Student Employment

Application deadline: October 1      

Who: Dalhousie or King’s undergraduate students (4)
When: January–April 2027 (as well as preliminary work in November–December 2026)
Pay: $3000

The Association for Canadian Jewish Studies (ACJS), in collaboration with Dalhousie University’s Centre for Jewish Studies, is seeking 4 organized, creative, and self-starting undergraduate students to contribute to an oral history project documenting the experiences, memories, and perspectives of Jews living in Halifax and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

The Oral History Interviewers will receive training in oral history methods and will work closely with project coordinators from the ACJS and Dalhousie to prepare for, conduct, and process interviews with narrators of all ages and lived experience. The interviewers will assist in creating a digital collection of first-person narratives about Atlantic Jewish life that will serve as a resource for researchers, educators, community members, and the broader public. The project will also serve as a founding collection in the ACJS’s future Canadian Jewish Oral History Collaboratory, a living digital repository devoted to oral histories about the Canadian Jewish experience.

The position is an opportunity for students broadly interested in Jewish history, Canadian history, and Maritime Canadian history, as well as subject matter such as immigration, community building, religious life, identity, and more, to acquire hands-on experience in oral history and community-based research.

No previous oral history experience is required. Through their work on the project, interviewers will gain practical experience in oral history interviewing and research (following established best practices), consent and ethical practices, community engagement, and digital archival practices and metadata, while deepening their knowledge of the history and culture of Jews in Atlantic Canada.

Interviewers are expected to conduct and process 3 to 5 interviews (at least 60–90 minutes in length) between January and April 2027. Interviewers must commit to attending an oral history training workshop, led by one of the ACJS’s project coordinators, in the fall semester, as well as participating in project preparation  discussions in November and December 2026. The position is linked to a 3-credit Dalhousie research course (RELS3XXX) in winter 2027 that will include a final project and written component.

The ACJS is the leading organization dedicated to advancing public knowledge on the Jewish experience in Canada through scholarly, research, and community-oriented projects. Learn more at www.canadianjewishstudies.ca.

Responsibilities

• Conduct and record 3 to 5 in-depth interviews with Jewish civic and religious leaders, activists, educators, professionals, and more, living in Halifax and elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.
• Compile background research and develop interview questions both for use across the project and tailored to specific narrators.
• Coordinate scheduling and logistics with narrators prior to interviews, including introductory conversations (“pre-interviews”); obtain consent; and maintain communication through post-interview follow-ups.
• Complete post-interview processing, including accurate, time-coded transcriptions of each interview; preparation of interview abstracts and short narrator biographies; and logging significant stories, themes, and details for indexing and metadata creation.
• Contribute to the development of public-facing written materials based on interviews.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate student at Dalhousie University or University of King’s College with demonstrated interest in project subject matter, as well as collecting, preserving, and sharing community histories.
• Excellent listening, interpersonal, and communication skills.
• Confident ability to conduct research and prepare and execute interviews in a professional setting.
• Confident ability to handle sensitive information and communicate respectfully with people from a wide range of lived experience, in accordance with ethical oral history practices.
• At ease navigating confidential, highly personal, or emotionally difficult subject matter with patience and sensitivity.
• Comfortable working independently and as a member of a small, collaborative team.

How to Apply

Please email the following to jewish.studies@dal.ca by October 1, 2026:

• Your resume and a one-page cover letter explaining your qualifications. Please be sure to note any prior experience with oral history, journalistic interviewing, or qualitative research interviewing.
• The names and contact information of two references, either academic (e.g. university course instructors) or work-related (e.g. supervisors).

Please direct questions about the position to ACJS executive director Joshua Tapper at tapper@canadianjewishstudies.ca and Dalhousie Centre for Jewish Studies director Eva Mroczek at  eva.mroczek@dal.ca.