-Originally published in The Jewish Spectator, February 1968.

Expo 67 was a spectacular triumph. The numbers of people – well beyond the most optimistic anticipation – who have journeyed to Montreal to see the fair testify to its popular success.

There were two Jewish pavilions at Expo 67: The Pavilion of Judaism, sponsored by private Canadian funds, and The Israel Pavilion, sponsored by the Government of Israel. Each was housed in its own well-appointed building. At the World Trades Fair in New York in 1961, the Israel Pavilion was financed privately and maintained by an admission charge; two others, sponsored by the Lubavitcher Hasidim and Jewish Information Society, were insignificant booths in the Education and Science Pavilion.

As for some reservations, in the pavilion’s theater a faded print of an undistinguished fun-in-the-sun tourist-promotion motion picture was shown. The movie was poorly executed, badly sequenced and disappointing when compared with the films shown in other pavilions.

In the exhibit of the history of the Jewish people, the section on the Holocaust was distressing. There was again the blown-up photograph of that little boy, his hands raised, a rifle pointed at his back held aloft by a towering giant of a German soldier. In a small glass case in front of the photograph was a pair of baby shoes.

Although the photograph itself was poignant and stirring, the display failed utterly to convey the enormity of the German crime. One may argue that understatement was intended; unfortunately, the attempt at effect proved inadequate. Amid the thousand displays of the fair: pop and op, glittering and shimmering, a single photograph of a little boy, whose face requires study and reflection for history to be recalled and compassion evoked, was submerged and lost. The soft sell was out of place at Expo 67.

One may charitably attribute a failure of nerve to those responsible for the display of sidestepping “depressing” details. However interpreted, the pavilion failed to portray the Holocaust.

A brochure circulated at the Pavilion of Judaism read in part:

The Pavilion of Judaism will attempt to bring under
one roof all phases and facets of our people’s beliefs,
concepts, heritage, traditions, principles, cultural and
artistic contributions, humanitarian achievements…
it will bring these together as a virtual showcase to
the millions who will come to Expo 67. It will be
a distinguished display of what we as a people
believe and what we have to offer to the 20th century.
The exhibits planned will include the torment of the
terrible Holocaust and great loss that we have
sustained, for this must continue to weigh heavily on
the conscience of the world and live graphically in
memory. Yet, at the same time, the Pavilion will
embrace and stress the positive goals and aspirations
that have kept us together as a people…a people
vibrant with hope for a world free from hate and
bigotry, free from belligerence and war…vibrant
with hope for the time when all peoples will adopt
wisdom and knowledge, belief in God and charity
towards all mankind as the great monosyllable of life.

Well put. But poorly executed. The Pavilion of Judaism utterly failed to communicate the majesty of Jewish thought, the grandeur of the Jewish people and of the Jewish contribution to civilization. For example, a replica in miniature of Herod’s Temple was presented as the highlight of the exhibition. It was impressive but substantiated the commonly held Christian belief that the Jews are the people of the “Old Testament,” a fossil whose major contributions to civilization were made in the dim past before the birth of Christianity. Otherwise, why would the Temple be chosen as the most prominent exhibit?

Great Britain’s pavilion devoted a section of a wall panel to a list of names of England’s illustrious sons. When one pressed a button whose number corresponded with that of the name plate, a slip of paper appeared delineating his accomplishments. There were far fewer names than one expected. Why was not an entire wall of the Pavilion of Judaism devoted to names of the Jewish creative elite throughout the history of civilization?

This idea did not entirely escape the planners of the pavilion. An inscription read:

…gifted sons and daughters of Israel were to
achieve distinction in many fields of art and
science as well and in some of them even rare
eminence, but in none did the genius of the
people of Israel express itself as uniquely, as
creatively and a momenteously as in the realm
of the moral and the spiritual.

Then one moved along the busts of twenty Jewish personalities: Freud and Einstein were inevitable. (Marx, the third member of the triumvirate of modern geniuses “who changed the world” was doubtlessly omitted because his parents baptised him). Maimonides, Kafka, Buber, Brandeis, Emma Lazarus and Gompers were all logical choices of whose Jewish identity the world may profitably be reminded. But the majority were by and large obscure to the average visitor, some even to the average Jew: Moses Hess, Milton Steinberg, Henrietta Szold, Judah L. Magnes, Jules Isaac, Solomon Schechter, Mendele Mocher Seforim, Herzl and Weizmann, Rav Kook, and Ahad Haam.

At the Russian Pavilion, the guides were armed with prepared responses: “No, there is no anti-Semitism in Russia. Ask my wife, she’s Jewish. Come to Russia and find out for yourself. Anyone who wants to can be Jewish, but like my wife they prefer not to be observant…Pasternak could certainly have published Zhivago in Russia; he chose not to. Notice the fine illustrations for Sholom Aleichem’s books. He is very big in Russia.”

Attendance at the Pavilion of Judaism was sufficiently large to justify the presence of “guides” to answer questions, but there were none.

The Christian Pavilion at Expo 67 effectively presented Christianity. This may have been the motivation for the construction of the Pavilion of Judaism as well. But beyond a Jewish response to the Christian Pavilion there was little else to commend it. The message of Judaism and the Jewish impact upon civilization remained muted at Expo 67.

-Originally published in The Jewish Spectator, February 1968.