Morris and Sally Justein Heritage Museum

Visit a museum without leaving the site

The Baycrest Heritage Museum, located on the main floor of Baycrest near Bathurst Street, provides an enjoyable and accessible cultural experience for families and clients. Please feel free to come by with your loved one and enjoy our exhibits and collections.

The Morris and Sally Justein Heritage Museum presents Judaica exhibits designed especially for Baycrest’s elderly clients. Each year the museum also welcomes hundreds of visitors from the community.

Our museum is a place for people of all ages to discover and enjoy the history and beauty of Judaic heritage.

At Baycrest, we believe cultural programs are essential for seniors living in residential facilities because they create an enriched, stimulating environment and help clients maintain a connection to their life-long traditions. The museum’s permanent Judaica collection (numbering more than 900 items) preserves Jewish treasures for years to come, to be enjoyed and admired by future generations.

Also on display, in the Apotex lobby, is the museum's outstanding collection of Chanukah menorahs.

The museum’s staff and volunteers also take Judaica onto the floors of the Hospital and Home to be used in client discussion groups. Seeing familiar objects helps stimulate memories and reminiscing, which is a very important activity for the elderly.

Funds, loans of items for special exhibits and donations to the permanent collection are all greatly appreciated.

The museum is located on the ground floor near the Bathurst Street entrance.

Fee: none

For further information or to arrange a tour or make a donation, please call the museum coordinator at 416-785-2500, ext. 2802.

January 12, 2010

Cabinets of Curiosities: Treasures from the Permanent Collection
January 2010 – December 2010

The Morris and Sally Justein Heritage Museum presents Judaica exhibitions designed especially for Baycrest’s elderly clients and their families. Each year the museum welcomes hundreds of visitors from the Baycrest community and beyond. Our museum is a place for people of all ages to discover and enjoy the history and beauty of Judaic heritage. The current exhibit, Cabinets of Curiosities: Treasures from the Permanent Collection, will be on display from January 2010 through December 2010.

Cabinets of Curiosities was the title given to the encyclopedic collections of objects gathered by monarchs, aristocrats, and merchants in Renaissance Europe on their travels abroad (14th-16th century). Adventurers would bring back mysterious treasures that would captivate imaginations and ignite curiosities.

Each object of wonder on display at the Morris and Sally Justein Museum tells a personal story from a Resident or Friend of Baycrest. The objects represent collective memories from a past life – cast in a new light, in a new home. The exhibit features both traditional and contemporary ceremonial objects, grouped thematically, spanning the international travels and native homes of the Baycrest community.

The permanent collection features over 1,000 Judaic treasures. New items from within the collection and on loan from community members will be rotated in to the gallery throughout the year.

Laslo Lang, a Holocaust survivor who frequents Baycrest’s Café Europa program, will be the first artist to be featured in the Museum. Laslo’s imaginative sculptures will be on view from January through June. Using discarded metal usually found on the road, Laslo fuses cast away scrap with his imagination to create whimsical sculptures.

Hand-embroidered chuppahs crafted by artisans from the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Textiles will be rotated in to the exhibit every three months. Each chuppah conveys a story of love, life, and remembrance.

Admission is free.

For more information about the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Textiles please visit their website http://pomegranateguild.ca/

For more information on this press release, museum hours, guided tours, and Laslo Lang, please contact:

Aviva Babins
Museum Coordinator
Baycrest
416-785-2500, ext. 2802
ababins@baycrest.org