Saving the Medias Endangered Archives: Processing, Cataloguing and Digitisation Project

The Medias community archives are a rare collection of community-created documents discovered in 2008. At the time of discovery, they were scattered throughout the balcony, the stairway, and the entrance hall and mixed together with refuse, prayer books and personal belongings. Due to mass migration of members, the community eventually disappeared and the archives, siddurim and other objects were deposited in the women’s balcony of the synagogue, which was made inaccessible to visitors. As a result of a clean-up effort in 2008, the archives and associated material were rediscovered and in 2014-2015 a grant to catalog, process and selectively digitize the material was secured and so the first project at The House by the Synagogue began.