Oral history interview with Wilfred - born in 1929 in New York - & Phyllis - born in 1929 in Massachusetts - Solomon. Wilfred was a chaplain in the United States Air Force and than a rabbi in Spokane. His wife Phyllis worked developing the Jewish Film Festival.

Oral history interview with Sam Rothstein who was born in Russia, 1921. His family left Russia due to anti-semitism and post-revolution fallout, despite his father’s success in the lumber business. His father was Yisrael Leib and his mother was Elka Raisel. They settled in Vancouver because that’s where the rest of his family had chosen to live when they had arrived years before. He attended UBC for undergraduate studies and did a joined honours program in French and English and completed his masters there in French and English. He did his PhD at Berkeley and then got a teaching fellowship at the University of Washington in 1942 as a French teacher. He was drafted into the Canadian military during WWII. He served in counterintelligence. He was shipped to England in June, 1944 and then to Italy, Belgium and then stopped in Holland. While finishing his service, he came across a Librarianship pamphlet. He had money for the first time in his life and felt it was time for a change as he felt distance from the idea of being a French professor. He was invited to the faculty of the University of Manitoba as a French Professor but decided to go to Berkeley instead to become a Librarian, doing his PhD in Illinois. UBC offered him a job while he was briefly on return to Vancouver. He met his wife Miriam in 1948/49 through youth group activities at the JCC, they wed and then moved to Illinois to do his PhD, which he received in 1954 while Miriam worked as the dietician for the men’s residence. In 1961, he became the acting director of the UBC libraries. He also started the library school at UBC that same fall. Their daughter Linda was born in 1955 and Sharon was born in 1957. They were members of Beth Israel and Miriam was active in Hadassah. Sam served as an advisor to Hillel and joined the board at the JCC and eventually became president from 1970-1972. He served as one of the vice presidents of Jewish Congress.

Oral History Interview with Nora Patrich for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Carol Herbert. Patrich was born in Argentina in 1952 and speaks about her upbringing between Argentina, Israel and the United States. She discusses her exposure to political activism and Latin American expressionist art throughout her formative years, including mentorship within her father’s politically charged arts collective named the Spartacus Movement. She tells her experience of the military coup in Argentina during the ‘70s, that forced her into exile in Israel with young children after her husband was assassinated. She explains how this led to a life of traveling activism denouncing Argentina’s past military atrocities, including anti-Semitic genocide, and fighting for human rights through art and protest. Patrich’s primary art mediums are painted murals and sculptures; she discusses their public installments into places like past concentration camps and military bombing sites, and how her art will always be political. She closes by talking about doing mosaic work, independent book printing and publishing, and how there is a documentary about her stories of Argentina.

Oral history interview with Leonard Korsch who was born in Vancouver, 1920. Was involved with Young Judea until he started at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1942. Leonard than joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a radio mechanic. Leonard was in the realty business for fifty years - on the Vancouver Real Estate Board - alongside being a notary public and insurance agent.

Oral history interview with Isaac Messinger. He was born in Poland in 1929. During the war he was moved to Siberia, Russia. Later in the war he became a chauffeur for a General in the Polish Army, he was 16 or 17 at the time. After the war he ended up in Germany and was a pickpocketing. He got sent to an American school in Germany that was teaching children that were going to immigrate to North America, but he couldn’t sit still in class, so they gave him a job in the garage where he learnt English with the Americans that worked there. He came to Canada at age 18 or 19. He got a job as a tin smith, then he got a job as a carnie and made his way to Vancouver where he worked at the PNE. He eventually opened a steak Restaurant and ran it for a while. He talks about Casinos and Las Vegas. He talks about how he met his wife and their life together.

An interview with Harold Wodlinger who was born in Manitoba in 1890. He worked as a telegraph operator before joining the Canadian Army in the Artillery Corps and after he left. Harold bought a business in Leask, Saskatchewan from and Englishman and ran it for thirty years, though he also ran a farm in Leask raising cattle. Harold’s daughter Helen was in Vancouver so they decided to move to Vancouver in the 1970's. The interview is an in depth recount of the Wodlinger family history since arriving in Canada in the 1880's.

Oral history interview with Dr. Jimmy White who was born in 1917 in Ohio. He interned at Vancouver General Hospital 1942-43. In the army he was stationed at various camps across Canada; served overseas in Holland and England. Dr. White speaks of the operations of the J.C.C and the Bulletin.

Oral history interview with Dr. David Aberle. The interview contains discussions of Dr. Aberle's non-Jewish upbringing, anthropological fieldwork with the Navajo. It includes his experience with Sen. McCarthy accusing him of being a Soviet spy during the Red Scare, his time in the army during the Second World War surveying the results of the strategic bombings of Japan and Germany. Dr. Aberle is the founder of the Jews for a Just Peace. He worked at the University of Michigan and University of British Columbia in the anthropology department.

Oral interview with Bernard Victor who was born in Gomel, Russia in 1893 and came to Vancouver, on April 15, 1923, from Winnipeg. Bernard was involved with Talmud Torah, B'nai B'rith, and the Jewish Literary Club. He describes living through two pogroms in Russia. He served in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in Europe from 1916 until 1919. His father worked for the Russian Vital Statistics Department and noticed large numbers of Jews leaving, encouraged Bernard and Bernard's brother to leave.