In August, the archives accessioned a thoughtful donation from Terry Baker: seven photographs documenting the Jewish cemetery in Massey, Ontario, along with an image of the plaque dedicated to Henry Sadowski at the Massey Community Centre.
Small rural Jewish cemeteries are often difficult to document, and materials relating to them can be scarce. This donation helps fill an important gap by capturing the gravestones of several early Jewish residents of the area, including members of the Rutenberg, Nellicks, and Silverman families. The inscriptions—some in English, others transliterated from Hebrew—provide genealogical and historical details that might otherwise be lost. Among them are the gravestones of Menashe, son of Charles Rutenberg; Yitzchak (Isaac) Nellicks, son of Yosef; Rachel Leah (Rose Lena) Nellicks; and the child Retzna, daughter of Aharon and Rachel Silverman.
Also included is a photograph of the memorial plaque honouring Henry Sadowski, installed at the Massey Community Centre on Government Road. Together, these images offer rare visual documentation of Jewish life and memory in a community not widely represented in the archival record.
