Do you have a story to tell about growing up Jewish in Canada? This year, there is a new opportunity to talk about your heritage as part of the Canadian Jewish Life Writing Project, an ongoing annual initiative that encourages people across the country to document their personal stories. 

An initiative of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies (ACJS), the project is designed to document the stories that make Jewishness in Canada unique. The project is being led by historian Joshua Tapper and literary scholar Jesse Toufexis, both of whom currently serve as executive director and vice president of the ACJS, respectively. 

“We really want people to think about what that Jewish Canadian identity means,” said Tapper. “How it informs the way we see the world, our experiences as Canadians, our experiences as Jews, and our experiences as Jewish Canadians.”

Tapper says the project also responds to a gap in how Canada’s Jewish story has been preserved.

While archives contain institutional records, letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories, there has never been a coordinated effort to invite large numbers of Canadian Jews to record their own experiences in writing, in their own voices.

“Nothing like this has existed before,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to empower people to tell the story they want to tell with very little intervention from us.”

Unlike an oral history interview, where questions shape the conversation, or a published memoir, which typically goes through an editorial process, submissions to the Canadian Jewish Life Writing Project are intentionally open-ended. Participants are encouraged to write honestly, in whatever style feels authentic to them.

“We’re really putting the ball in other people’s courts,” Tapper said. “Go forth and write what you want to write.”

To help participants get started, the project offers optional guiding questions, but there are few restrictions. Stories can be joyful or difficult, deeply personal or broadly reflective. They may explore family traditions, friendships, first loves at Jewish summer camp, experiences with discrimination, or everyday moments that reveal what Jewish life in Canada looks like.

The project is equally committed to representing the diversity of Canadian Jewry. There are no religious, political, ideological, regional, or linguistic boundaries for participation. Submissions are welcome in multiple languages and from anyone who has a story to tell, from teenagers after bar or bat mitzvah age through older adults.

Inspired in part by early Jewish ethnographic projects in Europe, the initiative aims to build a growing archive of autobiographical writing that future researchers, students, and community members can explore.

Submitted works will be preserved in a publicly accessible digital archive hosted by the ACJS and deposited with the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives in Montreal.

“This is a way to address gaps in knowledge that might exist in the future,” Tapper said. “It’s a way to ask people to record these memories on the page in their own words.”

Although the theme will change each year, previous themes will remain open, allowing participants to contribute whenever they’re ready.

Submissions for the 2026 theme, “Growing Up Jewish in Canada,” are open until October 30, 2026.

To learn more about this project and how to get involved, click here.