Fellowship of Jewish Doctors of NSW (B30), (Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants (B23), Mount Sinai College (B72), The Shalom Institute (B52), Australian Jewish Historical Society (B44), NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (B1); B’nai B’rith (B1) to name a few. There are also organisations that do not have existing collections within the AJHS holdings such as the Australian Jewish Welfare Society, Jewish National Fund, Dunera, Moriah College, Montefiore Home, AFRIMA, Temple Emmanuel, West Australian Hebrew Philanthropic Society, The Australian Jewish Outlook, St Kilda Hebrew Congregation, etc. The collection contains various insights into the organisational matters of prominent Jewish organisations within Australia such as events, correspondence, educational materials, promotional materials, and more.