Six degrees of separation?

Gen-blogger Dick Eastman is quoted in today's New York Times story on the family history of Presidential candidates.

Last week, the New England Historic Genealogical Society issued a press release that it knew would get some bounce: the group said it had traced the ancestry of the presidential candidates and found that all of them had blood ties — albeit distant ones — to unlikely famous people.

Barack Obama, the group said, is related to George W. Bush and Brad Pitt. Hillary Rodham Clinton can claim Angelina Jolie, Jack Kerouac and Camilla Parker-Bowles. As for John McCain, who knew he was descended from William the Lion, King of Scots?

However distant the connections (ninth cousins?), the news sped across the Internet, prompting countless people to wonder: could I be related to someone important, too?

According to author Cate Doty, the revelations of the 163-year-old society in Boston did what they were supposed to: "spread a little publicity for a nonprofit group that revels in historic minutia."

Global interest overloaded the society's servers and society director D. Brenton Simons said he'd also been inundated with email, most of it asking "to whom could I be related?" He thought it was amusing.

Some genealogists shrugged their shoulders at the connections, pointing out that if we look hard enough, most of us are related to one another somehow. If the average person goes back 400 years, he or she has around 130,000 relatives, said Chris Child, a genealogist at the society who worked on the candidates’ lineages.

“Everybody thinks it’s unique. It really isn’t,” said Dick Eastman, who runs a genealogy newsletter. “It would be a much more impressive news story if researchers could positively prove that any two public figures are NOT related to each other.”

Roots Television wins 4 Telly awards

RootsTelevision.com 's co-founders - producer Marcy Brown and professional genealogist Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak - frequently refer to themselves as "two chicks and a channel."

As I've watched the progress of the site, I've worked with Marcy on several segments as she filmed at Jewish genealogy conferences and I've even appeared in a few!

It is great to report that the genealogy and family history site has garnered awards for four original productions, and that one was for Jewish genealogy's own gen-comedian Jordan Auslander of New York.

Congratulations to Marcy, Megan, Jordan and all honorees.

Provo, UT, March 28, 2008 --(PR.com)-- RootsTelevision.com, an online channel dedicated to all aspects of genealogy and family history, has been recognized in the 29th Annual Telly Awards for four of its original productions. Selected from more than 14,000 shows were "DNA Stories: A Tale of Two Fathers" (documentary), "Heir Jordan: Extreme Genealogy" (entertainment), "Roots Books: Psychic Roots" (talk show), and "Flat Stanley’s Family Tree" (children’s audience).

"We’re delighted," said RootsTelevision.com co-founder, Marcy Brown. "To receive this kind of recognition during our first year of existence is remarkable, and winning in four different categories is even more astonishing. We take this as an indication that our decision to pioneer online programming for the substantial but neglected niche of millions of genealogists was a risk worth taking."

The four winning shows include an episode of "DNA Stories," a series that focuses on the exploding hobby of genetic genealogy and shows how avid roots-seekers are using DNA testing to solve family history riddles. The award-winning "Tale of Two Fathers" episode features Bob Zins and his efforts to determine whether the man who raised him was really his father.

"Heir Jordan: Extreme Genealogy" showcases the unexpected twin talents of Jordan Auslander, who’s both a professional genealogist and stand-up comic.

"Roots Books," a talk show hosted by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, received its award for the especially popular "Psychic Roots" episode that centers on a discussion of the role of serendipity in genealogy between Sharon and popular speaker and author, Hank Jones.

And "Flat Stanley’s Family Tree" follows the beloved children’s character as he explores his colonial roots in Williamsburg, Virginia and his gold rush roots in California.

Founded in 1978, The Telly is the premier award honoring outstanding local, regional and cable TV programs, as well as the finest video and film productions. The Telly Awards, a highly respected international competition, annually showcases the best work of the most respected production companies in the world.

RootsTelevision.com was launched in 2006 and provides more than 1,000 videos for global enthusiasts.

Feher Music Center update

Today was Yuval Shaked's last day as director of the Feher Jewish Music Center of Beth Hatefutsoth (The Nahum Goldmann Museum of Jewish Diaspora), Tel Aviv. This email was sent to his friends and colleagues:

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Today my activity at the Feher Jewish Music Center of Beth Hatefutsoth (The Nahum Goldmann Museum of Jewish Diaspora), Tel Aviv, is coming to its end. I had the privilege of intensely working here for 12 years, trying to promote an important cause, dear to many.

On the measure of significance attributed to the labor done here over many years I've learned from the measure of support and warm sympathy you bestowed on us, as well as from the deep concern you expressed in letters written to Beth Hatefutsoth's Management and others, and from the remarks you added to your signature on the petitions on behalf of the FJMC.

I draw from these expressions much strength needed for the fight. Your words excited me, sometimes to tears. I appreciate and cherish your support.

Much to my regret, it all didn't suffice. The failure is painful and clearly to be observed. I will go on fighting.

The collection deserves it and I owe it to myself, to my partners, to you, to my parents and family, to the society in which I raise my kids.

A period in my life is being closed. A room full of unbelievable treasures is being closed. I am most grateful to my devoted and skillful colleagues who helped to accomplish the Center's achievements, and am deeply ashamed of those who speak highly of Jewish culture, without having the slightest idea about it, and who goal-oriented work to ruin it.

With sorrow and relief –
Yuval Shaked

It remains to be seen what will now happen with the Feher Music Center and its holdings. We will miss Yuval, his knowledge and dedication.

Famillion: Exaggerated claims

In his latest Nu? What's Nu? (Avotaynu's E-zine of Jewish Genealogy) for March 30, Gary Mokotoff has written about Famillion's new venture with the Haaretz newspaper in Israel and details the social networking company's exaggerated claims.

Famillion Partners with Haaretz

Famillion, the new kid on the block in the area of Internet family history services, has announced a partnership with the major Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, to provide an “innovate Jewish genealogy service” by providing a new genealogy and social network search engine aimed at connecting the Jewish people worldwide. The initiative aspires to bring together Jews from all over the world and help them construct the narrative of the Jewish people through the stories of millions of families.

This is yet another example of the exaggerated claims of this company. A visit to their site at Famillion.com shows they are focusing on having subscribers build their own family tree online, as can be done at MyFamily.com; merge family trees, as can be done at OneGreatFamily.com; and discover new family and friends, as can be done at ____________ (you fill in the blank).

The existence of this company was first reported in Nu? What’s New? in Volume 8, Number 12 (June 17, 2007) issue. At that time, the company claimed it will have mapped the entire Jewish population of the world by the end of 2007 and the entire Western world in about two years. Inquiries to the company at the end of 2007 to determine if the project is on schedule have gone unanswered.

Famillion is the brain child of Dan Rolls who states at the site that the organization started when he and his wife “produced their family trees through standard genetic testing.” Now that is innovative; a true first. I know of no genealogist who has produced their family tree through standard genetic testing.

Other claims at their site include:
* The Famillion system is the only genealogical system that allows you to find unknown pathways to any other person in the world.
* You may find yourself chatting with Angelina Jolie.
* The Famillion technology offers you a unique, online, family social, network opportunity to discover your genealogic frontiers using the tools of tomorrow.
* The Famillion cutting-edge system goes beyond the boundaries of time, culture, country and language by merging information from the historical generations of all its members.

It is a shame that Haaretz couldn't see through those rather silly claims. All the paper had to do was ask a Jewish genealogist - there are more than a few in Israel!

Many of us have been giggling about the company's publicized plans to map the entire Jewish population of the world by the end of 2007 (recently revised to end of 2008) and the entire Western world in about two years.

Back issues of Nu? What's Nu? can be read here; you can also subscribe.

DNA: Oral history meets genetics

"When oral history meets genetics" is my latest Jerusalem Post story.

It recounts the story of New Yorker Judy Simon's family - an Eastern European Ashkenazi family with an oral history of Sephardic roots - and her geographical project (Iberia in Ashkenaz) at FamilyTreeDNA.com, as well as DNA and genetics, deep ancestry.

Judy's family and many others - including my Talalay - share a similar oral history: Our families left Spain and migrated to Eastern Europe. Since the project began, two-thirds of participants have found Sephardic and Converso genetic matches.

"My grandfather always said we were Marranos. It was a story carried through the generations for 500 years that our family left Spain during the Inquisition," New Yorker Judy Simon tells Metro, adding that this derogatory term meaning "swine" in Spanish has been replaced by "conversos," "crypto-Jews" or "anousim."

Her grandfather's family lived in Rezekne, Latvia as far back as the mid-1750s, according to records. Some cousins believed so completely in the family story that, around 1909, they moved "back" to Spain, while her grandfather went to the United States. "For years, we had contact with these Spanish cousins, but this wasn't proof of our Sephardi ancestry."

Simon's family are not the only Eastern European Jews with Sephardi roots.

"We encountered Ashkenazi families with recent ancestry in Eastern, Western and Central Europe bearing Spanish or Portuguese surnames, an oral history of Sephardi ancestors, or some other indicator of Sephardi heritage, such as a tradition of naming children after a living grandfather or being a Mediterranean genetic disorder carrier," said Simon.

These people could not verify their ancestry through archival records, and she wanted to know whether DNA could support the Sephardi ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews with certain indicators. Some Sephardi surnames date back to 13th-century or earlier in Iberia, and carried through the centuries; sometimes they changed along the way. However, evidence indicates that at least some Ashkenazi Jews with Sephardi roots retained their original surnames.

My own Talalay research - focused on Mogilev, Belarus - turned up other Sephardi surnames such as Abravanel, Aboaf and Don Yakhia.

A cousin on her grandfather's direct male line agreed to be tested. Most of his Y-DNA matches were Ashkenazi Jews originating in the area near her grandfather's shetl. However, two men with Spanish surnames in Mexico and Texas were perplexed when their DNA matched as well. They had clues they were descendants of Converso family, and expected to find Sephardi matches ... but Ashkenazim?

Their matches were Ashkenazi Jews with Sephardi roots. "My family's oral history solved [the men's] puzzle," says Simon. None of the other Ashkenazim who matched her cousin had any idea they had Sephardi paternal roots.

If your family has a similar story and you'd like more information, click here for more details and to order a test kit .

And, in an important new development, the sidebar of the story provides information on Family Tree DNA's new company, DNAtraits.com. Founder Bennett Greenspan hopes that testing within the Jewish community can lead to the near eradication of a host of Jewish genetic conditions, much as widespread community testing has almost eliminated Tay-Sachs.

Among other tests, DNAtraits offers testing for a panel of 26 Jewish genetic diseases at a fraction of what other testing companies charge for a mere handful of tests.

Texas: Heralding the history

The Centennial year of the Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Texas) is being celebrated with an exhibit of 101 front pages from the paper's continuous publication. The Greater Houston Jewish Genealogical Society has also been involved in preserving the paper's archive.

I've had the pleasure of meeting publishers Joseph and Jeanne Samuels several times at American Jewish Press Association meetings. We even lived in Teheran, Iran, when their daughter lived there, and I've written for the paper.

In celebration of the Jewish Herald-Voice’s Centennial, the JH-V has reproduced 101 front pages – one from each of the paper’s 100 years of continuous publication, including 2008 – for a special viewing at the Deutser Art Gallery at the Jewish Community Center of Houston. “Heralding the History of the Jewish Herald-Voice” opens Sunday, April 6, following the community's Israel@60 parade.

“This show, literally, was 100 years in the making,” said the JH-V’s Michael C. Duke, who, for the past four months, had been tasked with perusing the paper’s archives, selecting one front page to represent each year, scanning each page and finally printing copies for the installation. “The most challenging aspect of this project was not the daunting task of having to go through more than 5,000 individual issues of the newspaper, but, instead, was the challenge of staying focused on selecting front pages, avoiding being distracted by major and minor news items, and advertisements, that were published in the Herald over the course of an entire century,” Duke commented.

Pages selected mix local, national and international news.

Remarkably, the JH-V has a complete archive. The first three-and-a-half decades are loose-bound; the late 1930s to the present are collected in bound volumes, with the exception of 1936 and 1944 to 1947. Actual papers from these years are missing, although the JH-V does have digital copies of these issues – and of its entire archive, scanned from microfilm – thanks to the Greater Houston Jewish Genealogical Society.

“It was a phenomenal learning experience, putting this project together,” Duke pointed out. “The Herald has been there to chronicle the growth and development of Houston’s Jewish community – from the birth of new congregations, to the opening of new community centers, to the branching out of family trees. And, it also has chronicled the growth and development of the city of Houston – from the development of the Port of Houston, to the building of the first skyscrapers, to the creation of NASA – it’s all there in the JH-V,” he said.

Over the years, the paper has had several persona - The Jewish Herald, The Texas Jewish Herald and the Jewish Herald-Voice - and the pages also illustrate technology advances in newspaper production, from hot-type print to digital.

Jews came to Texas with the Spanish conquistadores, more than 60 years before the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam. When Houston was founded in 1836, Jews were among the first to live there. In 1908, when the city's population was about 75,000, the Texas Jewish Herald was the first subscription weekly paper for the 1,000-strong Jewish community.

The longest-running Southwest Jewish paper, it is one of the oldest in the US.

Congratulations to the JH-V and the Samuels family!

2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards

The 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards were just announced by ScanMyPhotos.com, recognizing excellence in preserving family history through genealogy.

Winners include several gen-blogging colleagues. Congratulations to Dick Eastman, Jasia, Miriam Midkiff and Renee Zamora). Miriam and Renee share honors for Best Personal Genealogy Blog.

The full press release is here.

Technology has enhanced the interest in learning about genealogy - the art of studying family history and investigating the ancestry of a family tree. While there are tens of thousands of Blog postings and websites dedicated to genealogy, The Photo Preservation Center - an educational division of ScanMyPhotos.com - has commissioned a study to reveal the very best sites and is announcing the winners of the 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards.

Customers were contacted in a telephone survey of 945 ScanMYPhotos.com customers across the US from January 12-March 24, who identified their favorite websites for each category.

The awards coincide with April's ‘The Great American Photo Scanning Month’ to encourage having the 3.5 trillion analog photo snapshots digitally preserved," said Mitch Goldstone, Photo Preservation Center chair and ScanMyPhotos.com president/CEO.

For the complete listing and descriptions, click Tales from the World of Photo Scanning.

Best Daily Genealogy Newsletter
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Best Ongoing Family History Story
Creative Gene: Genealogy and More

Best Personal Genealogy Blog
Miriam Midkiff's AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors

Best Personal Genealogy Blog
Renee Zamora, Renee's Genealogy Blog

Best Genealogy Reference Tool
Family Tree Magazine Blog - Genealogy Insider, edited by Diane Haddad.

Best Genealogy Portal
Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet

Most Popular Genealogy Publication
Family Free Magazine

Best Way to Network on The Internet With Your Family
MyFamily.com

Best Archive of Historical Record - Ancestry.com

Best Way to Reunite Unidentified Photos
Dead Fred Genealogy Photo Archive

Best Family Immigration Story Site
Tell Us Your Story - The Ellis Island Immigration Museum

Best Value/Free Genealogy Software Application
Geni.com

Favorite Genealogy Research Guide:
Genealogy Research Guides, Tips and Online Records

Easiest Way to Share Family Stories Online
One Great Family

Most Popular Genealogy Data Base
Family Tree Connection

Cambodia: Lost pastrami of Angkor

It isn't often anyone writes about Jews and Cambodia in one paragraph, particularly one dating from 1603, but here it is.

In 1603, then Brother Gabriel de San Antonio, in "A Brief and Truthful Relation of Events in the Kingdom of Cambodia" to King Don Philippe, wrote: "at the entrance to the road, (in the same way as we Christians erect crosses) Cambodian people erect high poles at the top of which is a golden snake. They all worship it; their criminals put themselves under its protection and it constitutes a sacred place. If they have a dispute between themselves and they want to contract a new friendship, they bleed, mix their blood in the same vessel and drink it, each one in his turn; then they dip a knife in it, keep it raised, and through ceremony, promise to be of the same blood, to have only one heart and one will, threatening with the knife anybody who would claim to the contrary. That practice, and the custom of putting snakes on the top of masts along the roads as well as that of the monks chanting the chorus seven times originates from some roman Jews who once lived in that kingdom. There are many Jews in the kingdom of china: they are the ones who built, in Cambodia, the city of Angkor which, as I said, was discovered in 1570. They abandoned it when they emigrated to china, according to what the Jews from the East Indies told me when, passing through there, I conversed with them about that matter."

Who knew?

The blog's author asks if this was the last time a good pastrami sandwich could be had in Cambodia - where he lives with his wife and baby girl named Aliyah - and proceeds to expound on Venezuela's Chavez, on a possible Khazar connection and a bit about his own family history:

While the rest of my geneology is a bit obscure (the mid-19th century Mudricks did hail from Byrdichiv in the former Khazaria but I know nothing earlier), the Shapiro line (my mother's father's side) is quite well researched. Indeed, Shapiro is one of two dozen family names whose ancestors researchers believe can be traced directly back to King David.

The genealogy of pastrami is featured with this link:

Where does pastrami come from? Is it even a "Jewish" food? Like a lot of food we identify as Jewish, pastrami is a food that was adopted by Jews and has gone through a radical transformation in the immigration process. Originally, Romanian Jews brought the idea of pastrami with them when they came to the US. In Moldavia pastrama is usually a cured, semi-dry smoked meat, usually made from sheep, that can stay unrefrigerated for months. Jews possibly cured their own kosher pastrama as a food that could be carried along on trips where no kosher meat would be available, kind of like kosher beef jerky - chewing on old truck tires is one way to describe the texture for Moldavian peasant pastrama...But the origina of Romanian pastrama lie in the heritage of the Ottoman Empire,which ruled Wallachia and Moldavia for hundreds of rather productive years, at least as far as Wallachia and Moldavia go. The Turks brought pastirma with them - slabs of beef covered in spice paste and then air dried in high mountain curing houses.

The pastrami link could be titled "Everything You've Always Wanted to Ask About Pastrami and Now You're Glad You Didn't Ask."

Ellis Island: Myth and fact

Oy vey. If we only had a penny for each time someone writes about the myth of name changing at Ellis Island. Genealogists can't believe that people still think this happened, but every so often, a prominent writer at an even more prominent publication perpetuates the myth.

The most recent was in the Forward's Philologos column on March 14, Last Names, Lost in Translation.

The author discusses the name suffix "stein" and its permutations in pronunciation and spelling, and later brings up the Sean Ferguson story ... again (is there anyone left in the world who hasn't heard this?).

Another likely myth is the author's claim that "The Eastern European Jews themselves only knew how to write their names in the Hebrew characters used in Yiddish." This is a rather broad claim, covering people from many countries - some of whom were educated in the standards of the day and many of whom at least knew how to write their own names in the vernacular of their place of residence, be it Polish, Russian or other tongues.

He also neglects the facts that interpreters of many languages and dialects were on duty at Ellis Island to assist the immigrants and to help the clerks. Yiddish was a main language with many interpreters available at any hour.

However, the main myth of Ellis Island name changing is in this paragraph:

Although veytz (with the vowel like that of “ate”) means “wheat” and not “oats” (the word for which is hober) in Yiddish, I see no reason to doubt Mr. Gass’s mother-in-law. Once again, one has to put oneself in the shoes of a harried immigration official at Ellis Island who was obliged every day to hear dozens of strange-sounding Jewish names and make a hurried decision about how best to write them in English. Had the members of Mr. Gass’s mother-in-law’s family given such an official the German spelling of Weiz, or the Hungarian spelling of Vèc, this would have ended up on the their immigration form, but since they could only spell their name in Yiddish, they simply said “Veytz” out loud. The official, however, would have heard this as the more common “Veiss,” which — again under the influence of German (in which, as in Yiddish, weiss means white) — already had the conventional Ellis Island orthography of Weiss, and so the official would have written it down in that fashion.

Luckily, the eagle eyes of Forward readers did not let this go unchallenged, and the author's next column on March 27, Myths and Facts on Language, reveals he has been chastised by readers.

A common belief that turns out to be a myth, and an assumed myth that might be true: This is the balance sheet of my March 14 column, “Last Names, Lost In Translation.”

For believing in the myth, I have been properly chastised by Arthur S. Abramson of Mansfield, Conn., and the novelist Dara Horn. Mr. Abramson writes that he was “somewhat dumbfounded” by my account of the handling of immigrants by American officials on Ellis Island, and continues:

“The Ellis Island official did not depend simply on his understanding of a name as uttered by the immigrant. Rather, he had before him the vessel’s passenger list, which had been prepared well before arrival in New York harbor. Indeed, the lists were generally made up at the port of embarkation in Europe. Once a name was matched with a person from that vessel, the official just had to copy it from the list. The myth about the changing of names by Ellis Island officials has long been debunked in genealogical circles.”

To which Ms. Horn adds the additional corrective:

“By the time Ellis Island was up and running in 1892 (immigrants to New York in the decades prior to this were processed at a smaller facility called Castle Garden on Manhattan proper), the official apparatus was vast enough for there to be no shortage of translators for even the more obscure European languages (and Yiddish hardly qualified as obscure) — Fiorello LaGuardia was one of the more famous ones. Moreover, the immigration officials often didn’t even need to resort to translators, since they themselves were frequently multilingual in the relevant languages. The idea that immigration officers were simply overwhelmed rent-a-cops, filling out forms and accidentally turning Cohens into Kennedys on a daily basis, is a bobe mayse. What’s interesting about it is that our bobes themselves made it up, because names that were changed during the immigration process were almost always changed by the immigrants themselves. Many such changes, including the example in your column of Vaytz being changed to Weiss, most likely reflected Jewish social anxieties that we scarcely remember now, such as the desirability of a German-sounding rather than Eastern-European-sounding name. For many people, it was probably easier to blame Ellis Island for the loss of a family legacy than to take the credit themselves.”

Hooray for Abramson and Horn!

And, as I have always maintained, many name changes took place the minute the immigrant got off Ellis Island and stepped onto the New York streets; sometimes changes were planned in advance, as in my own family.

Letters home from earlier arrivals told prospective immigrants that a new name had been adopted. In our family, the story persists that the first Talalay, back in 1898, met someone on the boat who knew English and who advised Mendl to change his name, as no one would give a job to Mr. "tell-a-lie." He became the first Tollin; his letters home advised the new name and why; it was adopted upon arrival in America by the majority of following relatives.

The Philologos author, however, now takes the issue back a step to Europe and blames the shipping clerks in Europe for the misspellings, because they had to deal with Yiddish speakers who compiled the lists in Latin alphabets.

[They] would have had to make guesses similar to those mistakenly attributed by me to American immigration officials at Ellis Island, so that ultimately the same kinds of inaccuracies and mistakes would have occurred in some of them. These simply would have taken place at an earlier stage in the immigration process.

However, he neglects to mention that shipping lines had agents in many towns who sold tickets to the immigrants. These agents would have been necessarily literate in Yiddish and other languages to handle record-keeping and write tickets, and would have recorded the names properly on the travel documents.

The Sean Ferguson story from the March 13 column is expanded on as another reader of the column sent in an excerpt from "a genealogical website Avoteynu [sic], posted by a researcher named Gary Mokotoff."

Gary expounds on the Ferguson story's roots - back in the 1860s - before Ellis Island was a major port of entry. Do read this section.

And, as I've mentioned over the years, my grandfather swore he knew the real Ferguson ... and I met the man.

I was a young child and we were spending the summer, as usual, up in Kauneonga Lake (near Monticello in the Borscht Belt's Sullivan County, New York). One day, my grandfather, Sidney (Shaya) Fink (from Suchastow, Galicia, now Ukraine) had a visitor, an old friend in the travel business, called Ferguson. He proceeded to tell us the story of his strange name. He swore up and down that he was the real Sean Ferguson.

It was the first time I had heard the story and believed it until decades later when I heard other genealogists discussing the urban legend. I wish I knew who my grandfather's friend Sam Ferguson really was and the true story of his name.

Texas: Crypto-Jewish Symposium, April 17-18

"Jews and the Inquisition in New Spain" is a two-day symposium focusing on the prominent crypto-Jewish Carvajal family which migrated to 16th century northern New Spain.

Taking place at Texas A&M University, Thursday-Friday, April 17-18, registration is free and there are accommodation discounts. Shabbat services and a reception will be hosted by Hillel.

Main themes are the European background of the Carvajal family, life and times of Luis de Carvajal and his enduring legacy, and expressions of Crypto-Jewish faith.

From a contemporary perspective, this symposium seeks to contribute to the understanding of the multivalent cultural heritage of the Hispanic people in the U.S. Southwest. With the growing importance of the Hispanic cultural in the borderlands region, this symposium intends to provide the Texas A&M University community and beyond a rare inside view of this culture’s Jewish heritage. Apart from its cultural contribution, this symposium looks to place Texas A&M at the forefront of the scholarly discourse on Crypto-Jewish Studies in the Southwest.

Among the committee members are Dr. Stanley Hordes, University of New Mexico and Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies president; Rabbi Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, Hillel Foundation; and others.

For full details and speaker bios, click on these links: here and here.

The keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Hordes.

University of New Mexico's Latin American and Iberian Institute adjunct research professor Dr. Stanley M. Hordes is president of the Society of Crypto-Judaic Studies. He is currently exploring the family roots of 15 families from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba, tracing their genealogies to Spain and elsewhere to see if they have converso or Sephardic Jewish ancestry.

European Background of the Carvajal Family
Rutgers University Dr. Samuel Temkin.
"Luis de Carvajal, His Family, and His Recruits," by Dr. Ricardo Elizondo, (Tecnológico de Monterrey) y Dr. Monica Montemayor Treviño (Histroirador Independiente, Monterry, Mexico)

Life and Times of Luis de Carvajal
Dr. Alicia Gojman de Backal, FES, Acatlán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Dr. Carlos M. Larralde, Independent Scholar, Calimesa, CA. "Las correspondencia, memorias, y su testamento de Luis de Carvajal, El Mozo," and "Descendants of the Carvajal Expedition,"

Expressions of Crypto-Jewish Faith
Rabbi Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, Texas A&M University Hillel Foundation. "Luis de Carvajal, El Mozo, and His Reading of Biblical Scripture," by Dr. Gregory Lee Cuéllar (Cushing Library, Texas A&M University)

The Enduring Legacy of Luis de Carvajal
Mercedes Gail Gutiérrez, Independent Scholar, Davis, CA. "Reconnecting with Crytpo-Jewish roots in the U.S. Southwest," Dr. Dell Sánchez, (Sephardic Anusim Center of the Americas).

The event has a blog to create discussion on the topic and some comments are worth reading. Speaker bios are onsite; some current research includes:

Independent scholar Dr. Carlos Montalvo Larralde has written several monographs and articles in Mexican American studies and Crypto-Jewish Studies; his doctoral dissertation, "Chicano Jews in South Texas (1978)," argued for a Crypto-Jewish presence in south Texas back to the colonial period.

Rabbi Tarlow is the Texas A&M Hillel executive director. Fluent in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Portuguese, he lectures throughout Latin America and served as rabbi of the Circulo Israelita (Santiago Chile). His rabbinic thesis was on the Portuguese Inquisition, and he has been interested in the lives and cultures of Crypto Jews especially in northern Mexican states. His presentation addresses the background of New Spain's Portuguese and Spanish immigrants and how their historical baggage impacted their lives in the New World.

Rutgers University professor emeritus Dr. Temkin has been studying the history of 16th century New Spain, and is the author of several articles on Luis de Carvajal, based on original sources.

Dr. Cuellar is currently doing research on the Crytpo-Jewish presence along the Rio Grande during the 18th century.

Alica Gojman de Backal has been a Distinguished Professor of History in Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México since 1975 and is also the current director of the library Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Comunidad Ashkenazí de México in México, D.F. Her publications include: Los Conversos en el México Colonial (1987), Testimonios de historia oral: Judíos en México. Dirección de proyecto, (1990), Identidad y Cultura en Conversos del Siglo XVII en Puebla de Los Angeles (1995), La inquisición en Nueva España vista a traves de los ojos de un procesado, Guillén de Lampart, Siglo XVII. (2000), and Judaizantes en la Nueva Espana: Catalogo de documentos en el Archivo General de la Nacion (2006).

A retired administrator, artist Mercedes Gail Gutierrez (BA Stanford University; MA UC Berkley) is a descendent of the marrano/monverso/anousim families Perez, Carvajal and Munoz, and has independently studied Sephardic Jews in the New World Diaspora, including Mexico and Occupied Mexico (1987-current). In 2007, she participated in the "Orale Israel: Part I", Anusim conference (El Paso, TX,), "Orale, Israel: Part II", Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies conference (Albuquerque, NM). Her paper was titled: "Lech Lecha: What my mother told me."

Los Angeles: The Carousel Connection

Here's a Jewish Journal story with more on the Jewish origins of carousels and merry-go-rounds - this time with an LA connection.

My previous posting in November on all these pretty horses (and more) and their Jewish craftsmen (such as Illions of Vilna) is here.

In a storage yard in Long Beach, painted ponies in rose garlands prance atop a giant wooden disc, waiting for a new owner.

The Illions Supreme Carousel, which twirled riders for decades at the L.A. County Fairgrounds in Pomona, is one of the most elaborate wooden carousels carved at the beginning of the last century by Marcus Charles Illions and his group of Jewish immigrant craftsmen.

If the current owner, a private collector, can't find a buyer for the carousel -- a city, museum or amusement park -- the historic specimen of Jewish Americana could end up broken apart or shipped to Dubai, where the amusement park industry is flourishing and the weak dollar makes American cast-offs a bargain.

The Illions Supreme isn't the only Jewishly carved carousel in jeopardy. On April 23 in Auberndale, Fla., Norton Auctioneers will take bids on a Coney Island merry-go-round created by European craftsmen trained in the art of carving Torah arks and bimahs.

The 45-foot diameter merry-go-round, carved in 1909 in the shop of William F. Mangels, with horses, giraffes, goats, camels and chariots, has been owned and operated by the same family for 93 years. It is expected to draw at least $500,000, but the auction has no minimum opening bid. Individual horses will not be sold to antiques collectors.

Illions Supremes are considered the most elaborate carousels ever carved according to Carousel News editor Roland Hopkins. The Supreme which ran for 40 years at the LA County Fairgrounds through the 1980s is worth some $5 million. Illions carved only three in this category and this is the only one remaining. Daniel Horenberger of Brass Ring Entertainment in Sun Valley is selling the carousel for the private owner.

The wildly animated menageries and chariots are adorned with more than 10,000 pieces of gold leaf. Among those horses is the American Beauty Rose horse, a gold-maned white mare dripping with colorful roses featured on the cover of "Painted Ponies," the definitive book about carousels.

Today, new carousels are made of fiberglass, often from molds made from the wooden classics. Many of the 200 extant antique carousels are owned by cities or big parks and are thus protected, but many others, such as the Illions, are in private hands and could be sold at any time.

Horenberger restores carousels at a Long Beach shop and is trying to find a home for these two carousels. "The Skirball Cultural Center expressed some interest in the Illions Supreme, occupancy restrictions and space limitations preclude operating a 50-foot diameter carousel." The center's permanent exhibit does include two Illion carved lions from a Torah ark.

The Jewish immigrant carvers created synagogue ritual objects such as brightly painted wooden arks and bimas for Europe's fame wooden synagogues and for synagogues in the New World's new communities, such as New York City.

The Illions connection came about because he moved to Southern California at the end of his career and brought the Supreme with him, settling it at the Fairgrounds.

The article also talks about the relationships of Marcus Charles Illions, Looff, William Mangel, Charles Carmel, Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein. Carmel and Looff's carvings are on the 1926 Griffith Park carousel. Mangels built the about-to-be-auctioned carousel in Florida but it operated in Pennsylvania for many years before it was moved.

For more information, the story points to:

Brass Ring Entertainment
Carousel News and Trade
Norton Auctioneers
Skirball Cultural Center

DNA: Cracking the Code

Reform Judaism's Spring 2008 issue features "Cracking the Code" on the latest DNA research, while raising perplexing, challenging and controversial questions in terms of Jewish research.

For the answers, the editors interviewed Jon Entine, author of Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People and Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It.

If Entine will be speaking in your area, the article and companion discussion guide will be a great introduction and provide questions to ask the author. I'd also recommend the guide for book clubs, genealogy societies, youth groups and other organizations planning programs on this topic.

There's plenty of food for thought on controversial Jewish survival issues, genetic advances and Jewish history, testing privacy and safety, genetic mapping ethics, gene-testing, cloning, new genes and more.

Among the questions answered in detail:

How did you come to explore cutting-edge DNA research as a window into our Jewish origins? When you talk about different “groups of people” genetically, how does that differ from categorizing by “race”? Besides the fact that Ashkenazic Jews have genes that increase their chances of getting certain diseases, what else have we learned from genetic markers? What was the next step in the quest to trace Jewish origins genetically? Do you mean to say that this is proof that the Abraham of Genesis really lived at that time? Origins of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewry. Can we track the female line of Jews? What does the DNA show about the female ancestry among Ashkenazim? Does that mean many Ashkenazic Jews are descended from gentiles on their maternal side? Might this theory explain why so many Ashkenazic Jews have blue eyes?

Here are tiny snippets of answers to other questions:

What does DNA evidence reveal about the conversos in the Southwest United States?: Although we say there are only about 13–15 million Jews in the world, I would guess that if we tested everybody in the world, tens of millions of people would have traces of a Jewish past. Entine also discusses "hidden" children of the Holocaust, and more contemporary hidden Jews.

Is the study of Jewish genetics making inroads in medicine? : It’s literally saving thousands of lives around the world. There are some forty known “Jewish diseases,” disorders that originated in single Jews and then spread throughout Jewish communities. ... The great breakthrough in genetic disease screening happened a few decades ago, when the genetic markers for Tay-Sachs were identified and a test became available." He adds the essential role played by Rabbi Josef Ekstein in 1983.

You’ve pointed to the very positive aspects of genetic testing. But isn’t it also true that the same technology can be used to discriminate?: Understandably, there’s great fear that because of genetic research, people will be labeled defective and subject to discrimination by medical insurers. ... And if we’ve learned anything from history, science can be hijacked by the purveyors of such racist theories as eugenics. Therefore we desperately need to discuss the implications of human genome research to ensure that its focus is enlightenment and not enslavement.

What is likely to be the next breakthrough in genetic research that can shed light on the Jewish people?: ...The future is focused on curing diseases, and to do that we must get into the prickly subject of human differences based on our ancestry. We are different populations, with differences in brain architecture, appearance, abilities, and disease proclivities. As yet we don’t fully understand how these differences have evolved, but within ten or fifteen years, each of us will literally be able to carry a genetic score card of all the major genetic influences on who we are. This will really help us to address the specific genetic disorders afflicting us as Jews. It’s going to be quite a revelation.

Read the complete article here. Download the excellent companion discussion and study guide here.

The guide explores genetic mapping, anthropology, history and other issues, arranged in three thought-provoking categories: Genetic anthropology provides a new way of looking at Jewish identity, genetic advances shed new light on Jewish history, and genetic mapping raises difficult ethical questions. There's a small section on our favorite subject: genealogy. There are additional resource pointers, but these could have been more up-to-date.

Sicily: The ancient mikveh of Siracusa

EyeItalia is not a site for Jewish genealogy. In fact, it is a site for beautifully created items from Italy, such as linens, bedspreads, notepaper, leather journals and much more.

I didn't expect to find Jewish anything on the site, but was surprised with this great story on the ancient mikveh of Siracusa.

The waves of cultures that have bathed Sicily over the centuries have left their traces in the cuisine, language and architecture. The Jews are all but invisible. The island was a virtual melting pot of cultures and an important center of Mediterranean commerce. Because of this prosperity, Jewish merchants were likely here very early in the islands history. Around the year A.D. 63, thousands of Jews, were brought as slaves by Roman armies returning victorious from the Holy Land. Over the centuries, “Giudecca,” or Jewish quarters, varying in size from 350 to 5,000 people developed in 50 Sicilian cities. By the 1300’s many towns were dominated by Jews.

Siracusa, in particular had an affluent Jewish community. Records show that many Jews owned luxurious homes. Their professions ranged from doctors and cloth merchants to goldsmiths and tradesmen. In the mid-15th century Sicily’s Jewish community totaled one quarter of the population. Soon however, the heavy hand of the Spanish Inquisition descended on the Sicilian Jews who dispersed to other parts of the world or converted to Catholicism. Until recently the only remaining evidence of this once thriving culture were the repetitive street names in the Giudecca. Now Jewish history comes alive again with the uncovering of the ancient “miqwe” baths.

The article goes on to explain what a mikveh is used for and technical matters of where the water originates.

How was the ritual bath discovered?

In the 1980’s a Sicilian noble woman, the Marquis or “Marchesa” Amalia Daniele, purchased a crumbling palazzo in the old historical center to convert into a “residence” hotel. During the extensive restoration, an odd pattern in the pavement bricks of a courtyard indicated a walled-over threshold. One torn-down wall and five truckloads of rubble later, a stone staircase was revealed that descended 30 feet underground. The next challenge was to drain the enormous amount of water that pooled in the chamber below. As Sicily is an island, nothing is far from the sea however the most obvious “saltwater theory” proved false. This was fresh water that undoubtedly came from the same source as the Fountain of Aretusa; the nearby sacred Greek fountain.

Once the water was removed, the structure beneath was revealed: a square chamber with a vaulted ceiling supported by four pillars carved completely out of bedrock. Three water-filled baths were located in the floor of the main chamber and off to adjacent sides were two very unusual, smaller private chambers, each with a bath. All the baths are connected by a common source of water, as required by Jewish law. The privacy provided by the smaller rooms was certainly only for those who could afford it. The size and wealth of Siracusa’s Jewish community may explain why this miqwe is unusually elaborate in its dimensions.

The Marchesa researched old records indicating that the Jewish Bianchi family were the original owners of the palazzo. The baths' construction is believed to be 6th century Byzantine, predating the palazzo by hundreds of years.

The Jews were expelled from Sicily in 1493 - a year after the Spanish Expulsion. There are theories that the departing Jews (many also went underground as secret Jews and stayed) filled in the mikveh with rubble before sealing the entryway. While the neighborhood's destroyed synagogue was remembered, the mikveh was forgotten.

Guided tours (in English) of the mikveh are on the hour, 11am-7pm, Monday through Saturday and on Sunday at 11am and noon. Reservations are necessary for groups of five or more. For more information, contact the Residenza alla Giudecca at: allagiudecca@hotmail.com.

Read more here.

3.5 million Holocaust DP names released

The AP reported yesterday that the names of some 3.5 million people displaced after World War II have been provided to Holocaust memorial groups and museums in the United States, Israel and Poland.

The International Tracing Service of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday that it had handed over a third round of digitally copied documents to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Warsaw-based National Institute of Remembrance.

The archive, based in Bad Arolsen, Germany, said the transfer involved copies of index cards that feature the names of people who were freed from Nazi concentration and labor camps as well as prisoners of war.

The move came after a meeting March 18-19 of representatives of national organizations from the member nations of the International Commission, which oversees ITS.

The archive holds millions of index cards, documents and files, some with detailed family histories. The first distribution was provided late last year and it will take the ITS two more years to finish copying onto hard drives the 16 linear miles of documents filling some six buildings. Some 67 million images of documents have already been transferred to the memorials and museums.

The document images allow survivors and victims' relatives to see transportation lists, Gestapo orders, camp registers, slave labor booklets and death books.

Read the complete story here.

Resources for more information:

International Tracing Service
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Yad Vashem
Institute of National Remembrance

SCGS Jamboree: Only 93 days to go

The Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree is only a few months away, set for June 27-29, in Burbank, California. Last year's event was a major success, and this year is expected to be bigger and better.

The committee's program (now online, see link below) features 40 speakers and more than 80 presentations. This is the second year I've enjoyed working with the out-of-the-box creative co-chair Paula Hinkel.

Los Angeles-area readers should know that there is a special Jewish research track on Sunday - so I'd like to encourage you to attend. There are other special tracks for DNA, technology, German and Eastern European research.

A first-ever event will be the Genealogy Blogger Summit, with the participation of Steve Danko, Dick Eastman, Leland Meitzler, George Morgan, Randy Seaver, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak ... and me! Leland will be the moderator.

The genealogy blogging and podcast community has been keeping savvy readers up to date on all the news affecting genealogists and family historians. How do they get the information? How is it disseminated? How have bloggers changed the flow of information between vendors and their customers? How can family history blogs help exchange information and locate cousins? Come hear this exceptional group of information leaders.

The DNA track includes Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA, Steve Morse and Morgan Smolyanek Smolyanek.

Greenspan's "The Evolution of the Revolution:" Since its inception in 2000, DNA testing for genealogists has emerged from a fad to “I’m glad.” The lecture will provide a short historical glimpse of genealogical DNA at its inception and turn to the problems of today: ancestral digs, anthropology, and adoption.

Steve Morse's "From DNA to Genetic Genealogy: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask:" Learn how DNA can be used for finding relatives you didn't know you had, learn about your very distant ancestors and the route they traveled. Determine if you are a Jewish high priest (Kohen).

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's programs: "Beyond Y-DNA: Your Genetic Genealogy Options," covering more than Y-DNA Surname studies, such as mtDNA, SNP, BioGeographical and ethnic tests, the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation and the National Geographic Genographic Project; and "Trace Your Roots with DNA" focuses on launching and managing a DNA project, test and vendor selection factors, privacy and convincing others to participate.

Sunday offers several programs of interest to Jewish researchers.

Peter Landé's "Holocaust Records as a Source for All Genealogists," focuses on the massive Bad Arolsen Holocaust archive in Germany with information on more than 17 million Holocaust victims. Some two-thirds of the 50 million records relate to non-Jews.

JGSLA program chair Pamela Weisberger's "When Leopold Met Lena: Marriage, Divorce and Deception in 1892 New York" is an example of how the most quirky, fascinating family scandals and stories are discovered and brought to life using court records, graveyard inscriptions, newspaper articles, city directories, census and vital records.

A fascinating new topic by San Diego's Stephanie Weiner is "A Plague on All Our Houses," covering the effects of epidemics and pandemics on archival records, death records, Jewish migration and Jewish communities. European and American events will be discussed from as early as 1348, when Jews were blamed for plagues and entire communities burned, to the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, when Philadelphia’s dead lay in gutters, death carts roamed the streets and steam shovels dug mass graves. These events will help researchers understand why some families and individuals simply vanished from history.

By request, I'm repeating last year's breakfast session on "Creating Hope" for the entire conference. This focuses on how writing about genealogical success gives hope to readers and searchers around the world.

The tech corner will provide access to major subscription databases and software tryouts, and the vendor room will be jammed with the "names" of genealogy. Evening programs feature Megan Smolyanek Smolyanek (on the search for Annie Moore) and Dick Eastman (family health histories), while breakfasts feature "Effective Society Management" sessions.

SCGS has also been creative about registration fees. While daily registration for non-members is $40-45 each day, the full three-day registration is only $80 until May 1 ($90 after). There are fee-added events such as breakfasts, banquet and dinner. The printed syllabus is accompanied by a free CD version.

Download the program and registration brochure here.

Florida: JewishGen, April 9

JewishGen's education vice president Phyllis Kramer will speak on “Getting the most out of JewishGen” on Wednesday, April 9, hosted by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County (JGSPBCI), at the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach.

JewishGen is the Internet's premier source for Jewish genealogy. Among its features: 150+ information files in many categories, the JewishGen Family Finder, searchable databases, with links to many additional resources and websites. JewishGen's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file offers more detailed information.

Kramer will review the site's databases and offer tips and tricks to access information.

An amateur genealogist with genealogical and computer skills, she is a JGSPBCI board member and chairs monthly Brick Wall Sessions. Her personal research is in Eastern Europe and she has compiled a family tree of 5,400 relatives around the world.

Kramer has headed computer committees and computer labs at two annual Jewish genealogy conferences; taught genealogy classes at Norwalk College, Savannah JCC and NYC's Museum of Jewish Heritage. With a BS from Cornell and Fordham University MBA, before retirement she worked primarily for IBM in systems engineering, product and business management.

For more information, click here.

Chicago 2008: Film Festival

This year, the third edition of the Jewish Genealogy Film Festival will take place during the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (August 17-22, Chicago), as film festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger of Los Angeles continues her masterful work.

There will be talks on film themes, with producer and director introductions and Q&As. The complete schedule will be announced shortly. It will offer some 40 films covering genealogical, historical and cultural topics, and include documentaries, shorts, feature films and filmmaker appearances.

Previously, screenings were restricted to conference registrants only attendees, but this year there's a registration option (daily, weekly) for spouses and friends who may be film buffs but don't share our all-consuming genealogical interests. The option is also available for Chicago residents and students. For more information, click here.

Focusing on this year's event venue of Chicago, "Maxwell Street: A Living Memory, The Jewish Experience in Chicago," with director Shuli Eshel, will be screened, accompanied by a reading from the book "Jewish Maxwell Street Stories" by noted local author, Roger Schatz.

There are some popular favorites repeated such as "Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream," profiling the history of Jewish involvement in the entertainment history and the immigrant experience, and "Everything is Illuminated," the off-kilter, evocative, portrait of a return to an ancestral shtetl.

For Litvaks, and everyone interested in Holocaust heroism under extraordinary circumstances, there's "Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness," the remarkable story of Chiune Sugihara and the Jewish refugees he helped, along with "Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust," about Menachem Daum's return to Poland to search for the farming family that hid his father-in-law during WWII.

Several films will premiere such as "Tovarisch: I Am Not Dead," a new documentary by two-time British Academy award-winning director Stuart Urban. His father was a survivor - not a victim - of both the Holocaust and gulag.

Born in Stanislawow (Galicia/Ukraine) in 1916, Garri Urban overcame adversity through a mixture of charm, aggression, and chutzpah. Using video diaries that were made over a 14 year quest into Garri's KGB records and the fate of his family in the Holocaust, Urban traveled with his father in 1992 to the former Soviet Union to continue unraveling the truth about his father's amazing life, including the fact that he was still listed as an "international spy" on the KGB most-wanted list. As Stuart Urban cautions: "Sometimes people hear about Tovarisch and they are amazed it is not a catalog of massacres and suffering. It is as much about triumph and the strength of personality. It is about survivors. Who do they leave behind? Who do they love? How do they find them again? And what is the price of survival?"

Food is also featured in Aussie Lesley Sharon Rosenthal's "Buboolah Bagela," which examines our love affair with the bagel, and "888-Go-Kosher," a day in the life of New York's only rapid-response kitchen koshering service.

Operating out of his office in Brooklyn, Rabbi Lebovic helps those in need, answering calls and snapping into action with his full-service team to kosher kitchens across the New York area. 888-Go-Kosher offers a light-hearted portrait of this unique service, and demonstrates the relationship of kashrut to Jewish identity.

Watch for news of the complete schedule.

Seattle: Schwabacher & Co.

Lyn Blyden, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State, read my post on the Jewish presence in California's Santa Maria Valley.

Recognizing the name Schwabacher as prominent in Seattle history, Lyn pointed me to the following three-part article on the Schwabacher family in Washington, their role in the Klondike Gold Rush and more.

Although the second article includes a family tree focusing on the Seattle branch, I could not immediately determine how Lewis in California was related to several other Louis in the northern branch. In California, according to a Santa Maria Times newspaper article, Lewis Schwabacher and Sam Coblentz were partners for more than 40 years. Lewis died February 19, 1939.

In any case, the northern Schwabacher family's story is fascinating. It was written by Jean Roth of the Seattle Genealogical Society and reprinted on the JGSWS website from the SGS Summer 1997 bulletin

Among the most popular Klondike outfitters patronized by the prospectors who went to the Yukon gold rush was Schwabacher Bros. & Company. It was at Schwabacher's dock on Seattle's Elliott bay that the steamer Portland arrived on July 17, 1897 with her "ton of gold" that electrified the world and sparked the Klondike gold rush. Soon thousands would leave that dock and others on their way to Alaska.

For many years a marine landmark at the foot of Union Street, it now is a waterfront park.

This pioneer Seattle merchandising business was founded by three brothers in Washington Territory in 1869, and they built an empire selling clothing, groceries, building materials and hardware.

The three who eventually made their way to the territory were Abraham, Sigmund and Louis Schwabacher. They joined the thousands of emigrants who left Europe during the 19th century. Born in Germany of Jewish heritage, the young men fled to America to escape the oppression under the rule of Bismarck, prime minister of Prussia, who was know to be a violent anti-Semite.

The article is a great read and details the brothers' history. Louis Schwabacher was the first to come to America, settled in Missippi, went to San Francisco in 1858, and to Washington Territory in 1859. He sent for his brothers from Germany, and on September 1, 1860, opened a store in Walla Walla.

In 1876, they erected a two-story brick building there which was described in newspapers of the day as "the finest building north of San Francisco, its front resplendent with massive iron columns and arches; its seven entrances each with double doors, the outer ones being iron, the inner cedar…. The interior was 16 feet high, painted white. Its six iron pillars were painted and gilded. In the northwest corner, there was a glass space of 12x16 elevated with a fireplace where Mr. Sigmund Schwabacher could observe and direct the activities."

In 1909, a group of businessmen purchased the Schwabacher store and it became Gardner's Department store, closing in the 1970s after 122 years in business.

The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin noted at that time, "Sales were often by the barter method and housewives usually exchanged eggs, butter and milk for coffee, sugar and dress goods. Goods were also sold on credit, with year-long accounts — a common financial arrangement. Settlements were made at year’s end when a farmer sold his crop or livestock. At the settling-up the customer would demand his paid-up ledger account sheet and would then burn it in the big pot-bellied railroad stove at the rear of the store. Then, as a cap to the whole business, he was taken to the basement to share a bottle of wine."

After Walla Walla, the Schwabachers went to Seattle as it was becoming a major port. They set up a wholesale business, Schwabacher Bros. & Co., as a hardware, saddlery and ship-chandlery business.

For their opening, the October 1869 newspaper advertisements announced "To the Inhabitants…An Immense Attraction… Monster Opening: and a line of merchandise which not only included groceries but dry goods. The Schwabachers had opened their “new and commodious premises in Seattle … as a general store … where they trust to receive that patronage from the public which their large well-selected stock will justly merit."

They built the first brick building in Seattle, and remained in business for more than 100 years. An 1871 ad claimed the store sold everything "from a needle to an anchor."

Historical ads indicate: 1878: "anticipating the wants of the public during these hard times, Schwabacher Bros. And Co. offers all kinds and classes of domestics regardless of cost…. We still give as an inducement ten per cent off for cash on Dry Goods, Clothing, Boots and Shoes." 1881: "leading mercantile house in the Northwest," advertised "dry goods, clothing, fancy goods, hats, boots and shoes, carpets, oilcloth, groceries, liquor, paints, oils, agricultural implements, crockery, flour, feed, shingles, doors, windows, iron steel, wallpaper…. Everything a specialty, one price only, the largest stock of dry goods ever brought to any interior town."

The store's Seattle wharf became the city's first customs house, offering businessman a convenient way to pay import duties.

Do read the complete article with information on the 1880 Skagit River gold rush: "On a single day, stores sold $500 worth of supplies; by April $50,000, had been grossed. In one eighty-day period in May—some 400 men left Seattle on their way to the Skagit area."

Their pier was the only one to survive the 1859 Seattle fire and became temporary headquarters for the railroad and steamships into the city, as well as trans-Pacific trade. The family also owned land and other companies dealing in real estate and hardware. The company's name changed to the Pacific Coast Wholesale Grocery firm and Schwabacher hardware, later known as Pacific Marine Schwabacher, Inc. and served eight western states. "The Seattle Times of 4 Jul 1976 claimed it was the largest wholesaler of hard goods in the Pacific Northwest."

Part 2 is the Schwabacher Family Tree; click here, for genealogical details on the family with roots in Regensburg and Schwabach. The family's papers and records are held in the Seattle Jewish Historical Society collection, University of Washington Library Manuscripts and University Archives Division.

Part 3 includes a biography of Bailey Gatzert (born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany) and married to Babette Schwabacher; click here.

Warsaw Ghetto: Oyneg Shabes Archives

Historian Deborah Lipstadt's blog details an article by Peter N. Miller, "What We Know About Murdered Peoples," in the New Republic (April 9, 2008). It is a review of "Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive," by Samuel D. Kassow (Indiana University Press, 523 pp., $34.95).

Miller is a professor and the chair of academic programs at the Bard Graduate Center in New York.

The Oyneg Shabes project was completed at the beginning of April 1943, when the final trove of materials was buried. When the Uprising broke out on April 19, Ringelblum was captured and sent to the Trawniki labor camp. He was there until August 1943, when he was smuggled out by the Jewish-Polish underground, brought back to Warsaw, and sent into hiding on the Aryan side. There, in a bunker seven meters long by five meters wide that he shared with thirty-nine other Jews, including his wife and son, Ringelblum completed four major works: a detailed study of the Trawniki camp, perhaps the first study ever made of the concentrationary universe; a report on Jewish armed resistance; a treatment of the Jewish intelligentsia; and a survey of Polish-Jewish relations during World War II. The first two were lost, the latter two survived. Ringelblum himself did not. The bunker was eventually betrayed, and its occupants were taken away. In prison his fellow inmates again sought to save him, but he refused to abandon his boy, and soon afterward he was executed.

In the ghetto, the archive was not the only thing buried in the earth. But only the archive rose up from it. Biondo Flavio's fifteenth-century words describing the fragmentary survival of the ancient world, later repeated by Francis Bacon, come to mind when contemplating what has come down to us from Ringelblum's world: "like planks from a shipwreck."

Miller offers with examples what he terms Ringelblum's Rules:

Seriousness of purpose is crucial.
Words are powerful.
Facts matter.
Nothing is unimportant.
Understanding the past is an inter-generational project.
All collectivities are made up of individuals, and every individual is a world.

Writes Miller:

In the Warsaw Ghetto, and elsewhere across Europe, thousands of individual Jews put pen to paper, often amid panic and terror, to record details of their existence for readers in the future that they still believed in. The Oyneg Shabes Archive is a collection of such individual voices. It will stand as the outstanding twentieth-century rebuttal to impersonal forms of social science.

Read the complete review here.

Washington DC: Kosher Nostra, April 13

Ron Aron's' expertise is in researching the lives of criminals (mostly Jews, but others as well), and his book, "The Jews of Sing Sing" will be published this year.

If you haven't caught him at six of the past seven IAJGS annual conferences or at your local genealogy society, here's another opportunity to hear him. In January, he appeared in the PBS documentary, "The Jewish Americans."

The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington will host Arons at 1pm Sunday, April 13, at the JCC of Northern Virginia in Fairfax.

In this triple-header talk, Ron provides the "greatest hits" from three of his other presentations. His presentation starts with how he got involved in researching criminals. (It wasn't by choice but, rather, beshert).

Next Ron discusses his research into the thousands of Jews who served time in Sing-Sing Prison "up the river" from New York. His talk concludes with a review of the lives of Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky (neither of whom served time in Sing-Sing) who were life-long friends and the men behind the Fabulous Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.

Along the way you will learn about the various types of records available for both a) researching criminals and b) piecing a person's life together (whether the individual is a criminal or not).

For more details, directions and more, click here.

Seattle: Successful reunions, April 14

Family reunions are a great way to put your research to work and involve many more people.

"Successful Family Reunions: The Important Role of You, the Family Genealogist," with Brad Fanta, is the focus of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State's meeting at 7pm Monday, April 14, at the Mercer Island JCC.

A genealogist can transform a family reunion from a social gathering into a powerful connection of past and present. Whatever your skill level, you can find relatives, create marketing strategies, generate medical histories, coordinate effective photo displays, develop interactive websites, and maximize use of oral histories.

These methodologies and more will be covered in an engaging format that demonstrates the potential for reunion experiences. Examples from a variety of family reunions will be shared to inspire and help any attendee, no matter what size reunion you may be planning.

Fanta - a genealogist for more than 25 years - is JGSWS secretary. His family history research has led to a specialization in 19th century U.S. Southern and Western Jewish experiences. In 2004, he was co-chair for his family's first-ever three-day family reunion; 90 participants from 15 states and Panama were in New Orleans for the event. A marketing manager for Mithun, an architectural and planning firm, he also holds a Masters of Music from the University of Washington and performs throughout Puget Sound.

If you don't live in the Seattle area, don't worry. Fanta will also present this talk at the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, in Chicago.

For more information, click here.

Los Angeles: Research Day, April 6

If you've never visited the Los Angeles Regional Family History Center in West Los Angeles, here's a great opportunity for assisted research with the experts.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County will meet from 1-5pm Sunday, April 6, at the FHC, 10741 Santa Monica Blvd. Parking is free, but the program is only open to current paid members of JGSCV. However, anyone may join or renew memberships at the door.

Experienced JGSCV members and Family History Center volunteers will be available to help members get the most out of these resources, including computer assistance with many popular genealogical databases including Ancestry.com (full access), Footnote.com, Heritage Quest, World Vital Records, Godfrey Memorial Library on-line resources and more!

The FHC has an extensive collection of microfilms, including U.S. and international census records, Eastern European and other international and domestic vital records, maps and gazetteers. Bring research documents with you, as well as a flash drive to download electronic images of online images. Hard copying is also available.

LAFHC volunteer Barbara Algaze who is the JGSLA librarian, will provide an introduction to the FHC resources.

For more information, click here.

Michigan: HIAS's Valery Bazarov, April 6

New Yorker Valery Bazarov is the director of the HIAS Location and Family History Service. Many researchers have been personally assisted by Valery in making contacts with family recently arrived from the FSU or with family members who never immigrated.

A frequent speaker at the annual Jewish genealogy conferences on a variety of topics, he is a genuine mensch (a good guy!) and I am proud to know him.

Members and friends of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan will enjoy hearing Valery at 1.30pm Sunday, April 6, at the West Bloomfield Community Library; his topic is "History in the Making," including a presentation illustrating case studies of different immigration periods.

Originally from Odessa, Valery Bazarov joined HIAS (The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) in 1988. He is currently responsible for the HIAS Location and Family History Service; helping immigrants of different generations and countries to find family members and friends with whom they have lost contact over years, sometimes decades. He is especially committed to finding and honoring the heroes who rescued European Jews during the Holocaust. He travels to Eastern Europe, working in various archives and locating documents related to HIAS activities, spanning the last 100 years.

The history of HIAS will be shown through the contents of archives from the beginning of the 20th century through the Holocaust and after World War II; including rescue operations occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France. Valery will address HIAS work in DP camps, saving Jews from Moslem countries, work during the Hungarian and Cuban Crises; and the "Let My People Go" project, resulting in saving more than 400,000 Russian Jews from the FSU.

For more information, click here.

Boston: Galician Ancestors, April 6

The lives of our Galician ancestors will be the featured at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, at 1.30pm Sunday, April 6, at Temple Emanuel in Newton Center.

Speaker Suzan Wynne's presentation will include a geographical orientation to Galicia. Today, Western Galicia is in Poland and Eastern Galicia is in Ukraine.

She will provide an overview of the government-mandated self governing system, the Judischen Kultus Gemeinden (Jewish Culture Committee), a uniquely Austrian construct which governed Jewish life. She will also discuss Polish society's rigid class structure on the Jews of Galicia, their daily life and religious observance, the Hasidic movement, conditions before and after the 1869 Emancipation of the Jews, education, marriage and the tricky issue of surnames for genealogical research.

Since 1977, Wynne has been involved with Jewish genealogy as a teacher, lecturer, author and former professional. A founding member of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, she founded Gesher Galicia in 1993. She has written two books about Jewish genealogical research for Galitzianers, and has contributed to or written articles for Avotaynu and books about genealogy. A clinical social worker, she works as a geriatric and mental health care manager and consultant in the Washington, DC area.

For more information, click here.

Tel Aviv: LitvakSIG seminar, April 2

The Israel LitvakSIG group, in conjunction with the Israel Genealogical Society, will present a one-day seminar on Wednesday, April 2. "Litvak Links: Latvia and Africa."

The mainly Hebrew-language event offers only one English program. Registration begins at 9.30am; programs end at 4pm.

10:30am: "Overlapping research - Lithuania and Latvia (English);" Dr. Martha Lev-Zion.

11:30-12:15pm: "Research methods for a book on the Zilber family, their descendants and the town of Musnik/ Musninkai (Hebrew);" Rabbi Dov Sidelsky.

12:20-13:50pm: "The South African Litvak connection – Investigating movements through databases (Hebrew);" Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen.

14:45-15:50pm: Archive Panel (Hebrew) with Rochelle Rubinstein, Deputy, Director of Archival Affairs, The Central Zionist Archives; Hadassah Assouline, Director, The Central Archive of the History of the Jewish People; and Haim Ghiuzeli, Douglas E. Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center, Beth Hatefutsoth.

For fees and more information, click here.

Dallas: DNA and Jewish History, April 1

Dallas, Texas readers are in for a treat on DNA and Jewish history as both author Jon Entine ("Abraham's Children") and Family Tree DNA's Bennett Greenspan will appear together at 7pm, Tuesday, April 1, at the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center.

Entine's book, "Abraham's Children: Race Identity and DNA of the Chosen People," is a geneological, scientific and historical examination of the shared biblical ancestry of Jews and Christians.

Greenspan is the founder of FamilyTreeDNA of Houston, the genetic genealogical service that uses the science of DNA to help trace family histories.

For more information about both individuals, reservations/tickets, click here.

New York: Hart Island ledgers

The Bronx's Hart Island - home to New York City's potter's field - is in the Long Island Sound. The New York Times features an article by Cara Buckley titled "Finding Names for Hart Island's Forgotten."

The babies’ names are single-spaced, fill hundreds of pages, and seem to share little in common apart from the startling brevity of their owners’ lives. Baby girl Walburton, died Feb. 12, 1990. Age: 9 days. Baby girl Mieses, died March 19, 1990, 2 hours old. Baby boy Suazo, died March 20, 1990, five minutes after being born.

Their bodies were put into tiny pine coffins and buried together in a large grave on a lonely, grassy place called Hart Island, part of the Bronx in Long Island Sound. According to the burial ledger, the babies Walburton, Mieses and Suazo, and dozens more infants, are in babies’ trench “No. 51.”

Hart Island is home to New York City’s potter’s field, the place where hundreds of thousands of the city’s anonymous, indigent and forgotten have been laid to rest, tightly packed in pine coffins in common graves. Hart Island is managed and maintained by the city’s Department of Correction, and inmates dig and fill the graves — three bodies deep for adults, five deep for babies — and mark each trench with a numbered concrete block. The island is off limits to the public, though family members who can prove their relatives are buried there are able to arrange visits.

New York sculptor Melinda Hunt has devoted more than 10 years to assisting people to track down Hart Island's dead. Although the handwritten ledgers listing the names were generally inaccessible, Hunt obtained 50,000 records for every person buried there since 1985 through the Freedom of Information Act. She is hoping to use the thousands of pages to create an online database searchable by name or date of death.

Since Ms. Hunt began exploring the world of Hart Island in 1991, she said, hundreds of people have contacted her, desperate to track down relatives who went to New York City and seemingly vanished, or children who died at birth and were buried in haste because their families could afford little else.

The island's history includes a lunatic asylum, a tuberculosis hospital, a boys’ reformatory and a prison, but the cemetery for the unclaimed is estimated to contain some 800,000 dead since 1869. According to the Times story, another 1,500 arrive annually; half are stillbirths and infants.

In 1997, Hunt produced a year-long exhibit on Hart Island, gaining access to its history with photographer Joel Sternfeld. They published a book of photographs in 1998; and later a documentary was made. She became known as the resource for information about the burials, where the only markers are a numbered concrete block for each trench and a ledger entry.

She believes public visits should be allowed at least once a year, but the Department of Correction says security is an issue because inmates work there. Hunt says the need for Hart Island’s burial records to be databased is urgent, but the Correction Department doesn't have the resources. Thousands of ledger records were lost in a 1970s fire. She planned to apply to a state arts foundation for money to post the records online, and to collect the stories.

“People have the right to know where their family members are buried in the city,” she said. “I’m trying to show a hidden part of American culture that I think is important, that I think is overlooked. These are public records. They belong to the people of New York.”

Read more here.

California: Jewish presence in Santa Maria Valley

Ever wonder who sold newspaper magnate and U.S. Senator Hearst the land for his famous San Simeon castle?

Viennese-born (1818) Leopold Frankl - who served as an engineer for General Fremont -founded and named the village of San Simeon in the mid-1870s and opened its first store. He sold Senator Hearst eight leagues of land for $85,000, the castle's site.

California's Santa Maria Valley has an interesting Jewish history covering the towns of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Lompoc, Guadalupe, San Simeon and other population centers.

The Santa Maria Valley Historical Society has organized a two-month exhibit of Jewish culture, including artifacts, antiques, photographs and memorabilia dating to the mid-1870s. According to a story in the Santa Maria Times, Emily McGinn of San Luis Obispo has spent many years studying the Central Coast's Jewish history.

Much has been written about European Jewish immigrants arriving on the West Coast, some for the Gold Rush. In 1880, Los Angeles had 280 Jews in comparison to San Francisco's thriving 20,000. Most were from Poland, Russia and Prussia, but there were also Sephardim.

Homing in on Santa Maria Valley, the article details the oldest section of San Luis Obispo's cemetery with the graves of French Jews who lived in Lompoc and Guadalupe, including the Cerf, Godchaux and Coblentz families. The brother - Otto - of Supreme Court Chief Justice Felix Frankfurter is also buried there.

In 1849, Lazare Godchaux from France bought the Mexican land grant of El Paso de la Robles for $8,000. He and his partner raised cattle.

The earliest Jewish family was Goldtree in 1858, establishing area branches, including North County where they had a Wells Fargo office and a newspaper. They deeded 200 acres to Union Sugar, which built a sugar plant.

Most merchants were literate, and were soon involved in city, county and state offices, and set up benevolent societies to help transients and the needy. They brought Mexican land grants, helped start towns and were involved in merchandising, mining, real estate, hotel construction and starting land companies. They established stores in both San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, and often exchanged partnerships. Goldtree bottles from their wine company are now collectors items.

One of the first beet sugar growers was Lazar Blochman, whose home is today's Santa Maria Inn. A big landowner, he experimented with nuts, fruits, vines and orchards and was also a weather forecaster. In the 1890s, he conducted High Holy Day services attended by some 100 people at San Luis Obispo's Masonic Building.

Joseph Kaiser, cousin of the Blochmans, was a real estate dealer and president of Kaiser Land and Fruit Company. He first came to work as bookkeeper for his brother at the general store of L. M. Kaiser and Company at Guadalupe.

When Kaiser went into business with Blackman & Cerf, the name was changed to Kaiser Land and Fruit Company, with Joseph as president, who had about 2,700 acres of ranch property suitable for farming. Three hundred acres, called Fair Lawn, were subdivided to be sold to settlers. Joseph Kaiser was treasurer of the Santa Maria Stock and Agricultural Assn.

Kaiser Land and Fruit Company turned 300 acres of land, Fair Lawn, into lots for settlers.

Research shows that many of the Jewish merchants were in business together and marriages often took place among the families.

Even though they were closer to Santa Barbara, Santa Maria Jewish families often went to San Francisco for shopping and High Holy Days. Travel between towns wasn't easy, and it wasn't unusual for them to have to get out and push their coaches up the hills.

In Lompoc, Jewish history begins with the arrival - in 1880 - of Isidore and Hannah Weill. Born in Alsace, he enlisted in the Civil War, serving under General Hancock. He founded the Weill and Co. store, and was the Bank of Lompoc's founder, vice president and manager. Their son, Maier, was born in Lompoc in 1887. He made his first stage appearance - with Sara Bernhardt - while a University of California student. He adopted the stage name Morgan Guild and appeared on the New York and London stage as well as silent films, in more than 500 roles.

Morgan worked in D. W. Griffith's silent films in Long Island. His first screen role was in “Orphans of the Storm.” Comedian W. C. Fields is said to have favored Wallace because of his birth in Lompoc, a city Fields loved to use as a comic target.

He was also a director for Keystone Comedies, appearing in WWI USO shows, and was a theater owner. His greatest achievement was as founder and the third member of the Screen Actors Guild. He also served on its board of directors before retiring in 1946.

The article names many families active in the early days, including ORENSTEIN, KAPLAN, GOODMAN, BERKOWITZ, MEYER, CHERN, COHEN, FRIEDMAN, HELLER, KREIDEL, FLEISHER, KAISER, GOODWIN, BRYANT, BLOCHMAN ROSENBLUM, CASSNER, WEILL, KLEIN, LEHMANN, GOTTSCHALK, while Jewish graves (from 1980) in the Lompoc Evergreen Cemetery include BERNARD, BRAMBIR, EPSTEIN, HOWARD, KANNER< KRUPKIN< KUSHNER, QUART, TUNIC.

The Santa Maria Historical Society has more than 5,000 photographs and more than 1,000 can be searched in a computerized database. If your families are among those noted above, this could be a good resource for you.

Read more here.

Additional stories will be appearing on some of the families over the next few months. The COBLENTZ and SCHWABACHER families are detailed here.

Food: Preparing for Passover

Purim is over and before we know it, Passover will be here. While Jewish families around the world prepare old family favorites, many of us also hunt for new recipes that may become future family traditions.

Our table includes both Persian and Ashkenazi favorites. While our charoset is always the Persian version, with tens of ingredients processed into a luscious spread eaten all during the holiday, I've never given up my special chicken soup, matzo balls and chopped liver, which appear along side complex Persian stews (khoresht) and wonderful rice dishes. In Teheran, I prepared carrot ingberlach and did the Passover baking for the extended large family.

Gefilte fish is never on our menu. When my husband first saw it, he heard the name as "filthy fish." He's not a fan, but believes that if you put enough chrein (grated horseradish) on anything, it will become palatable.

We attended the seder of Persian cousins one year in Israel. Our cousin Edna brought a huge covered platter, and my husband said he thought it was his not-favorite fish dish. We were surprised - shocked is a better word - to see this on a Persian seder table. The explanation: When her parents arrived from Teheran they lived in a mixed neighborhood in Ramla. Her mother, an excellent cook, shared recipes with her neighbors and picked up their specialties. Edna even makes her own horseradish! Their seders always include her truly delicious version of this standard Ashkenazi dish.

I've previously written about "Jewish Holiday Cooking," (Wiley, $32.50) by Jayne Cohen, and she includes two dishes I'm considering: Snapper Fillets in Pistachio-Matzoh Crust and Mozzarella in Matzoh Carrozza. Do check out this book, which also includes a nice section on Passover requirements and ingredients. We tend to focus on seder menus, and sometimes forget that there are lunches and more dinners following the big night or nights! The days of tuna salad on matzo - while nostalgic - are not quite enough. Although I'm not generally a fan of matzo brie, Cohen's Cinnamon Matzoh Brie with Toasted Pecans and Warm Vanilla-Maple Syrup also sounds delicious enough for a company brunch!

I haven't really started thinking about the specifics of my own menu yet - but Judy Kancigor's article on EmeraldCoast.com mentions four cookbooks providing food for thought.

Ask most Jewish children ‘‘What’s your favorite holiday?’’ and ‘‘Hanukkah’’ is the quick response. For me, all the gaily wrapped gifts in the world can’t hold a candle to the magic of Passover.

When I was growing up, my huge, raucous family would gather for the Seder (‘‘order’’ in Hebrew), the traditional Passover meal commemorating the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. My grandpa Papa Harry would officiate at Mama Hinda’s mile-long table, laden with her brisket and tzimmes (carrot stew), stuffed chicken and kugels, and splendid Passover confections. So I’ve heard ... I was never there!

My mom, dad, brother and I spent our Passovers — a magical weeklong celebration — in resorts in New York’s Catskill Mountains, where my dad, singer and cantor Jan Bart, was working, performing his Seders, complete with choir (including Mom Lillian’s contralto) for 850 people.

She goes on to talk about tackling her own first family seder. This year, she found four useful cookbooks and spoke to the authors.

Susie Fishbein’s ‘‘Kosher by Design Entertains’’ (Mesorah, $34.99) offers spectacular menus and beautifully photographed serving ideas with the simple, yet elegant recipes. The book has nine parts, and many of the recipes are appropriate for Passover. Fishbein includes a list of recipe adjustments for the holiday’s dietary restrictions.

Fishbein’s Carrot Coconut Vichyssoise - sounds great - will be on Kancigor's menu; the recipe is in the article. But she'll still make her mother's chicken soup!

Also on Kancigor's menu is Tunisian lamb, which she found in ‘‘Jewish Food: The World at Table’’ (HarperCollins, $29.95) by Matthew Goodman, ‘‘Food Maven’’ columnist at The Forward, the 105-year-old Jewish newspaper.

Goodman told her that although beef is common in Eastern European tradition, the Sephardic uses lamb. Lambs were butchered in the spring and it's part of the abundance of spring. His book offers recipes from 29 countries.

‘‘What I tried to do with this book was to locate and preserve food traditions from communities around the world that are today endangered because the communities themselves are endangered,’’ he said.

Few holiday dishes are common to all Jewish communities and the only shared ingredient is matzo. Creative cooks around the world have found ways to utilize this item. My personal favorites using matzo are Matzo Baklava and Toffee-Chocolate Crunch Matzo.

Kancigor's side dishes will include Moroccan Mashed Potato Casserole from Gil Marks’ ‘‘Olive Trees and Honey’’ (Wiley, $29.95). Marks is a rabbi, historian and chef, and the new book features 300 vegetarian recipes from global Jewish communities, among them India, Alsace, Greece and Uzbekistan.

‘‘A custom arose in Provence beginning about 800 years ago amongst the Ashkenazi,’’ Marks explained, ‘‘to restrict foods such as legumes for Passover, and over the centuries other items were added to this general category, such as corn and rice.’’

Marks discusses Seder traditions, ranging from sitting on the floor to tables and chairs.

For dessert, Kancigor details - and provides the recipe - for Raspberry Meringue Gateau from ‘‘Crowning Elegance’’ (Wimmer, $34.95) by the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School of Skokie, Illinois. She mentions that this isn't an ordinary school cookbook, but a professionally compiled, tested and photographed volume, edited by Valerie Kanter; some 132 parents provided various ethnic recipes.

Here are the ingredient lists for the two spotlighted recipes:

CARROT COCONUT VICHYSSOISE
Yield: 6-8 servings

For soup:
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 medium Idaho or russet potatoes, peeled and diced
16 ounces peeled baby carrots or 2 cups sliced carrots
1 leek, washed, sliced white and pale green parts only
1 shallot, diced
Dash ground white pepper
2/3 cup coconut milk; see cook’s notes
1/2 cup nondairy creamer; see cook’s notes

For balsamic garnish:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon dark molasses.

RASPBERRY MERINGUE GATEAU
Yield: 8 servings

For meringue:
Grease for pans
4 egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 cup skinned hazelnuts, roasted and ground

For sauce:
1 1/3 cup fresh raspberries
3 to 4 tablespoons kosher-for-Passover powdered sugar; see cook's note.
1 tablespoon kosher-for-Passover orange liqueur

For cream:
1 1/4 cup nondairy whipping cream; see cook’s notes
3 tablespoons kosher-for-Passover powdered sugar, plus more for garnish; see cook’s notes
2 cups fresh raspberries, plus more for garnish

For the complete recipes and how to order "Crowning Elegance," click here.

Curacao's Jewish history

In the Caribbean, Curacao is home to the oldest synagogue - Mikve Israel - in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere; it was founded in 1651.

A recent Jewish Journal story details the community's history and also touts Mikve Israel as a life-cycle location for bnai mitzvah or weddings. This could be particularly relevant for Sephardic families.

Compared with the millennia of Jewish history, the scant few centuries of Jewish settlement in the Western Hemisphere is like a drop in the ocean those Jews had crossed from Europe. The history of the Jews in the American colonies is even shorter: more than 100 years before the Jews of Newport, R.I., built their synagogue (now the oldest continuously active synagogue in the United States), the Jewish community of the Caribbean island of Curacao had built theirs -- Congregation Mikve Israel, which holds the record as the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere.

The Jews who settled in Curacao found the religious freedom they craved. Jewish merchants and sailors who worshipped at Mikve Israel spread the religion throughout the West, earning it the title of "Mother Congregation to the New World."

The synagogue complex houses a fascinating museum containing historical documents and artifacts. Yet it is another phenomenon that keeps this venerable place a living legacy: the synagogue's popularity as a venue for destination bar and bat mitzvah celebrations.

The Reform-Progressive affiliated congregation has scheduled some 17 bnai mitzva celebrations into 2010 - all from the US and Canada. Mikve Israel's sanctuary features mahogany beams, white sand floor and candelabra chandeliers and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A century prior, Jews had been in Brazil, but the advent of the Inquisition led to its expulsion of the Jews, who migrated to Protestant Dutch colonies, such as Curacao. The Jews from Recife landed here, and another group landed in New Amsterdam later on.

Curacao became one of the New World's wealthiest commercial centers. The city of Willemstad was key to trade linking Europe, Africa and America. At one point, Jews were 50% of the island's European population, and they built synagogues and a cemetery. The Beit Haim Blenheim is estimated to hold more than 5,000 graves - 2,500 from the 17th-18th centuries) and was consecrated in 1659; the oldest recognizable gravestone is Judit Nunes da Fonseca in 1668(?).

Mikve Israel's website is very informative and offers many photographs of artifacts. Here is a small section; I have bolded the referenced family names.

THE HOPE OF ISRAEL (Mikvé Israel)

It was from Amsterdam’s well-spring of the Jewish renaissance that one Joao d'Yllan petitioned the Dutch West India Company to bring a company of settlers to colonize Curaçao. He was born in Portugal, had been denounced there for “Judaizing”, was now established in Amsterdam and engaged in commerce with relatives in Brazil. He was a good and prosperous member of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam and had a brother who was a colonel in the Dutch colonial army. He promised to bring fifty families, but succeeded in recruiting no more than twelve. They set sail for Curaçao in the summer of 1651.

If the roots of these settlers were Spanish and Portuguese, so were their names. One historian lists them as being: Aboab, Aboab Cardozo, Chaves, Henriquez Continho, Jesurun, De León, Marchena, De Meza, Oliveria, La Parra, Pereira and Touro. They were not the only ones. Several independent Jewish businessmen from Amsterdam followed and- some claim- even preceded them. In fact, the very first Jew to set foot and establish himself on Curaçao was one Samuel Coheno, an interpreter, pilot, and Indian guide to Johan van Walbeeck, the Dutch naval commander who took Curaçao from the Spanish in 1634. Samuel Coheno was appointed Chief Steward of the native Indian population and certainly stayed on Curaçao until 1641. But it is the d’Yllan group who, in the words of our foremost historians Isaac and Suzanne Emmanuel, surely improvised a Synagogue out of a small house in 1651 and that first house of worship probably stood in the fields where the colonists toiled.

If the exact date of its founding is lost in history, there can be no doubt about its existence. In a letter in Spanish, Ishack Rodrigues Cunha, while away from Curaçao, addresses himself “to the illustrious Gentlemen the MAHAMAD of the Holy Congregation Mikvé Israel, Curaçao’’. The date of the letter was the 2nd of Heshvan 5415 (Oct. 13, 1654).

The website features detailed sections on the congregation's history, architecture and artifacts.

Of the 17 Torah scrolls in the Heichal (Sephardic name for the Aron HaKodesh, which holds scrolls); two date to the pre-Inquisition times. According to the website, at least 20 scrolls have been donated over the course of the congregation's history as gifts from David Mordechay de Castro, Jacob de Benjamin Fidanque, David de Mordechay Senior, Aaron da Costa Gomez, Benjamin de Casseres, Jacob de Abraham de Andrade, Isaac Haim Rodriguez da Costa, Jacob Namias de Crasto, Samuel de Joseph da Costa Gomez, Benjamin Lopez Henriquez, Abraham and Ribca Jeudah Leao, Isaac de Jacob Leao, Abraham de Marchena, Moseh de Marchena, David de Mordechay Senior, and Jacob de Sola. Donors of other ritual items are David Lopez Laguna, Samuel de Joseph da Costa Gomez, Jacob Hisquiau Arid, Samuel Hoheb and David Jessurun.

Click links above for the story and the congregation for more information.

India: Lost tribes of Malihabad

The Times of India has an interesting story on the biblical connection to the Lucknow area.

Malihabad and Qayamganj towns have recently attracted "lost tribe" researchers. In November 2002, Prof Tudor Parfitt of London University visited Malihabad to collect DNA samples of Afridi Pathans to confirm their putative Israeli descent, and from Jerusalem, the Lander Institute's Eyal Beeri visited in October 2007.

LUCKNOW: Known for its delightful mangoes, Malihabad, situated 25 km from the state capital, is all set to become a part of the Jewish tourist circuit in the country.

The tehsil houses 650 Afridi Pathans believed to be decedents of one of the ten lost Biblical Israelite tribes. The fact has prompted two leading Israeli travel companies to market Malihabad as a tourist destination for Jewish community world over with the theme "The Lost Tribe Challenge".

As a first step in this direction, Mosh Savir of Shai Bar Ilan Geographical Tours and Dudu Landau of Eretz Ahavati Nature Tours recently toured Malihabad along with Indian tour operator Col SP Ahuja to conduct a ground survey for facilitating the first "theme tour", expected in November 2008.

History records that 10 tribes were exiled by the Assyrians in 721 BC, and that some of their descendants settled in India.

"Pathan tribes came to India between 1202 AD and 1761 AD along with Muslim and Afghani invaders and settled in different parts of the country. Afridi Pathans of Malihabad came from the North Western Frontier Province, now in Pakistan," claimed Navras Jaat Aafreedi, an Afridi Pathan himself, who has conducted a research which supports the theory of Jewish origin of the Afridis. "Afridi pathans are decedents of Ephraim Tribe, one of the lost tribes," said Navras who was also a part of the ground survey.

Read the rest of the story here

50 top gen sites for 2008

Kory L. Meyerink's posting on ProGenealogists.com ranks the 50 most popular genealogy sites for 2008.

I was very happy to see MyHeritage.com at #3, Family Tree DNA at #27, JewishGen at #28, and other sites I use, such as GenBank (#41).

According to the WorldVitalRecords (#10) blog posting , Meyerink gave this presentation at the recent Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy, in Utah. That posting also explains how Meyerink calculated rankings:

Meyerink felt this list was needed to minimize opinion ranking and to provide a useful list based on an extensive study of genealogical Web traffic. He first merged the rankings from Alexa.com, Quantacast.com, Compete.com and Google PageRank. Then he used Alexa’s top 100 under Genealogy, Kip Sperry’s Link List, Genealogy Sleuth List, cross-linked sites noted on Alexa.com as similar, and Yahoo and Google Directories to compile the list.

Meyerink used sites that were specifically designed for genealogical purposes (free sites, as well as paid), multiple sites from the same owner (if they had a different URL), sites of primary interest to genealogists, and sites that had a ranking of 2-3 ranking services. He did not include the following type of sites in the list: government, repository, general sites (Google.com, Wikipedia.org), and general reference sites (dictionaries, gazetteers, calendars, etc.).

50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites for 2008
Kory L. Meyerink, MLS, AG, FUGA

Rank Website Coverage/Content
($ means subscription or fees required)

1. Ancestry.com $ - Ancestry.com is the leading genealogical data site, with some articles, instruction, and reference help.

2. RootsWeb.com - Rootsweb is a major data site, with free instruction and reference help.

3. MyHeritage.com - MyHeritage focuses on genealogy community building and networking.

4. Genealogy.com $ - This is major data site, with instruction and reference help.

5. FamilySearch.org - This is a major data website sponsored by the LDS Church and includes with instruction and reference help.

6. MyFamily.com - Hosts family websites for sharing photos, genealogy, and more.

7. FindAGrave.com - A database of cemetery inscriptions and photos.

8. Footnote.com $ - In conjunction with the U.S. National Archives, Footnote offers data, original records images, and more.

9. OneGreatFamily.com $ - This is primarily a family trees sharing and collaboration website.

10. WorldVitalRecords.com $ - WVR is also known as Family Link, and represents a major data website, with instruction and reference help.

11. GenealogyToday.com - Genealogy Today includes instruction, reference articles, and includes some unique data collections.

12. AncestorHunt.com - A site consisting of collected genealogy links.

13. AccessGenealogy.com - A website that includes references to helpful articles, especially for Native American information, and some data.

14. EllisIsland.org - Database of passenger lists that is free to search. Actual passenger list images can be purchased.

15. CyndisList.com - A huge website dedicated to cataloguing genealogy website links.

16. Interment.net - Transcribed and indexed cemetery inscriptions.

17. USGennet.org - Historical and genealogical web hosting service.

18. Geni.com - Web 2.0 and focuses on genealogy community building and networking.

19. KindredKonnections.com $ - Grassroots created data site with compiled family Trees, and some extracted records.

20. FamilyTreeMaker.com - Homepage for Ancestry.com's genealogical software.

21. SearchForAncestors.com - Interactive directory of free genealogy websites and data.

22. DistantCousin.com - An online archive of genealogy records and images of historical documents.

23. CousinConnect.com - A large free queries website.

24. GeneBase.com - A DNA ancestry cataloguing project

25. TribalPages.com - Family trees hosting and charting program.

26. SurnameWeb.org - A collection of surname website links; online since 1996.

27. FamilyTreeDNA.com - DNA testing service focused upon family history test types.

28. JewishGen.org - Jewish, reference, instruction, coordination, and databases.

29. ObitCentral.com - Obituary database for finding obituaries and performing cemetery searches.

30. GenCircles.com - Upload and share your family trees.

31. DeathIndexes.com - Lists of links to United States death records, by state.

32. Genuki.org.uk - Large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man.

33. Daddezio.com - Website focused upon Italian research, with instruction, information and more.

34. PoliticalGraveyard.com - Comprehensive source of U.S. political biography that tells where many dead politicians are buried.

35. Linkpendium.com - A collection of genealogy links categorized by region and surname.

36. Geneanet.org - A collection of family trees, community, and submitted records.

37. US-Census.org - Census abstracts (U.S. GenWeb Census Project)

38. AncientFaces.com - Share genealogy research, community pages, family photos & records more for free.

39. HeritageQuestOnline.com $ - Census, PERSI (the periodical index), books.

40. CensusFinder.com - Links to free census records.

41. GenealogyBank.com $ - Database with index of newspapers and early books.

42. GenWed.com - Online marriage records, where to order, some indexes, and more.

43. GenealogyLinks.net - Links to free sites, arranged by state and county.

44. WorldRoots.com - European nobility and German reference material.

45. ProGenealogists.com - Website created by professional genealogists with links, instruction, data, and reference aids.

46. Census-Online.com - Links to censuses and census abstracts.

47. FamilyTreeMagazine.com - Website for magazine publisher that includes shopping, links, and research tools.

48. KindredTrails.com - Links to genealogy and data websites.

49. USGenWeb.com - A group of volunteers working together to provide free genealogy websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States.

50. FindMyPast.com $ - Indexes to British records of many types.

Mizrahi music: Divahn

Family history includes all aspects of life, including music. Our talented cousin Galeet Dardashti follows a family tradition of distinguished musicianship dating back to 19th-century Persia.

A cantor and an anthropologist, she also leads Divahn, an all-female Middle Eastern-style group with an international following. Traditional and original Jewish songs are transformed with sophisticated harmony, improvisation and arrangements. The group's live shows incorporate such instruments as tabla, qanun, cello, violin and dombek. Languages include Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Persian, Arabic and Aramaic.

An "Ashkefard" (Persian father, Ashkenazi mother), she is the daughter of Hazzan Farid Dardashti of Beth El synagogue in New Rochelle, New York, and her paternal grandfather, Yona Dardashti, was a renowned Persian classical singer in Iran.

He performed in reputable concert halls, at the Shah’s palace, and weekly on the radio in a prime time slot (before there was TV). He also led services in synagogues in Tehran, not as part of his professional life, but as a practicing Jew (being a cantor wasn’t a profession in Iran). But my grandparents tried to dissuade my father from pursuing a career in music. They wanted him to be an architect or an engineer.

Divahn will perform at several upcoming concerts:

7.30pm, Sunday, March 23, 2008
Divahn with Haale at Drom
Drom & The Persian Arts Festival present Haale and Divahn together onstage for a special show of female-fronted Persian rock and contemporary Middle Eastern music. Haale celebrates the release of her new record; while Divahn performs a special set for Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating a woman’s courage to save her Persian Jewish community from persecution.

7pm, Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Galeet Dardashti Solo Project: Voices of Our Mothers
Center for Jewish History
A sneak preview of Galeet’s new solo project, Voices of Our Mothers: A Middle Eastern Musical Midrash for Today. The evening includes songs-in-progress and a discussion with HUC scholars Mark Kligman and Adriane Leveen.

On Friday, March 28, at the "Beyond Boundaries: Music and Israel @ 60" symposium at CUNY Graduate Center, Galeet will speak at 11.15am on “The Piyut Craze: The Popularization of Religious Mizrahi Songs in the Israeli Public Sphere.” Divahn will perform at 2pm. For more information, click here.

She's finishing her dissertation on contemporary Mizrahi and Arab music in Israel, has studied and performed Arab and Persian music with some of Israel’s most renowned musicians. She recently won the prestigious Six Points Fellowship to pursue her project,“Voices of Our Mothers: A Middle Eastern Musical Midrash for Today” over the next two years. It will explore culture, religion, politics and gender through the lens of Middle Eastern music, while weaving Midrashic, Talmudic and Biblical texts with poetry, family anecdotes and current events with songs in many languages and collaborations with female singers of diverse nationalities and faiths.

For an interview with Galeet, click here. In it, among other subjects, she speaks about her great-aunt Tovah:

My father used to tell me stories about his family life in Iran. He told me about his learned aunt Tovah who, because she was childless, decided to take upon herself many of the mitzvot from which women are traditionally exempt. He remembered watching her don tallit and t’fillin in the morning yet recalls no one objecting. This image of my great aunt Tovah remained with me over the years, smashing the ethnic stereotype of the submissive, repressed Mizrahi woman. These stories surprise people who assume that Sephardi and Mizrahi women are much more limited in Jewish life than Ashkenazi women.

Listen to tracks from her albums here

New Jersey: Monmouth County Jewish Museum

From New Jersey's Asbury Park Press comes this story about a Jewish museum for Monmouth County.

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — The story of Monmouth County's Jewish residents is the story of the county itself, says township resident Michael Berman — and that story is about to be told.

Berman is co-president of the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, a local nonprofit dedicated to opening a museum of the same name in Freehold Township.

After about six months of construction, Berman recently predicted that the museum will open to the public by late May or early June. Renovations are ongoing at the museum, which will be housed in a large, gray barn at the Mount's Corner shopping center, Route 537 and Wemrock Road.

The barn originally was owned by descendants of 18th-century Jewish tavern keeper Levi Solomon, Berman said. It is believed to be part of the first Jewish farm settlement in the county.

Artifacts, photographs and oral histories will illustrate the lives of the county's Jewish residents, while a timeline will detail Jewish settlement beginning with the first Jewish peddlers in the early 1700s through the wealthy summer visitors in the 19th-20th centuries. The museum will also include the Jewish chicken farmers from the 1930s.

Jewish settlements have sprung up throughout the county, from the wealthy Sephardic Jews in Deal to the more modest homesteaders in the western Monmouth County town of Roosevelt, where unemployed Jewish New York City garment workers came during the Great Depression to begin a cooperative.

The group's co-president Jean Klerman of Fair Haven, says the museum idea goes back to the nation's bicentennial in the mid-1970s. She co-authored a book on Monmouth County's Jewish history following that event.

Berman also chairs the Freehold Township historic Preservation Commission. Developer Bernard Hochberg agreed to preserve the barn and the Solomon home in return for permission to build a shopping center. Originally slated to be a farming museum, the Jewish history museum was considered a better use.
Hochberg and his business partner donated the space and are funding the building's renovations. The 3,000-square-foot museum will be on the barn's second story with a restaurant on the first floor.

Read the complete story here

CJH: A rich collection of resources

New York's Center of Jewish History holds many genealogical resources in its Ackmann & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.

From its inception, the Center for Jewish History has understood the significance of discovering one's past through tracing family roots. Established by the Center Partners and the Jewish Genealogical Society in 2000, the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute assists a wide variety of lay, academic, and professional researchers from around the world. Many seek to understand how the lives of their ancestors relate to the broader context of Jewish history and world history, while others seek to discover the fate of relatives lost during the Holocaust, to explore a Jewish past that was lost due to intermarriage and conversion, or to re-connect with branches of their family separated long ago by migration, war, and the Iron Curtain.

The institute is the gateway to a wealth of resources held by the CJH partner organizations.

Links for more information include: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, YIVO Archives and the YIVO Library.

Tips and tools for getting started include Starting Your Family History Research, Interviewing Relatives, Frequently Asked Questions, Computers & Genealogy, Holocaust Research, Landsmanshaftn, Jewish Names, Rabbis, Synagogue Records.

US Research Guides include those for Vital Records, Immigration Records, Naturalization Records, Census, City Directories, Finding a Burial Place and Finding Birth Parents.

There are also PDF downloadable guides to foreign research, such as Finding an Ancestral Town or specific country research (Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech and Slovak Republics, France, Galicia Resources, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Sephardic Research and Ukraine).

Orphan photos reconnected - sometimes

AncientFaces.com and DeadFred.com are two websites dedicated to reuniting old photos with the families of their original owners. They are only two of many belonging to a subculture of amateur genealogists, antique hounds, and others who attempt to find real homes for old pictures of someone's relatives.

According to a Boston Globe story, this subculture wouldn't exist without the Internet and its features. These days, libraries are also getting involved, and the Waltham (Massachusetts) Library has joined this community.

His picture arrived in the mail at the Waltham Public Library in a small manila envelope. The well-dressed stranger wore a dark pinstriped suit - late-19th-century vintage. His hair was parted sharply at the left temple, his starched collar crisp and white.

His photo carried the trademark of a Waltham studio, called Brown, L.C. on Main Street, which hasn't existed for more than 100 years.

"Hello," the handwritten note accompanying the picture said. "Don't ask me how I wound up in Sasser, Georgia! Would you please put me on display in your library so my family can find me? Thanks! Sincerely, A Lost Soul."

What was once a treasured image of a brother, husband or son is now an orphaned photo. But though this image might be a "Lost Soul," it is by no means alone. The Internet has created a thriving community of people who have found a calling in rescuing the thousands of these orphaned photos that surface in dusty attics or estate sales, and trying to reunite them with family or friends or anyone who could identify them.

And now Waltham's library has joined that community, drawn in by the arrival of the "Lost Soul" photo in January. Library workers have posted the image and several other unidentified pictures from its files on the library's website, and in a display case outside its Waltham Room.

Librarian Jan Zwicker oversees the local collection and says the library has more than 5,000 historical photos in diverse categories.

Amazingly, the "Lost Soul" is one of only five photos without a name or history attached. It was sent in by Patrica Rock of Georgia who found it in an antique shop. The owner had some 30 photographs, and she bought those with some information on them, such as the Waltham photographer's name.

She hopes someone might recognize the man who might have been a local resident, visitor or student. The article also details some of her finds and happy resolutions:

Another one of Rock's orphaned photos, this one depicting a 19th-century girl, included a name and the name of the man she eventually married. Rock used the information to track down their grandson, an 80-year-old doctor living in Chicopee. Soon afterward, the doctor contacted her with the reaction that she always hopes for. "He was absolutely amazed. She had died giving birth to his father, and they only had one photo of her, taken when she was older. . . . He sent me a paperweight this Christmas."

The article mentions DeadFred.com founder Joe Bott. The site had 62 million hits last year, with nearly 1,300 reunions to date. More than 76,000 photos of all types are posted there.

The library's other four mystery photos have been there for years, and whether those or Lost Soul will connect with family isn't certain. His best clue is the photo studio, in business on Main Street between 1893 and 1895.

Another - late-19th-early-20th century - is a white-haired gentleman wearing a long, fur-trimmed coat, staring into the camera, and taken at a known Boston studio, Elmer Chickering in 1904. A third shows a middle-aged man wearing the clothes of a priest or minister, in a pair of pince-nez glasses. The fourth is of a large crowd, mostly men, on the steps of a large stone building, taken by mystery man Adolphe Bean, who isn't listed in any records of the period. The last is a street scene of a streetcare, showing a steeple above the trees.

Read more of the Boston Globe story on the friends of lost photos here.

USHMM seeks Holocaust researcher

Here's a research opportunity just received from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:

The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is creating a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.

In support of this effort, the Center is seeking an independent researcher to gather information and write entries on particular sites (specifically, facilities under the Wehrmacht and the RSHA, and forced labor camps under other governmental agencies and/or private industrial firms), using the Museum's library and archival holdings as well as other resources in the Washington, DC area. The researcher will have the opportunity to publish his or her work in the encyclopedia. Some translation and editing duties may also be required. Work is to begin as soon as possible.

Applicants must possess some education beyond the first degree and have experience in historical research and writing. Knowledge of the Holocaust is highly desirable. Applicants must have excellent writing skills in English and a thorough reading knowledge of German; other central- or eastern-European languages are desirable.

The researcher will not be an employee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but will perform the work on a contract basis. The initial contract will require delivery of entries and other related products in accordance with a six-month schedule, with extensions to the contract possible after that. Payment will be commensurate with the researcher's education and experience, ranging between $1,500 and $3,000 per month.

The researcher will also have the opportunity to participate in Center and Museum events such as colloquia, seminars, workshops, fellows' discussions and lectures.

Please send a cover letter indicating dates of availability along with a curriculum vitae and a short writing sample (no more than 1,200 words) by March 31 to:

Geoffrey P. Megargee, Ph.D.
Applied Research Scholar
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW Washington, DC 20024-2126

Email submissions are acceptable and may be sent to gmegargee@ushmm.org.

Feher Jewish Music Center: The day the music died?

There is an amazing repository of Jewish music at the Museum of the Diaspora in Tel Aviv.

The Feher Jewish Music Center's director, Dr. Yuval Shaked, has performed yeoman's work in preserving and developing its rich resources used by musicians and researchers from around the world. In addition, he has organized and produced CDs of important community musical traditions that would have been otherwise lost.

Unfortunately, the day the music died may be as early as March 31, Shaked's last day as director, as the museum's management has terminated his work.

Because Tracing the Tribe's readers understand the value of this rich repository - and indeed the value of all Jewish heritage archives - and how detrimental its loss will be, I'm asking readers to help preserve the FJMC and enable its director to continue his amazing work, by signing an online petition.

The online petition appeals to the museum's management to void its action, to ensure Yuval Shaked's position and the maintenance of the recording collection and activities for the future.

Readers who are not familiar with the Center's resources may wish to read the comments of those who have already signed. They may also wish to inform their synagogues' cantors and hazzanim - no matter whether they are Ashkenazi, Sephardi or Mizrahi, as the Center's resources cover all community musical traditions

I've known about the FJMC for a number of years and have counted Yuval as a friend since the first day I visited his office and saw his desk and shelves piled high with esoteric recordings not yet entered into the database. Since then, I've written several articles for the Jerusalem Post on his work and the Center's materials and its mission in preserving the musical traditions of the Jewish people.

I have located early 20th century recordings of music sung in Mogilev, Belarus when my ancestors were there; other researchers have located their own ancestors' voices in the recordings. The archive's assets are a treasure trove for those looking for musical traditions of lesser-known communities, and the CDs produced by the Center have preserved traditions for the Jewish world.

Yuval worked with a small number of volunteers to help input materials into the database. He could have had more volunteers but computers were in disrepair. Each time a story was written on the Center, he received hundreds of phone calls from people willing to help him as volunteers to input materials or to donate materials (records, sheet music, photographs and other materials of interest) to the archives.

He was willing to go anywhere to speak on the frankly amazing resources of the FJMC, and also to go anywhere at any time to record rare musical traditions to add to the resources. Yuval spoke several times to our JFRA Israel genealogy society, presenting gems from the collection.

Today, the resources of the Feher Jewish Music Center are severely and acutely endangered by the museum's management (Beth Hatefutsoth - The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diapora, Tel Aviv), which has terminated Yuval's work as Center director.

The Center's rich resources are not duplicated in any other archive. The decision to terminate Yuval is without regard to these resources. He has spent years making it possible to produce a series of renowned CDs preserving community traditions, and successfully working his contacts to provide financing for these projects, despite obstacles placed in his path.

According to Yuval, upon his dismissal the vast recording collection of the Center, the CD series it released and its unique databank - all renowned and highly esteemed world wide - will be abandoned.

The contacts initiated and maintained by the FJMC with partner archives and institutions around the world, its initiatives and intense endeavors on behalf of Jewish music of all kinds, places, times and styles (preservation; documentation) will all be neglected and destroyed. Various projects in progress will be stopped. Hard work produced over many years will become lost.

Following is an email sent by Shaked to Feher friends around the world - including partners, colleagues, personal friends, music lovers, genealogists and more:

Please consider supporting the struggle for the sheer existence and continuation of the work done at the Feher Jewish Music Center, Beth Hatefutsoth (the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv) by signing the petition,
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fjmc/index.html

I'd be gratified to find you among the list of the supporters. Kindly, forward the request to your friends and colleagues, to whom this cause is dear.

With best regards and many thanks,

Yuval Shaked
Feher Jewish Music Center
Beth Hatefutsoth
P.O.Box 39359
Tel Aviv 61392
ISRAEL
Tel. +972-3-7457861
Fax. +972-3-7457832
http://www.bh.org.il/Music/index.aspx

Chicago: Another face of Judaism

There are many faces to Judaism and these faces most certainly impact Jewish genealogy - both now and in the future. We come from around the world, and among us are found both ancient lineages and new additions to the Jewish family tree.

Jewish congregations around the world have Asian, Hispanic and black members who - through family history, conversion or adoption - are members of the tribe.

The New York Times just carried a story (and a multimedia slide show) about the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, headed by Rabbi Capers C. Funnye [fun-AY] Jr, who says “I am a Jew and that breaks through all color and ethnic barriers.” The congregation occupies a former Ashkenazi synagogue in Marquette Park.

Founded in 1918 as the Ethiopian Hebrew Settlement Workers Association by Rabbi Horace Hasan from Bombay, its members include Hispanics, African-Americans and whites who were born Jews, former Christians and Muslims. The congregation does not seek out converts, according to traditional Jewish law, and members must study for a year before converting (including circumcision and mikvah).

The service is between Conservative and Modern Orthodox with African-American elements. Men and women sit separately; liturgy is read in English and Hebrew and drum beats accompany spirituals sung by the chorus.

Funnye serves on the Chicago Board of Rabbis, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and the American Jewish Congress of the Midwest. In addition, he is active in the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, focusing on reaching out to other communities of black Jews around the world.

CHICAGO — Having grown up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Capers C. Funnye Jr. was encouraged by his pastor to follow in his footsteps. Instead, he became a rabbi.

His congregation on the Far Southwest Side of Chicago is predominantly black, and while services include prayers and biblical passages in Hebrew, the worshipers sometimes break into song, swaying back and forth like a gospel choir.

As the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and of numerous mainstream Jewish organizations, Rabbi Funnye (pronounced fun-AY) is on a mission to bridge racial and religious divisions by encouraging Chicago’s wider Jewish community to embrace his followers — the more than 200 members of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation.

According to Gary Tobin who heads the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, there are no firm national statistics on the number of African-American Jews.

Usually referred to as Israelites or Hebrews, they have historically been seen to stand apart in theology and observance from the nation’s approximately 5.3 million Jews, mainly of Ashkenazi, or European, ancestry, and have largely been ignored by the broader Jewish community. Rabbi Funnye hopes to change that by speaking about his congregation at synagogues throughout Chicago and across the country.

“I believe that people cannot know you unless you make yourself known,” he said. “The only way to do that is to step outside and not fear rejection.”

The rabbi's office features a 1930s black-and-white photo of members of an African-American congregation. The men wear prayer shawls and look out at an opened Torah scroll. “We’re not going anywhere,” said Rabbi Funnye, smiling confidently, “I’m going to reach out until you reach back.”

Read the complete story here.

For more on the congregation and its history, click here.

The 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy encourages attendees to arrive early for the conference (which begins on Sunday morning August 17 and is even offering (for a fee) Friday Shabbat and Saturday dinners. Tracing the Tribe suggests that the conference committee contact Beth Shalom and arrange for interested conference-goers to attend the August 16th Shabbat morning services.

Chicago 2008: Computer workshops announced

Computer and technical workshops are very popular features of the annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. The 18 workshops scheduled for the 28th edition of the event have just been announced. The conference runs Sunday-Friday, August 17-22, in Chicago, Illinois.

Attendees can learn new skills or brush up on others. I've listed them by day; for exact times, go to the conference website and check the program. These are fee-added activities ($25 per workshop) and run one hour and 45 minutes each. Registration is limited to 25 attendees per workshop and fill to capacity very early.

Sunday, August 17

Creating Your Family Newsletter, Banai Lynn Feldstein
A Genealogical Tour Through the World Wide Web, Elise Friedman
Using WORD & WORD Tables for Genealogy & Other Computer Shortcuts, Phyllis Kramer

Monday, August 18

Introduction to JewishGen, Debra Kay Blatt
Adobe Photoshop: Elements, Ceil Wendt Jensen
Spreadsheets: A Powerful Tool in Genealogy Research, Susan Weinberg
Adobe Photoshop for Beginners and Intermediate Users, Ceil Wendt Jensen

Tuesday, August 19

Adobe Photoshop for Advanced Users, Ceil Wendt Jensen
FamilyTree Maker for Beginners and Intermediate Users, Duff Wilson Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, Ceil Wendt Jensen
FamilyTree Maker for Advanced Users, Duff Wilson

Wednesday, August 20

FamilyTree Maker for Beginners and Intermediate Users (Repeat)
JewishGen Database Computer Workshop, Nolan Altman
Jewish Records Indexing-Poland Database Search Techniques Workshop, Hadassah Lipsius
Family Tree Builder (MyHeritage.com), Daniel Horowitz

Thursday, August 21

Using the Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names and the Avotaynu Consolidated Jewish Surname Index, Gary Mokotoff
Building and Using your own Digital Map Collection (intermediate/advanced users), Daniel Schlyter
MyHeritage Research Genealogy Search Engine, Daniel Horowitz

To register: go to the website, click on "Add Fee Based Items," scroll to "Computer Training Workshops." To register for workshops, click box next to each desired workshop, then click "Submit." Also check out the offerings for expert Q&A breakfasts, luncheons and dinners and sign up for those as well.

Ireland: Jewish records

According to a release on FamilySearch.org, more than 1,000 names of Jews from Ireland have been added to the Knowles Collection database, which contains information for more than 15,000 Jews from the British Isles.

Jews from Ireland Added to Knowles Collection
14 March 2008

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, FamilySearch has added over 1,000 names of Jews from Ireland to its growing Knowles Collection genealogy database. The Knowles Collection contains information for over 15,000 of Jews from the British Isles. Building on the work of the late Isobel Mordy, the collection links individuals into family groups with more names added continuously. The collection is freely available as a file that can be viewed and edited through most genealogy software programs. Genealogy software is also available as a free download.

Those wishing to donate information to the Knowles Collection may contact Todd Knowles at knowleswt@familysearch.org.

The collection and other helpful resources are available for free online on the Jewish Family History Resources page at FamilySearch.org.

FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization that maintains the world's largest repository of genealogical resources. Patrons may access resources online at FamilySearch.org or through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and over 4,500 family history centers in 70 countries. FamilySearch is a trademark of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. and is registered in the United States of America and other countries.

Wales: Jewish history

A North Wales (UK) university lecturer is hoping to find out more about the history of Jewish life in the region, according to this story in the North Wales (UK) Daily Post.

According to Bangor University's director of film studies Dr. Nathan Abrams, “There have been Jews living in Wales for centuries and not just in the established urban centres of south Wales.

“They have been writers, politicians and community activists. And if some have tried to preserve their Jewish identity, many have combined this with a strong commitment to Wales.”

Abrams believes the Welsh Jewish community has a valuable although neglected history and organized a series of events to promote this study, including the Gwynedd Museum's opening on March 18 of a new Jewish life exhibit and the screening of Solomon a Gaenor (1998), detailing a Welsh/Jewish couple in south Wales coalfields during the turbulent years before World War I.

Activities are sponsored by Jewish charity the Clore Duffield Foundation, by Bangor University’s Welsh Institute for Social and Cultural Affairs and the National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries, with support from the community and from Gwynedd Museum.

According to the story, participants will attend from all over the UK, including the grandson of Isidore Wartski, mayor of Bangor and the first Jewish mayor in Wales.

Esther Roberts of Gwynedd Museum helped to organise a six-month exhibition for the event.

According to the Gwynedd municipal site , the "Jewish Life in North Wales" exhibit opens Tuesday, March 18, celebrating the Jewish community's contribution in north Wales in the 19th-20th centuries.

The Jewish community is one such community that have settled in North Wales in recent times. The Wartskis and Pollecoffs reflect the motivations Jewish families had in choosing to live and work in the area, some of the difficulties they encountered and the positive contribution they made to their local community.

By showing some of the artefacts relating to these families and items from the Bangor Synagogue, this exhibition aims to acknowledge and celebrate their lives. This exhibition has been jointly organised by Bangor University and Gwynedd Council with research by John Cowell.

“Gwynedd Museum & Art Gallery, Bangor is proud to be a part of this exhibition which explores an important aspect of our local history,” said museum curator, Esther Roberts.

Boston: Building the past

In the 1930s, some 115,000 Jews and 50 synagogues were concentrated in the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhoods of South End, North End, West, End, East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.

A treasure trove of these memories is at the The Boston Center for Jewish Heritage, located at the Historic Vilna Shul on Phillips Street in Beacon Hill, according to a story in the Jewish Advocate. The Orthodox shul closed in 1985 after 65 years; repair work began in the early 1990s to save the building and create the center.

"The Boston Jewish Experience: Reconnect to the Tapestry" is a first floor exhibit which opened in December, and looks at Boston's Jews from 1850-1950. The interactive booth is one of the most popular exhibits; visitors can look up surnames and learn about their family history. According to the center's executive director Steven M. Greenberg, the Center worked with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston on this feature.

Costing $100,000 to complete, the formerly cavernous first floor is currently home to a collection of enlarged photos, maps, charts, books, original pieces of furniture and an electronic interactive “shtender” on which visitors can go back in time to the once vibrant Jewish communities of Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and the West End itself.

While informative and more aesthetically pleasing than before the recent restoration, the exhibit is a temporary one that would require more money to refurbish the area and complete a more permanent display. Among the enlarged photos is one of the Baldwin Street Synagogue taken in 1910, reportedly the earliest image of a Boston synagogue on record. It was donated by a woman who had it in a drawer for 50 years. The bima from the synagogue is said to now be at Temple B’nai Brith in Somerville.

The exhibit has images back to the turn of the century, maps and charts and artifacts recollecting a century of precious memories in the old Jewish neighborhoods of Boston and in today's suburbs.

Another reason for the center, said Greenberg:

“All over the area, primarily young people working in the city want a place to connect to their Judaism,” he said during a recent tour. “We want to be the center for Jewish history and culture in Boston. We want to keep the memories alive.”

Although 2,000 people have contributed and $3 million was raised, another $3 million is sought to continue building improvement projects.

Exhibit visitor Mel Berger, whose roots are in Vilna and whose grandparents attended services there in the 1970s, is quoted:

“This building is a legacy to the history and heritage of the immigrant Jewish community,” he said standing near the bima in the sanctuary facing the intricately carved wooden Ark. “There is no place in Boston central to the Jewish experience. To have this here pulls the stories together. It’s fascinating and there is no other place like it.”

Greenburg says it is a miracle that the site was not bought by a real estate developer or turned into a parking lot. Sports fans may want to know that the grandfather of Jonathan Kraft (owner of the Patriots) was the cantor at the Vilna Shul.

Among the Center's activities are holiday celebrations (Purim megillah reading and party, 7.30-11pm, Thursday, March 20), the Vilna Shul's speakers series, Shabbat services, Havurah and more.

Kol hakavod to those dedicated to developing the Center and preserving the area's Jewish memories. For more information, click here.

Read the complete story here. For other stories on the center in Boston-area publications, click here.

India: The Jews of Kerala

One of the oldest synagogues in the world is Pardesi in Cochin, India. A once vibrant community is now represented by only seven Jews, according to a story on YnetNews.

According to legend, the first Jews arrived in 70CE following the second temple's destruction. The Kerala region has historically been the spice trade center and traders included Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs and Chinese.

Relations with the local maharaja were good - the community was located right outside his palace - and he sheltered them when the Arabs attacked in 1524 because of their spice trade monopoly. In 1568, the synagogue was built. A model of it can be seen at Beth Hatefutsoth, Museum of the Diaspora, in Tel Aviv.

There were two groups of Jews in Cochin: Malabari (known as meyuhassim), whose ancestors arrived as merchants at the time of King Solomon - and Pardesi, whose origins are in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Spain and Germany.

Both groups - they didn't mix or intermarry - lived in four towns (Cochin, Aluva, North Paravur and Ernakulum) and built eight synagogues which functioned until the large wave 1950s wave of emigration to Israel.

The Cochini speak Judeo-Malayalam (a mix of Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Hebrew) and adopted the Hindu caste system according to skin color. Meyuhassim were the “black” Jews and, according to the article, 50 live in Ernakulum, while the Pardesi were the “white” Jews - only seven individuals remain in today's Jew Town.

In Israel, Indian Jews live in the Negev's Moshav Nevatim and in the north on Moshav Yuval, in Katamon in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Dimona and Yeruham and many other towns, where they have their own synagogues.

The Pardesi synagogue has a copper plate granted to the Jewish trading community by Raja Ravi Varman (962-1020). The blue and white willow floor tiles were imported from China in the 15th century.

Today, according to the article, Sephardi Orthodox services are held only during the High Holidays and when enough Jewish tourists arrive.

Says Sarah Cohen, 80, it's only a matter of time before the Cochin Jews disappear with their unique mix of Indian and Jewish culture.

"This will become a museum, not a functioning synagogue," she said sadly. When that happens, she said, history can record that this Jewish community’s emigration was not motivated by intolerance or discrimination by India, we have always been welcomed here. We asked Sarah why she has decided to stay behind when the majority of the community had made aliyah to Israel:

"How could we leave? We are Indians, too. Why should we leave the only place we have known as home?" she said as she rhythmically swayed her head sideways in the typical Indian manner.

The story also mentions Yossef Halegua, 85, whose family arrived from Spain in 1592, and whose home dates from 1761. The average age of community residents is nearly 90, and the Pardesi synagogue, a state-protected historical site, will become a museum in a few years as the few residents dwindle further.

Read the complete story here and view pictures of the synagogue, gravestones and more.

Chicago: Spertus Institute's new building

The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies - known by locals as the Jewish Museum - brings history to light in more than one way. Its new 155,000-square-foot building opened November 30, 2007.

"The soaring 10-story structure is a transparent facade built from 726 individual pieces of glass in 556 different shapes," was designed by Krueck & Sexton Architects.

According to a Daily Herald article, "The unique design allows you to see inside the facility from the street and, from the bay-like windows inside, you can see the lake and north Michigan Avenue."

The new building houses the 400-seat Feinberg Theater, designed specifically for readings, lectures, live performances and film, and offers state-of-the-art acoustics, tiered seating and a proscenium stage.

The Spertus Cafe by Wolfgang Puck is the only kosher restaurant in the Loop area. The article reports, "Kick back, read a book, gaze out at Grant Park and chow down on delicious Thai beef wraps, graze on a Caesar salad or indulge in some sushi."

The "depot" is a ninth floor storage and display area for more than 1,500 items from the museum's collections, examines cross-cultural influences on Jewish objects, as well as ethical and historical issues concerning acquisition and display of sensitive collections. It was curated by Dr. Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Spertus Museum Senior Curator of Judaica and Chief Curator of the Jewish Museum of Vienna.

Visitors can borrow an MP3 player to tour the exhibit.

The new Asher Library features an expansive reading room with incredible views of Grant Park and Lake Michigan, free wireless Internet access throughout, computers for public use, electric mobile shelves for improved access to collections, custom audio/visual carrels for accessing videos and musical recordings, reading rooms for viewing material from the archives, rare book and map collections, and facilities to accommodate visiting conservators.

As Tracing the Tribe has previously reported, the Chicago Jewish Archives, a great resource for those searching Chicago family roots, is also located at the Asher Library.

Attendees at the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will find much to interest them at Spertus, located at 610 S. Michigan Ave. Check the website for hours and information on the library and cafe.

Tudor Parfitt's Lost Ark

The UK Jewish Chronicle ran a story about "The man who says he has the lost ark."

In the Bible, it could be seen only by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. Anyone who lay an unauthorised finger upon it would instantly drop dead. It was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it vapourised its Nazi captors.

Now a British academic believes he has unravelled the mystery behind one of antiquity’s most sought-after objects — the lost Ark of King Solomon’s Temple.

Tudor Parfitt, professor of Hebrew at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, has located an object he believes could be the successor to the original Ark.

Parfitt found a sacred wood drum (called a ngoma) in a dusty storeroom of the Museum of National Sciences in Salisbury, Zimbabwe. Carbon-testing has dated the ngoma to around 1350CE, making it the oldest wooden object found from sub-Saharan Africa.

The oral tradition is that the South African tribe, Lemba, brought it from Israel. They believe they are descendants of Middle Eastern Jews and DNA research has confirmed their origins as well as discovering that the Lemba priestly clan (Buba) carries the Cohanim markers.

According to some apocryphal Jewish traditions, the Ark was whisked away from Jerusalem by priests to a secret location before the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in 587 BCE. Accepting that his hypothesis “cannot be absolutely robust”, he said that “parts of it are quite solid. If you accept the Ark may have gone into Arabia, if you accept that the regular Islamic Arabian references to it may have some historical basis, and if you connect those with the Lemba oral tradition, there is a storyline, a kind of history, scratched from very little.”

Parfitt’s new book - "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" - is an adventure story. His visits take him around the world to such places as Papua New Guinea, to meet the Gogodala, a python-eating tribe of ex-cannibals who also claim to be Jewish.

The drum, says Parfitt, is “embedded in an oral tradition which has repeatedly been proven to be pretty accurate against all the odds. The Lemba said they were from the Middle East and no one believed them, but the genetics proved that they were. They said they were Jewish, and again, the genetics demonstrated they most probably were.

“They also claim to have come in a boat as a group of seven, and again that was proven by genetics to be absolutely spot on. These are all very good confirmations of the general accuracy of their oral tradition.”

The article details more of the story: the ngoma self-destructed, burst into flames and from the remnants of the destroyed ark, they build another. It was carried on poles, never touched the ground, priests protected it, fire and noise were linked to it, it was carried into battle and was of a similar size and shape as described in Deuteronomy.

Parfitt believes that the biblical Ark was not quite what it appears. It was a drum-like object which doubled as a primitive cannon, releasing a kind of early, perhaps saltpetre-based explosive. “The Ark did blast things,” he said. “It was a kind of weapon, it is obvious from the text.”

A slew of fake families

What is it that inspires the saga of fake families?

According to a March 8 story ("A Family Tree of Literary Fakers"), by Motoko Rich in the New York Times, the literary fakers history goes back at least to the 19th century when an 1863 slave narrative by Archy Moore was revealed as a novel by a white historian named Richard Hildreth. In the early 20th century, "Cradle of the Deep," by Joan Lowell, supposedly detailed her childhood on a ship in the South Seas - she really grew up in Berkeley, California.

The story details recent Holocaust fakes such as Binjamin Wikomirski's 1996 "Fragments," in which he claimed he was a Latvian Jewish orphan in a Nazi concentration camp. It was really written by Bruno Doessekker, who spent the war in Switzerland. The book's German and American publishers suspended publication following a Swiss historian's debunking.

Misha Defonseca's book, “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years,” ("Surviving with wolves") covers a supposedly Jewish childhood running from Nazis, searching for deported parents, living with wolves and killing a Nazi soldier. It was translated into 18 languages and made into a French film. In February, the author, now 71 and living in Massachusetts, admitted she was Monique De Wael, a Belgian Catholic.

Other memorable frauds include that of Margaret Seltzer (aka Margaret B. Jones, "Love and Consequences;" James Frey ("Million Little Pieces") and Clifford Irving's bogus autobiography of Howard Hughes, now being released as a novel.

Stanley Crouch's column ("We fall for them every time") in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, discuses the long tradition of the fake.

As to Defonseca, "her tall tale not only includes a Jewish child walking from Belgium to Ukraine, but the lie pulls in the fable of Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by wolves before founding Rome."

We love to have our hearts broken and sealed back together by fantasies such as the supposedly healing saliva of wolves. Sometimes, however, the wolf is looking for no more than a meal at the expense of the dead and the brutalized, and will do just about anything to get it served -- the rarer, the better.

For another view of the frauds, see this article ("Why So Many Literary Frauds?"), on Tyee, an independent online magazine in British Columbia, Canada, by John Dolan.

Say you meet me at a party and I tell you that when I was 7 years old, I killed a full-grown military officer, then ran off and was nurtured by a pack of wolves. Would you believe me or begin edging away quietly, keeping the snack table between us at all times?

Or say I'm a healthy-looking, articulate young white woman, and I tell you I used to work for the Bloods in L.A. -- a full-time gun-strapped gangbanger. Would you believe me or laugh in my un-bruised, orthodontured face?

If you said you would believe these stories, then please stand by -- the process of natural selection will be along for you in a moment. More likely you scoffed at the idea you'd fall for such obvious crap.
But hordes of otherwise intelligent readers did believe those ridiculous stories, as told in two recent "memoirs" later shown to be invented.

Seltzer was uncovered by her sister, who called everyone to reveal the lies. Says Dolan, readers fall for these things for several reasons: "Improbability is crucial to these stories, a glamorous improbability, with heroes or heroines who survive exotic forms of suffering that people do not, in fact, survive."

On the topic of wolves, who he says become sexier the scarcer they are, he says:

The success of Jones's and Defonseca's books suggests that, to a modern North American book buyer, it would be glamorous to be a gang member or be raised by wolves. This is a very recent change; wolves were the villains of the older European folk tales. People who lived in the Northern forest were scared to death of wolves. As people concentrate in cities and wiped out the wolves, wolves become glamorous; glamour and scarcity, linked as always.

Belgian Catholic Monique de Waal had parents who were Resistance fighters murdered by the Nazis, but for some reason, she believed the true story wasn't good enough and added her "personal" Jewish twist to a Holocaust story.

Forgers count on a gullible, pious audience, though the pieties invoked may not be explicitly religious. Often, they're broader, older patterns of myth that we know at heart aren't true but want badly to believe. Misha's story, for example, clearly plays on the old nonsense that good will triumph over evil, even when "good" is a seven-year-old child and "evil" a full-grown SS officer. In a fight like that, it's not hard to see what would happen: child dies horribly, so is in no position to write her memoirs.

Dolan talks about the authors who take a huge risk to fake stories of suffering, and ends with

And when they do, their culture's desperate literary entrepreneurs will come up with their own forgeries, exploiting this older, more glamorous and scarce form of suffering. They will write fake memoirs with titles like I Was a Claims Adjuster in Tacoma or Three Years in a Tract Home Near Dallas. And their audience will shiver with horror and settle down for a nice, long read.

Do read these articles in their entirety. The next time a memoir appears that may not ring true, consider the possibility that it is fake, no matter how much you want to believe it is genuine.

Jewish Identity's DNA: Pittsburgh, March 16; Philadelphia, March 17

Jon Entine, author of Abraham's Children, deals with the DNA of Jewish identity, and has been described as playing with scientific dynamite. He is a fascinating speaker who will be in Pittsburgh (March 16) and in Philadelphia (March 17).

On Sunday, he will appear as the Rabbi Alvin K. Berkun Scholar-in-Residence at Tree of Life Congregation at 9.30am. On Monday, at 7.30pm, he will speak at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia's meeting at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel (Elkins Park).

Entine addresses ancestry and population genetics, genetic disorders which impact Ashkenazi Jews, DNA mutations and more:

Jews are considered one of the premier genetic goldmines. Since the founding of Ashkenazi Jewry, until recent decades, despite being scattered to winds of the world, the rate of non-Jewish lineages that have slipped into the Jewish gene pool, per generation, is estimated at 0.5 percent.

Two recent stories about and by Entine have appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle,"Genetic research can show richness of Jewish culture," and in Philadelphia's Jewish Exponent feature, "Wading Deep Into the Genetic-Pool Controversy."

Both are good reads and elaborate on controversial topics in Entine's book.

In the Jewish Exponent, Entine writes:

More recently, an understandably controversial debate has arisen over brain architecture. Three prominent scientists, all Christians, were intrigued by the remarkable success of Jews and their startlingly high scores on I.Q. tests, which scientists universally believe are heavily influenced by genetics.

Ashkenazi Jewish I.Q. averages between 107 and 117, while the world average is 100. Is it good genes or good mothers?

It could be both, if Henry Harpending and Jason Hardy of the University of Utah and independent scientist Gregory Cochran are to be believed. In a theory discussed in my newest book, Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People, they suggest that high Jewish I.Q. might be linked to the high incidence of Jewish neurological diseases.

The scientists identified 19 so-called "Jewish diseases," including Tay-Sachs, Gaucher and breast cancer, that influence the enzyme pathways that guide neurological development. Single variations of a disease mutation may juice the brain, while two may cause crippling health problems.

And like a feedback loop, Jewish nurture may have reinforced Jewish nature. For centuries, high literacy was more heavily prized among Jews than in many other cultures.

The smartest, most literate male Jews set up arranged marriages to mate sons with the wealthiest and wisest daughters, ensuring the spread of "smart genes" - even if matches resulted in terrible diseases.

I reviewed this theory with dozens of geneticists. Not one dismissed it, but only a handful would discuss it on the record.

Finding links between Judaism and DNA, even flattering hints, is especially unnerving to Jews considering the lessons of Jewish history. But we can't escape the fact that Judaism is a different kind of religion from Christianity or Islam. It's not purely faith-based.

Judaism remains a rich tapestry with threads of faith, land and blood ancestry -- a genetic as well as a cultural inheritance. The great paradox of biodiversity research is that the only way to understand how similar humans may be is to accept how profoundly we differ.

Do read both complete articles by clicking on the links above. For more information on the Philadelphia meeting, click here. For information on the Pittsburgh event, call 412-521-6788.

Sharsheret Hadorot: New issue contents

The new issue of the Israel Genealogical Society's journal, Sharsheret Hadorot, should be in the hands of subscribers. Many Jewish genealogical societies around the world maintain exchange agreements with the IGS, so do check your local JGS library.

The award-winning journal's new editor is Israel Pickholtz, with whom I share ancestral roots in Skalat, Galicia (now Ukraine).

Articles in this issue include:

Names of Women in the Montefiore Census of 1839: Rose Feldman

The Old Bailey, My Family and the Benjamins of Marylebone: Joe Isaacs

The Role of the Jewish Genealogist In Medical and Genetic Family History: Stanley M. Diamond

The Third Annual Israel Genealogical Society One-Day Seminar: Martha Lev-Zion

Jewish Immigration to Germany From the End of the 19th Century
to the Beginning of the 20th Century: Michael Toben

The Radautz Jewish Cemetery Documentation: Bondy Stenzler and Yossi Yagur

The Montel and Esdra Families of Marseille, Part II: James Montel

Sephardic Names of Jews who Lived in the Russian Empire: Mathilde Tagger

Research On-line: http://www.kadisha.biz: Israel Pickholtz

Summary of Israeli Austria/Czech SIG Get-together 2007: Paul King
The Modiano Family Reunion in Salonika June 2007: Anne-Marie Rychner Faraggi

The Priestly Blessing Literally Fulfilled: Yehuda Klausner

Notes from the Library: Harriet Kasow

Abstracts of Articles from Foreign Journals: Meriam Haringman, Mathilde Tagger, Esther Ramon.

For more information on the journal or subscriptions, click here, or email the editor, sharsheret@isragen.org.il.

Oregon: Public library resources, March 18

Public libraries are great resources for researchers, but we too often forget to use them.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon will remind its members about these essential resources, including special websites through the library's internet system as well as available print materials, at its next meeting at 7pm, Tuesday, March 18, at Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Portland.

"Mining the Genealogical Resources at your Public Library" will be offered by professional librarians Janet Irwin and Michael Constan.

Irwin is a librarian at Multnomah County Library. She volunteered to take care of the first version of the genealogy portion of the library's homepage, and later volunteered to learn more about genealogy so it could offer public classes focused on its genealogy collection and Internet-accessible databases. Active in the Genealogical Forum of Oregon and the Association of Professional Genealogists, she and her brother research their midwest and East coast family.

Constan has workd for the last decade at the Periodicals and Humanities sections of the Central Library. He has explored the roots of his maternal grandparents, who were born in Prszka and Koniecpol, Poland; researched family records through the LDS Family History Center's microfilm collection; found family records online through Jewish Records Indexing - Poland (JRI-Poland); and found relatives through the JewishGen Family Finder.

Fee: JGSO members, free: others, $2. For more information, click here.

Poland: Jewish museum receives US support

The US House of Representatives has authorized $5 million to support the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, according to the North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The museum's goal is to create a museum that celebrates a thousand years of Polish Jewish life and commemorate the three million Polish Jews who died in World War II. the 140,000-square-foot facility will feature eight central galleries dedicating to telling the story of Jews in Poland since the Middle Ages. It is scheduled to open in early 2011.

The media release reads in part:

Washington , D.C.: March 10, 2008 – The North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is pleased to announce that the “Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act” (HR 3320) has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. Authored by U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), the legislation authorizes $5 million in federal support to help finance the Warsaw-based Museum. The House passed the bill 407 to 13 in November 2007. HR 3320 is currently pending in the Senate and if approved, will head to President Bush where he could sign the bill into law.

Sigmund Rolat, Chairman of the North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews has heralded Smith's bill as a momentous occasion for the museum, its supporters, and the international community.

“The imprimatur of the U.S. government often spearheads subsequent giving among international donors—from major cultural foundations to individuals,” said Rolat from his New York Office. “We are so grateful for all Congressman Smith has done. We look forward to thanking him in person on March 13 at 1:00 pm.”

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews (MHPJ) will be the world’s only museum to tell the story of Polish Jews from the Middle Ages to today. Welcomed as a breath of new life in an area often mired in sadness and loss, the Museum is an educational and cultural center devoted to sharing the rich cultural heritage of Jews of Polish descent. With 60% of American Jews and 80% of world Jewry tracing their ancestry to Poland, the world eagerly anticipates the 2011 opening of this important new cultural institution. Projected annual attendance is estimated at 500,000 visitors, including over 30,000 Americans, 50,000 Israelis and hundreds of thousands of Europeans each year. ...

For more information, click here.

Coming to America: NBC to produce gen show

Finally ... American TV has seen the light!

According to Reuters, NBC is now going to dig up celebrity family trees along the lines of the popular BBC show, Who Do You Think You Are?.

Executive producer for the series is Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe of "Friends"). Kudrow grew up in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. Her father, a famous headache physician (working with migraines), is also a genealogist searching their family's roots; I met him years ago at a mutual friend's home. Their family is from Mogilev, Belarus - same as my TALALAY family. I can only hope that he encouraged Kudrow to become involved in this project!

According to Kudrow's webpage, she seems suited to this task. With her background in biology, perhaps we will also see DNA genetic genealogy worked into the series.

Kudrow graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., with a B.S. degree in biology. Intending to pursue a career in research, she returned to Los Angeles and began working with her father, a world-renowned headache specialist. In all likelihood, Kudrow would be a researcher today if she had not been inspired to perform by one of her brother's friends, actor/comedian Jon Lovitz (NBC's "Saturday Night Live").

The BBC show's fourth season premiere scored the highest rating ever - some 6.8 million viewers tuned in.

Tracing the Tribe's readership might be interested to learn that an Israeli version is also in the works, and I'll post more on this IBA development later.

Here is the Reuters article:

NBC digging up celebs' family trees

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - If exploring the lives of celebrities seems a little tired, NBC has a solution: Find their relatives.

The network is developing an American version of the hit British series "Who Do You Think You Are," where stars are shown the oft-surprising details of their ancestors' lives.

In the UK version, the series uncovered backstories included tales of bigamy, wartime heroism and, in one case, attempted murder. Celebrity participants often are brought to tears as they learn about their relatives' hardships.

Producers are researching the family trees of several interested celebrity candidates to see whether they have compelling backgrounds (the network declined to name the candidates). Former "Friends" star Lisa Kudrow will serve as an executive producer.

Celebrity-based reality shows have been on the rise, fueled by the success of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars." NBC found success with "The Celebrity Apprentice" this season and has "Celebrity Circus," premiering this summer.

"Who Do You Think You Are," which launched in 2004, will air its fifth season on BBC1 this year. Its fourth-season premiere in the summer scored the show's highest rating ever, with 6.8 million viewers tuning in.

The show is credited with sparking an interest in genealogy among many BBC viewers. Last year, BBC Magazines began publishing Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, a monthly publication about tracing one's family tree. Versions of "Who Do You Think You Are" also are in production in Canada and Australia.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Chicago 2008: Latin America, Chicago Jewish Archives

Two new items - a Latin America expert lunch and extended hours for the Chicago Jewish Archives - have been added to the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy website. The final program should be posted in a few weeks and the conference discussion group is already active (see link on the website).

Latin America Jewish Resources Q&A

In addition to already scheduled Breakfasts with the Experts, previously posted here, an expert luncheon - "Jewish Resources: Argentina & Venezuela Q&A" - will feature Rabbi Victor A. Mirelman, originally from Argentina, and Daniel Horowitz, formerly of Venezuela and now Israel. Attendees can sign up at the Registration page at the conference site.

Dr. Mirelman, born in Argentina, is an authority on Latin American Jewry, and has personal and academic interests in Sephardic Jewry. His most recent book is Jewish Buenos Aires, 1890-1930 (Wayne State University Press). In 1991, he was appointed Professor of Jewish History at Spertus College (Chicago) and, in 2005, was elected president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis.

Since 1990, he has been rabbi of West Surburban Temple Har Zion (River Forest, Illinois), previously served Congregation B'nai Israel (Milburn, NJ), was visiting professor of history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and lectured on contemporary Jewish history (1970-74) at Hebrew University (Jerusalem).

He was ordained a rabbi at JTS and received a doctorate from Columbia University and also holds an MS in mathematics from the University of Buenos Aires.

Horowitz often speaks on Jews in Latin America - he will also be presenting two technology workshops at the conference - and taught family history research to students and parents at the Bialik school in Caracas.

As a personal note, among my prized possessions are the two first-edition leather-bound volumes of the Spanish translation, adaption and notes by Marcos Edery - supervised by Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer - of the Conservative movement's English-language siddur (daily prayerbook) and machsor (High Holyday prayerbook). Published in 1965 by the Consejo Mundial de Sinagogas in Buenos Aires, the two volumes - one blue, one green - were sent to me that year by Rabbi Meyer. My set is well traveled, having "lived" in Iran, Florida, California, Nevada and now in Israel.

Rabbi Meyer's papers are archived at Duke University, and this article discusses his remarkable life and achievements in Argentina from 1959 and following his return to the US in 1984. Readers interested in Sephardim of Latin America, may enjoy this interesting article by Margaret Bejarano. For an analysis by Yaacov Rubel of marriage and intermarriage in the Argentine community, click here.

CHICAGO JEWISH ARCHIVES

A fascinating resource for Chicago Jewish research is the Chicago Jewish Archives (part of the Asher Library at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Study). Extended hours will be provided during the conference - appointments are required.

What can you find at the Archives, which holds the memories of Jewish Chicago?

It collects historical material in all formats, including letters, diaries, photographs, memorabilia, audio and video tapes and has some 2,500 linear feet of material, while continuing to acquire relevant material.

Jewish organization records:
American Jewish Congress (Chicago Office); Anti-Defamation League (Midwest Office); Covenant Club of Illinois, 1917-1985; Jewsh Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, 1865-[ongoing]; Johanna Lodge (United Order of True Sisters); Zionist Organization of Chicago.

Synagogue records:
Cong. B’nai Emunah; Cong. B’nai Jacob; B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom (Homewood); Cong. B’nai Zion; Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation; KAM Isaiah Israel; Kehilath Jeshurun; Lawn Manor Beth Jacob; Mikdosh El Hagro Hebrew Center; Cong. Rodfei Zedek; South Shore Temple.

Family papers:
Robert S. Adler Family Papers; Alfred Alschuler Papers (architect), Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Collection; Gov. Samuel Shapiro Collection, Jerzy Kosinski Papers (author), and others.

Oral history:
Chicago Jewish Historical Society’s Oral History Project (more than 200 interviews); Stanley Rosen’s Chicago Radical Jewish Elders Video History Project (100 interviews); American Jewish Committee oral history project, and others.

Photographs:
The Sentinel Photo Archive, the Weinstein Photo Archive, and the General Photograph Collection. In addition, many collections include photographs as well as documents.

If your family has roots in the Chicago area and you hold records, remember that the archives also seeks to obtain unpublished records such as documents (correspondence, minutes, reports, diaries, family histories, etc.), photographs, audiotapes, videotapes, film, scrapbooks and other selected artifacts as space permits, as well as printed ephemera such as bulletins, pamphlets and internal publications.

Washington, DC: Medicine library, immigration records, March 16

The National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health campus (Bethesda, Maryland) holds resources available to genealogists. If you have relatives or ancestors who were medical or science professionals, NLM records may fill in blanks regarding birth, education and death, as well as their careers.
NLM librarian Dr. Stephen Greenberg will present "How the Resources of the NLM can help in your genealogy research," and demonstrate the use of the internet at the library website and materials in library stacks at a members'-only workshop of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington, at 11am Sunday, March 16.

The public section (1pm) of the day at B'nai Israel (Rockville, Maryland) will feature US Immigration Service senior historian Marian L. Smith at 1pm. Smith, who recently completed a West Coast visit to several JGSs, will present "Documenting Immigrants to America 1882-1954."

Smith will discuss records on millions of American immigrants at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), including ship passenger lists, land border arrival records, visa files. She will focus on immigration and naturalization records of a typical late 19th-early 20th century immigrant.

The USCIS Senior Historian is a popular lecturer at national and international genealogy conferences on the history and uses of immigration and naturalization recordsm, and her articles appear in the National Archives journal Prologue, the FGS Forum, and other publications.

For directions and more information, click here.

New Blog: This Day in Jewish History

Interested in what happened in Jewish history on a particular day? If so, then This Day in Jewish History blog is for you.

The daily round-up lists interesting global tidbits names families and communities that can lead researchers to additional sources on events impacting Jewish history.

March 8's entry includes some 30 items. The first reads:

1688: On this night a large group of secret Jews planned to escape the island of Majorca by booking passage on an English ship. They were looking for religious freedom. A storm delayed their departure, and their plan was betrayed. All those planning to leave were put in prison. In the spring of 1691 these prisoners were sentenced at an auto-de-fe, where 37 were burned at the stake.

What I'd like to do is find the list of those passengers. They are likely in Inquisition court documents. Now, all I need is time to dig for them.

This list of events ranges from 1688-2008, and places named are global.

A few other listings:

1912: The Greek town of Zante was devastated by an earthquake. The Jewish quarter was destroyed, and more than 100 Jewish families are homeless.

1912: Marco Besso of Trieste and Errea Cavalieri of Ferrara were both elected as Senators in Italy.

1918: Ukrainian mobs massacred the Jews of Seredino Buda.

1918: Jews of Gloucher were massacred by Ukrainians. At this point in Russian history, the empire was in chaos. ...

Listings include news items, birthdays, political events and more.

The blog is compiled by Mitchell A. Levin as part of the Jewish History Study Group program at Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The disclaimer reminds readers that Levin makes no claim to originality or scholarship and that "The sources, including texts and websites are too many and too varied to provide academic citations for each entry or part thereof."

Levin, who has a lifelong interest in history and Judaica, holds a BA in history from Tulane University and an MA in Human Resources from Webster University. His Jewish experiences have run the gamut from Reform to Orthodox, including teaching mitzvah and high school age students.

For five years, he has led the Temple Judah weekly adult education class. For two years, they studied weekly Torah and Haftarah readings, moving on to the History of Jewish Civilization starting with Joshua.

My only complaint is the color scheme. White lettering on a black background is extremely difficult to read and induced severe eyestrain after five minutes. So if compiler Levin is reading this, maybe he'll have some rachmunes (Yiddish for "pity") on us and tweak the look.

USHMM: Sephardi resource materials

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) recently received a unique collection of research resource materials concerning Sephardi victims of the Holocaust.

The gift of Professor Haim-Vidal Sephiha and amassed over six decades, it includes scholarly, sacred, and secular texts; published works, doctoral theses and other unpublished manuscripts; music, songs, art and recordings. Sephiha, a Holocaust survivor, is a renowned scholar of Judéo-Espagnol language and culture.

Professor emeritus in Judéo-Espagnol (Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle), associate professor (Free University of Brussels' Martin Buber Institute), and president of the Vidas Largas Association. The material reflects his dedication to preserving and teaching about the language and culture and to ensure the memory of destroyed Judéo-Espagnol communities.

A survivor of Auschwitz, Malines, Fürstengrube, Gleiwitz, Dora and Bergen Belsen, Sephiha led a successful recent effort - through the organization Judéo-Espagnol à Auschwitz - to dedicate a memorial plaque at Auschwitz in memory of Sephardi victims from many countries who perished there.

The Haim-Vidal Sephiha Judeo-Espagnol Collection includes rare, antique books from the 15th century; periodicals of the Sephardic communities of Israel, Europe, and South America; recordings of courses taught by Sephiha; interviews with other scholars; songs in Judéo-Espagnol, Hebrew, Berber, Russian, Judeo-Arabic, and Yiddish; and sacred texts including Bibles, prayer books, and biblical commentaries. Contemporary works range across multiple disciplines, from historical studies to serial novels and folk tales to studies of minority languages and cultures. The collection is currently being catalogued.

Scholars of history, Jewish studies, literature, philosophy, religion, comparative genocide studies and others are encouraged to use these new resources to explore Sephardic history and culture, document the experience of Sephardi communities before and during the Holocaust, and ensure future generations an accurate understanding of the immensity of the loss of Sephardi communities during the Holocaust.

Cataloguing of The Haïm-Vidal Sephiha Judéo-Espagnol Collection is ongoing. Materials already catalogued are listed on the library website.

Conference: The Soviet Jewish experience

Masses of rich material have become available since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, providing new insight into previously under-researched aspects of the Holocaust on Soviet territory. These materials include information on individuals, families and communities.

A call for papers has gone out for a conference (English language) focusing on "Soviet Jewish Soldiers, Jewish Resistance, and Jews in the USSR during the Holocaust," organized by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University. The event will be held November 16-17, in New York City.

It will examine the Soviet Jewish experience during World War II and the Holocaust, including Soviet Jewish soldiers at home and abroad; Jewish soldiers in press, literature and films; contextual issues such as German, Axis and Soviet policies and attitudes during the Holocaust; Soviet Jewish combatants in the struggle against Fascism; camps and ghettos in the Soviet Union; Soviet Jewish life and culture; collaboration as a Soviet and post-Soviet issue; and the Soviet Shoah and the evolution of Soviet Jewish consciousness.

Proposals are welcome from scholars in all relevant academic disciplines, including advanced graduate students. For more details on the event and proposal process, click here. The deadline for proposals is March 15, and participants will be notifed by April 15.

Arizona: Phoenix's Jewish experience

Jewish historical societies play an essential role in preserving community experiences. They often hold archives, libraries, photographs and other collections of the life of the community from the arrival of the first Jews to their later contributions.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center holds the state's Jewish history, according to The Arizona Republic.

The site dates to 1921. From 1922-1949, it was first Congregation Beth Israel, then the city's first Chinese-speaking church and then a Hispanic church. In 2002, the Arizona Jewish Historical Society bought the site and is completely renovating it.

"It has served three ethnic groups that have made important contributions to the city of Phoenix," said Larry Bell, executive director of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, which is renovating the site as a museum and gallery.

When open to the public it will focus on the Arizona Jewish experience and the other groups and congregations that occupied the building.

For more, click here.

Genealogy research proposals sought

The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (Jerusalem) is inviting serious research proposals for ground-breaking research in six preferred areas of Jewish genealogy from qualified individuals and/or relevant organizations in those areas.

The research is to be carried out in the 2008-09 academic year; successful applicants will receive grants of up to $10,000. The deadline for proposal submission is May 31, 2008, for review according to the highest standards of academic excellence by July 31, 2008.

Six preferred research areas include Jewish history from a genealogical perspective; rabbinical genealogy; onomastics; inter-disciplinary aspects of Jewish genealogy; Jewish genealogy and computer sciences; sources and resources for Jewish genealogy. Proposals in other areas are not excluded.

An overview of topic possibilities follows. For an extensive example listing, examples, go to the IIJG site, click Projects -> Upcoming Projects -> Call for Projects.

History: Researches that re-visit and re-shape the historical narrative (or parts thereof) through a genealogical lens; studies that offer a broader perspective on specific genealogical topics; integrative studies placing Jewish genealogical researches into context of the wider historical narrative, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

Rabbinics: A “holistic” (rather than particularist) and critical approach to rabbinical genealogies.

Onomastics: Application of recently developed tools for the classification and analysis of Jewish names to regions/communities where little or no scholarly work has been done.

Jewish genealogy's interdisciplinary aspects: Jewish genealogy and sociology; Jewish genealogy and migration studies; Jewish genealogy and genetics; Jewish genealogy and demography; Jewish genealogy and statistics;

Jewish genealogy and computer science (technologies): Also, large scale statistical studies of family groups, emigrations/ immigrations, with detailed analyses of family structures (age differences of spouses; including frequency of consanguinity; infant mortality; life expectancy; medical issues; hereditary diseases; given names; name changes; etc.); and development of research tools of fundamental importance to Jewish genealogy.

Sources: Studies aimed at the systematic identification and documentation of new/under-utilized/previously inaccessible sources and resources for Jewish genealogy.

Although previous awards are not listed at the IIJG site - I suggested that it would be helpful to list the individuals, their projects and the abstracts - director Neville Lamdan has kindly provided information on previously accepted projects:

Professor Eric L. Goldstein, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies (Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia) for "The Ties that Bind: Jewish Kinship Networks and Modernization in Darbenai and its Diaspora." He has also extensively researched the history (1760s-1941) of the Jewish community (Darbenai/Dorbian, Lithuania). Using hundreds of documents culled from Lithuanian, Russian, American and Israeli archives, he is writing a scholarly portrait of Lithuanian shtetl life, viewed through the lens of this small community.

An international team (Dr. K. Klauzinska (Poland), Prof. H. Daniel Wagner (Israel) and Dr. J. Zajdel (Poland), received a grant for "Strategies for the Integration of Genealogical Datasets." The objective is to integrate details about individuals in different databases relevant to a single town (Zdunska Wola, Poland) to increase knowledge and eventually reconstruct family trees. Algorithms/software will be developed for full data extraction from genealogical/Jewish-oriented databases and for processing data to merge databases and reconstruct trees. A pilot project will merge metrical death data and cemetery listings for the town. Long-term, the project will develop currently non-existent integration tools for merging large Jewish genealogical databases to eventually permit virtual reconstruction of entire Jewish family trees of a town or region, including families that vanished in the Holocaust.

Seattle: Tools to uncover Jewish history, March 10

Genealogical research is not just a list of "where and when" facts about Jewish ancestors. It can also help researchers explore ancestral cultures and recreate some missing family information because so many Jewish families lost relatives (and our Eastern-European–based culture) in the Holocaust.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State's next meeting will focus on "Using Genealogical Tools to Help Uncover Jewish Cultural History," presented by Sally Mizroch, at 7pm Monday, March 10, at the Mercer Island JCC.

Using the history of a Lithuanian Jewish family as a case study, Mizroch will demonstrate genealogical tools that can help uncover cultural information.

Many (if not most) Jews are the descendents of those who left for many and varied reasons well before the Second World War. New tools allow us to try to figure out the professions as well as the distribution and movements of our old-country relatives. They also can help us figure out eras of — and reasons for — emigration.

Tools demonstrated will include online databases for old-country census, tax, voter, passport, and other records. Also shown will be information available from ongoing vital records indexing projects, with translated birth, death, and marriage records from many Eastern European countries. In addition, some immigration and census databases will be shown, with examples of how to determine when our ancestors arrived.

Sally Mizroch began exploring her family genealogy in summer 2003, when she answered a posting on the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) that requested information about her grandmother, Sarah Mizroch. Since then, she has discovered and visited cousins around the world, used web-based databases and visited archives in Lithuania and South Africa in search of information.

In her professional life, she studies large whale populations at NOAA Fisheries National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, using both photo-identification and historical whaling data to estimate whale life history parameters, vital rates, distribution and abundance.

For more information, click here. Photo ID required to enter building. JGSWS members: no charge; others, $5.

Gesher Galicia DNA Project launched

Jewish genealogy is now utilizing the cutting edge tool of DNA to further research of geographic areas.

A number of special interest groups (SIGs) at JewishGen are looking at this new tool, according to Elise Friedman of Florida, who coordinates the JewishGen SIG DNA Projects initiative. The project is designed to:

-Encourage participation in genetic genealogy by Jewish genealogists and their families through geographical DNA projects.

-Discover relationships between different-surname families from within the geographical boundaries of each SIG.

-Study the distribution of Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups of Jewish families who lived within the geographical boundaries of each SIG.

-Contribute to the study of Jewish migration patterns through increased Jewish participation in DNA testing.

The first DNA Project launched is for Gesher Galicia, and Belarus SIG, Hungarian SIG and Scandinavian SIG DNA projects will follow shortly.

When Friedman began working on this idea last year, she began to recruit volunteer administrators at some SIG meetings at the annual Jewish genealogy conference.

Rabbi Gary M. Gans (Marlton, New Jersey) immediately volunteered to take on Gesher Galicia, which now has almost 60 participants. He has been spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Tikvah for more than 25 years. The site states that in addition to a busy schedule of congregational and community responsibilities, "on any given day, the rabbi may be found searching through generations past in his never-ending quest to explore genealogy and inviting us to join in." Marlton is, he says, "one shtetl over from Cherry Hill."

Says Friedman - the administrator of several personal and group DNA projects at Family Tree DNA and a speaker on DNA projects - the new project's web site is here. Questions on the Gesher Galicia project may be sent to galiciadna@gmail.com.

There is also a link on the JewishGen DNA page, where readers can find more information on DNA testing for genealogy.

The goal of Gesher Galicia, Inc. is to foster Jewish genealogical and historical research in Galicia, a former Austrian Empire province. It provides a forum for researchers to share information and to promote individual and group research of the geographical area.

For a list of all the Galicia administrative districts covered by this DNA Project, click here:

In 1877, the Austrian government assigned to 73 Administrative Districts (ADs) the Galician towns where Jews were known to have lived at the time of the 1870 census. The government designated some towns as Jewish Administrative Centers, which were the administrative seats where Jewish metrical (birth, death, marriage) records were to be kept.

Genetic genealogy is an additional tool for researchers searching Jewish Galicia roots. It enables studying the similarity/diversity of Jewish ancestors from Galicia; can prove/disprove common ancestry between families with the same surnames without a connecting paper trail; confirm validity of a paper trail between families of the same surname; and can discover common ancestry between families of different surnames.

Many of our Eastern European ancestors adopted surnames only in the past two centuries, so it is likely that many adopted different surnames than their distant relatives. Surname changes were also made to avoid conscription, and - common in Galicia - due to children legally bearing the mother's maiden name instead of their father's surname due to marriage restrictions.

For a brief history of Galicia, click here

During the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the Austrians took the area from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and called it Galicia-Lodomeria, whose borders varied over the years. The Austrian Empire's largest province bordered Moravia (west), Russian Empire (north and east), Ottoman Empire (Moldavia, south).

It was returned to Poland when it was reestablished after WW1. Following WWII, it was divided between Ulraine and Poland. Today, eastern Galicia is Ukraine and western Galicia is Poland.

If your ancestry is from Bukowina, however, you'll need to contact the Romanian Special Interest Group, Rom-SIG. The Austrian Empire acquired Bukowina from the Ottoman Empire in 1775, merged with Galicia in 1787, and became a separate province of the Austrian Empire after 1849. It shares with Romania a history of Turkish and Romanian administration not experienced by Galicia.

Many researchers pronounce Galicia in varied ways. While the local phonetic pronounciation is akin to "gal-ee-tsya," the Polish spelling is Galicja and the German spelling is Galizien.

Closing circles: Jewish naming traditions

Evolving Jewish naming traditions is the focus of a Jerusalem Post story, "Closing Circles" by Berel Wein, which discusses the important role of names in Jewish life, not only to the child who bears the name but to the family involved.

In Ashkenazic circles, the custom is to name newborns after deceased relatives or great Torah scholars. Among many of our Sephardic brethren, the custom is to name children after living grandparents or relatives of importance. In both customs, the naming of a child thus takes on great emotional weight. I have been witness to many a bitter family dispute at a brit over the naming of a child for one grandfather and not for the other. Because of this type of occurrence, I know of an instance of a great hassidic rebbe who instructed his family that no child be given his name after his death for at least three generations in order not to generate family disputes. I have lived to see his fourth generation where his name abounds in plentitude.

But in most instances, people are very zealous to have their parents' or grandparents' name preserved in the family. It lends a sense of continuity, even immortality, to family structures and emotions. It serves as a constant reminder of Jewish survival and tenacity, of how our past lives are always with us and how all Jewish generations are somehow bound together. So there is a lot more to a name than would apparently meet the eye or the ear.

The author discusses his newest great-granddaughter named after her departed great-grandmother and how deeply he felt this emotional and very personal connection, as well as naming in Israeli pioneer life:

One of the facets of Israeli pioneer life was to abandon the custom of naming children after deceased relatives. Instead new names of biblical origin or describing flowers, fruits, emotions, etc. became and to a great extent still remain the popular vogue. The original secular pioneers were determined to throw off all vestiges of Jewish tradition; these new biblical names included names of villains, idolaters and other people whom Jewish tradition rejected as being any sort of role model for future generations. Their ancestors would have been shocked to learn that their descendants bore such names as Omri, Nimrod, Avuya, Shimi, Yerovam, etc.

He laments the passing of old Yiddish names and their relegation to middle names rarely used, and connects this to the past of the disappearance of Babylonian Jewry's names.

It is really possible to trace the events of Jewish history simply by studying the names borne by Jews in certain times and places. So names are important to Jews. They tell our story, our past and our aspirations.

Read the complete story here.

British Columbia: Pioneer Jewish history

Some travellers delight in new gastronomic experiences or in acquiring dust-collecting souvenirs. My passion is books and, to be very specific, those with Jewish genealogical content. Last summer's visit to Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia provided me with several volumes of fascinating names, dates and important Jewish history.

When I read today's Vancouver Sun story on early Vancouver Jewish immigrants (that posting follows this one), I realized I had not posted this entry from last summer.

At the Vancouver Jewish Community Center, following my Jewish genealogy presentation, I discovered an excellent regional collection of books. In one, I discovered that the first Jewish family in Victoria was Sephardic.

Following California's gold rush came British Columbia discoveries in 1857 and 1862, and some 35,000 people arrived looking for the proverbial pot of gold. Among the first were Jews from England and Australia, gold-seekers and Californians looking for business opportunities. Many early arrivals had Polish, Prussian or German roots.

In June 1858, San Francisco correspondent Daniel Levy of the Archives Israelite in Paris filed a report predicting that small Victoria trading posts would soon become "great centres of population and flourishing ports in which the commerce of the world will meet." He also believed this would be a disaster for the fledgling San Francisco Jewish community, which would see a large migration north, although this never happened.

In December 1858, the Philadelphia Jewish Occident reported that it had learned that many Jews had settled there and predicted a "prosperous congregation would soon spring up."

Victoria's community first met on August 2, 1858, held Rosh Hashanah services in a private home, founded a Benevolent Society in May 1859, consecrated a cemetery (still in use) in February 1860 and formed a congregation in August 1862. The synagogue cost $9,196.60, and was dedicated in September 1863. A non-Jewish resident reported, in an 1865 book, that it was the "most costly religious structure in the place, and the only one that is made of brick …."

The congregation numbered 59 - only men were counted - and the first rabbi was Polish-born Dr. Morris R. Cohen, who officiated at the first marriage (October 1863).

At the peak of the gold rush, some 119 Jewish families lived in multi-cultural Victoria. A Romanian Jewish traveler - I.J. Benjamin - arrived in February 1861, and reported that while others came and went, the Jews "held their ground, set up tents for residence and booths for shops," and saw the commercial future.

By 1865, the frontier settlements had experienced some difficult economic times, and people began to leave, returning to California - including Rabbi Cohen, when the community couldn't pay his salary. In 1866, the two colonies of Vancouver Island (where Victoria is located) and British Columbia (location of Vancouver) joined. When the US purchased Alaska in 1867 - foreshadowing Michael Chabon's bestseller, The Yiddish Policemen's' Union - some residents relocated their businesses to Sitka and other Alaskan communities.

The small group of Jews produced mayors of the province's major cities, the first Jews to serve in Canadian government (provincial legislatures and Parliament), industry founders, manufacturers, pioneers, miners, developers and actors (among them David Belasco, Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone).

The books include detailed information about the Hebrew Ladies of Victoria and their considerable achievements in helping to form, financially support and organize community services.

Julius Silversmith ran one of the earliest schools and produced the first Victoria City Directory in 1860 (500 copies were printed), listing all residents and their businesses. He had come from San Francisco where he was a German newspaper correspondent and taught at the Emanu-El Institute. His Select School offered music (piano, violin, guitar, singing), French, German, Spanish, English to boys and girls ages 5 and up, according to an advertisement. By 1878, Silversmith had moved to Chicago and established The Occident, the city's first English-language Jewish weekly.

Jewish small businessmen broke the fur-trading monopoly of Hudson's Bay Company in the Northwest, and Jewish curio merchants dominated anthropological native craft collecting in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.

Am I the only one who watched an early TV series on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Yukon? I connected with the descriptions of Jewish adventurers in the Klondike and the Yukon territory, including 60 Jews who lived in Dawson City, the gold rush business center, which also featured in that old TV program. In 1998, its Jewish cemetery was restored and rededicated.

Among the books I brought home from Vancouver, BC: "Pioneer Jews of British Columbia" (Western States Jewish History and The Scribe - Journal of the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia, 2005; 288pgs, excellent footnotes, historic photographs and maps) and "Pioneers, Pedlars, and Prayer Shawls: Jewish Communities in British Columbia and the Yukon" by Cyril Edel Leonoff; Sono Nis Press, Victoria, BC; 1978; 255pgs, index, footnotes, historic photographs).

Canada: BC's first Jewish arrivals

British Columbia owes much to the first Jews who arrived in 1858, as they contributed greatly to the province's development, according to today's story in the Vancouver Sun, which also focuses on diversity.

Among the first arrivals flooding into sleepy Fort Victoria when word of rich strikes on the Fraser River reached San Francisco in 1858 was a large contingent of Jews from the California gold fields.

Some, like Selim Franklin and Henry Nathan, were British-born; many, like the Oppenheimer brothers, originally came from Germany. Whatever their origins, they would contribute richly to the commercial, cultural and political development of what would become the province of British Columbia.

At a time when anti-Semitism still emerges with depressing regularity, it's worth remembering that the best of what we are derives from our diversity.

Of these Jews, three would make political history, four would build a globe-spanning business that thrives a century-and-a-half later, two would help shape Vancouver's emergence as B.C.'s preeminent city.

The first year, the Jewish immigrants had established some 70 businesses.

American stampeders quickly overwhelmed the tiny British outpost. Fort Victoria's population exploded as an estimated 30,000 prospectors and camp followers passed through.

The son of a Liverpool banker, Selim Franklin was was the first government auctioneer, and owned downtown lots. In 1859, the Victoria Philharmonic Society was founded at his home.

Interestingly, he ran for a seat in the new legislative assembly the following year. He was supported by Victoria's black community and defeated a high-profile newspaper editor to become the first Jew in North America elected to public office.

Franklin refused to take the Christian oath of office and Governor James Douglas immediately amended the oath for non-Christian office holders. Franklin's brother Lumley was elected mayor of Victoria in 1865 - the first Jew to be elected mayor of a North American city. London-Born Henry Nathan Jr won the 1871 Victoria seat in Parliament, the first Jew elected to the House of Commons.

Charles, Godfrey, David and Isaac Oppenheimer's wholesale Victoria provisions company supplied miners. Civic-minded, David founded the Union Club, while Isaac organized the Barkerville fire brigade. The family built Vancouver's first brick building after the great fire of 1886. David and Isaac also served on the city's second city council in 1887, and David began serving four terms as mayor in 1888.

The Oppenheimer Group today is a leading North American fresh produce company and celebrating its 150th anniversay, and claims to be the oldest business founded in the province. It began importing Mandarin oranges from Japan some 120 years ago.

As mayor, David invested in the Vancouver Water Works, the Vancouver Electric Railway and Light (to become BC Hydro) and the Westminster and Vancouver Tramway. He established a steamship line plying between Vancouver and Australia, helped found the BC Sugar Refinery, the YMCA, Alexandria Orphanage and more.

According to the story's author:

Jews assisted in giving B.C. its present shape and place in Confederation. Jews led Vancouver to the bridges, sewers, clean water, schools, public transportation and not least, Stanley Park, in short, most of the civic services that make this an enviable place to live. And that's the best answer to anti-Semitism that I can marshal.

Read the complete story here.

Detroit: The Jewish Experience, March 9

Spotlighting a community's Jewish history enables family history researchers of that locality to understand their ancestors' experience, both as immigrants and contributors to that unique history.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan will host Irwin Cohen (known as Mr. Baseball) in "The Jewish Experience in Detroit," at 1.30pm, Sunday, March 9.

A native Detroiter, Cohen is a historian, writer and lecturer. His books include "Echoes of Detroit: a 300 Year History, "Echoes of Detroit's Jewish Communities", and "Tiger Stadium - Images of Baseball"

He'll speak about his research, his employment with the Detroit Tigers, Jewish Detroiters who shaped the community and those who are making a new Detroit, among other topics.

The meeting will be at the Detroit Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. There is no fee for JGSMI members; guests, $5. For more information, click here.

In May 2007, Detroit's first Jewish settler was remembered in stories in the Detroit Jewish News and the Detroit Free Press. It covered both pioneer Chapman Abraham and local boys serving in the Civil War. Tracing the Tribe's May 1 posting provided links to both stories which unfortunately are no longer live. However, some judicious googling will provide links to Detroit's early Jewish history.

Fur trader Chapman Abraham landed in Detroit in 1762; a Detroit River shoreline marker now commemorates the event.

The other side of the marker remembers the Detroit Jewish families who sent men to the Civil War in the 1860s; 150 Jewish families sent 181 men, 38 of whom died.

Michigan's first Jewish settler was another fur trader, Ezekiel Solomon, who moved to the Mackinac area in 1761.

According to the story, the early Jewish families made great sacrifices to settle in Michigan. Abraham's synagogue was in Montreal and, each year for the high holidays, he traveled 75 miles each way - by canoe - to worship with his congregation.

Seattle: Jewish medieval music, March 8-9

Medieval Jewish music is the focus of Seattle concerts this weekend. A relatively unknown repertoire offers a glimpse into the past with Sephardic romances, 14th-century composers, Hebrew psalms and more.

Seattle's large Sephardic community and others are in for a treat as the Seattle Medieval Women's Choir presents concerts on Saturday and Sunday, March 8 and 9, at Seattle's Temple Beth Am.

Although the 8pm Saturday concert is sold out, the 3pm Sunday concert had available tickets at this writing.

The program notes provide extensive information on this rare program.

Read about two manuscripts prepared by 12th-century cantor Obadiah, am Italian Christian convert to Judaism who moved to Egypt to live and work. Unfortunately, his works are too fragmented to perform.

Music of the time was transmitted orally, rarely written down. Some philosophers, including Maimonides, considered music sinful. In other communities, the cantor (hazzan, in the Sephardic terminology) was praised for his artistry, his own melodies.

According to the website, the Jewish and Islamic cultures in the Middle Ages chose not to write down their music, for a variety of reasons:

-Music was transmitted orally, from person to person, from teacher to student.

-There were moral and ethical questions about the role music should play in worship. Music was considered sinful by some famous medieval philosophers (such as Maimonides) and their followers, and therefore most certainly not deemed worthy to be recorded.

-In the communities that did not follow the banning of music from temple and home, the cantor's (hazzan) inventiveness was valued. It was a matter of artistry for each to compose his own melodies, or make his own arrangements of pre-existing ones, so that each community took pride in its unique song collections.

-There was the practical problem regarding the notation of Jewish medieval music: while Hebrew language reads right to left, musical notation reads left to right.

In Alfonso X's court members of all three religions worked together. Languages were Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, as Jewish philosophers and writers knew several tongues. The Jews were also poets and musicians, and there are records of Jewish musicians known for singing and playing of stringed instruments, hired for all sorts of events, and even for Christian religious services. Rare ancient music writings are preserved only in Arabic and Hebrew translations.

The program includes

-Cantillations of biblical texts, such as the Song of Songs.

-Piyyutim (liturgical poems, popular in the 11th-12th centuries).

-Nigunim (dance songs, instrumental and vocal, primarily Ashkenazi).

-Romanzas and Coplas in Judeo-Spanish or Ladino (Sephardic secular songs in the Iberian peninsula until the 1492 expulsion).

-Additionally, works by 17th century Italian Salamone (Shlomo) Rossi (1570-1630), who wrote music for 33 Hebrew psalms, hymns and temple songs while at the court in Mantua, where he was connected with that city's Jewish Theatre.

Performers include the choir's artistic director Margriet Tindemans, with singer/instrumentalist Shira Kammen and soloist Linda Strandberg.

This tip comes from Lyn Blyden, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State. Thanks, Lyn!

San Francisco: Jewish genetic diseases, March 16

Statistical geneticist Neil Risch, PhD, will present a program on Jewish genetic diseases for the Jewish Genealogical Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, on Sunday, March 16, at 1pm.

The meeting takes place at San Francisco's Jewish Community High School.

Dr. Neil Risch will explain how modern genetics can reveal insights helpful to genealogists, such as the historical relationship among different Jewish groups and evidence of Jewish migrations. As a human geneticist, Dr. Risch has been particularly interested in the inheritance of genetic diseases in Jewish populations.

The term "Jewish genetic diseases” applies to conditions that afflict Ashkenazi Jews as much as 20 to 100 times more frequently than they affect the general population. Known for his collaborative work on numerous genetic diseases including torsion dystonia, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and multiple sclerosis, Dr. Risch emphasizes the links between population genetics and clinical application.

Risch is director of the Institute for Human Genetics and professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He has held faculty appointments at Columbia, Yale and Stanford Universities, and is a graduate of the UCLA biomathematics program. In a 2005 article, he was described by one of the field's founding fathers as "the statistical geneticist of our time" and "a mensch."

For more information, click here.

A Sephardic glassmaker's odyssey

The Hebrew History website is packed with incredibly fascinating stories of Jewish arts, artisans and history.

This paper on Juan Robles and the Inquisition is subtitled "The Odyssey of a Sephardic Glassmaker."

The Robles family tree, displayed by Juan Robles, until his death a resident of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The family traces back through Amsterdam to Spain, where another Juan Robles, scion of a glassmaking family, was condemned in absentia to eternal damnation for heresy by a tribunal of the Inquisition in 1535. Until 1492 the Iberian glassmaking industry was essentially Judaic.

Other members of Sephardic glassmaking families followed the same route through Amsterdam to the Virgin Islands. Prominent families included the Robles, Medina, Salas and the da Costa families which intermarried over four centuries.

The art of glassmaking was born near the city of Ur, birthplace of Abraham, about 2400 BCE. It remained a uniquely Semitic, and subsequently a Judaic art through the early centuries of the Common Era. In Spain, the Jews remained predominantly the glassmakers until the horrendous massacres of 1391 ushered in a drive for conversion. Some Jews left Spain, others converted, and most others feigned conversion. Finally, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 made the continuation of the art by professed Jews impossible.

The enlightening story of master glassmaker Juan Robles has been preserved in the Inquisition proceedings as one of eight cases concerning glassmakers in the town of Cadalso de los Vidrios (Cadalso, the Glassmaker's Town); they were conversos accused of Judaizing.

Cadalso de los Vidrios was a center where Jewish glassblowers dominated the art, carrying it with them from Alexandria under the Greeks, continuing it under the Moslems in old Cairo, fleeing from Moorish-dominated North Africa and then into Moorish Spain.

Burgos was another important glassmaking center of Christian Spain, "a gathering place for Moorish and Jewish glassmakers during the late years of the 15th century." All three major glassmaking centers in Spain, Barcelona (Cataluna), Toledo (Cadalso de los Vidrios) and Burgos (Medina del Campo) were also Jewish population centers.

When the pogroms and persecutions of 1391 began, Jews sought a better climate. Many converted by force and those who resisted then converted in 1412. In 1492, with no options, most Jews left Spain, leaving their assets. Accusing conversos of Judaizing was a good way of eliminating the glassmasters.

Juan Robles, son of Hernando Robles and Maria Alfonso, was born in the town Cadalso de los Vidrios in Toledo province. Hernando was a Converso, whose father had been forced into conversion. Maria was likewise born into such a family, but her family had abandoned heritage and never told her.

Hernando, however, secretly taught his son as his father had taught Hernando, and he eventually got caught up by the Inquisition.

His case, which dragged on for five years, is well-documented and the paper provides much information on his testimony. Juan Robles, alias Abraham the proselyte, was convicted, burned in effigy, on December 21, 1535.

The story continues and mentions the other glassmaking families, extending the saga into other countries, including the Netherlands, the Caribbean, Italy, France. The Salas family was the outstanding glassmaking family in Barcelona and after 1492 moved into Europe (Venice) and appearing in the records of Panama, Suriname, Curacao and St. Thomas.

Community archives indicate the intermarriages between the Robles, de Medina, Salas and other families. The paper's notes are extensive and provide more sources and references.

Read the entire paper here.

Other titles at the site include Glassmaking, Photography, the Silk Route, Iron Working, Navigation, Music, Medicine, Artisanship and Literacy, Craftsmanship, Nomadic Jews, Silkmaking, gold and Silver, Carpets, Jews in Africa, Beads, Dyemaking, Venetian Glass, Jews of Brescia, Florence and Cremona, the da Costas, Jewish Traders and more.

Pennsylvania: 2008 FEEFHS conference

In 2007, The Federation of East European Family History Societies (FEEFHS) conference was held in Salt Lake City, immediately prior to the IAJGS conference; several speakers appeared at both events.

Its 2008 event will be held Friday and Saturday, August 1-2 in Pittsburgh, with an optional tour on Sunday. Co-sponsors include: The Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, The Jewish Genealogical Society of Pittsburgh, The Western Pennsylvania Slovak Cultural Association, and the Mifflin Township Historical Society.

In 1992, FEEFHS was organized as an umbrella organization promoting family research in eastern and central Europe without any ethnic, religious or social distinctions. It provides a forum for individuals and organizations focused on a single country or group of people to exchange information and updates on developments in the field.

Primarily serving North Americans interested in tracing their families back to Europe, members from all countries are welcomed.

The opening day key note speaker will be Dr. Stephen P. Morse, creator of the " One-Step Web Pages."

The preliminary program covers geographical research such as Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, gazetters, Russian Empire, Czech, Austria Hungary, Galicia, Bukovina, Austrian Army, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Croatia, Baltics, Balkan, Romanian, Lithuania; Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic records; languages and translation of Latin, Polish and Russian; other programs include writing family history, role of historical societies, publishing a society journal, resources, beginning genealogy, maps, newspapers, researching women, Ellis Island, land records, Jewish research, Jewish calendar, DNA basics, websites, German emigration, preserving photographs.

For speakers, program schedule and registration details, click here.

Jews of Sicily: A history

The Philadelphia Jewish Voice has an interesting article on the history of the Jews of Sicily by Sergio Caldarella.

There is relatively little written on the Jews of Sicily although some researchers are working in the archives there and there are archeologists excavating remains of Jewish sites.

There is also a fascinating 17th century map of the island, which was at the crossroads of the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

Sicily was, of course, not just Greek. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans in antiquity, and later the Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians (Hohenstaufen), French (Angevins), and Spaniards (Aragonese) also entered the island as conquerors.

The author writes about the Sicilian Jewish role in the island's history until the 1492 Expulsion from Spain and a year later when the Jews were expelled from Sicily; but claims that Spanish anti-Semitism was not shared by the Sicilians.

The Viceroy of Sicily, Don Ferdinando de Acugna, did not make the edict public until two and a half months after its proclamation. Some parts of Sicilian territory, for instance Pantelleria, a little island in the Channel of Sicily, were entirely populated by Jews.

The events of 1492-1493 ended 15 centuries of Jewish history, and the author writes that today there is more Jewish archeological evidence in Sicily than in all of Spain.

Says the author, "Some scholars have already pointed out that part of the largest number of Jews captured and enslaved by the Romans after the sack of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE could have ended in Sicily and that the Proconsul Crassus sold 30,000 thousand captured Jews. He claims that it isn't far-getched to assume that some of them went to Sicily."

In a famous paper published in 1957, Cecil Roth - among other things, author of A History of the Marranos - tells us that "the first native-born European Jewish writer of whom we have knowledge is Caecilius Calactinus . . . who flourished in the first century before the Christian era" and was also well known outside the Jewish intellectual community.

There are many scholars, rabbis, poets, and other Sicilian intellectuals who were Jewish. Named in the article are Samuel ben Nissim al-Masnut, author of Synagogal poetry, midrashic commentaries, and a book on Job, Ma'ayan Ganim republished in Berlin in 1899. Samuel ben Nissim, born in Palermo, later emigrated later to Spain where he was called "Sikilli" or "the Sicilian." Aaron Abulrabbi, born in Catania, compiled a lost defense of Judaism and a commentary on Rashi, was born in Catania. Abu Aflah, author of theosophical and magical works, was from Syracuse.

Twelfth century Anatoli ben Joseph was a rabbinical judge in Alexandria, Egypt, posed a difficult question to the rabbis of Syracuse in Sicily, and they submitted the topic to Moses Maimonides, who provided the answer in one of the Responsa.

Yehuda Shmuel ben Nissim Abu'l Farag, from Agrigento, was a convert to Christianity under the name of Raimondo da Moncada and "one of the most eminent European Hebraists of the fifteenth century;" translated the Koran and taught Hebrew and Kabbalah to one of the most eminent figures of the Italian Renaissance under the name Pico della Mirandola.

The discovery of the Cairo Geniza confirmed not only the existence of an extensive Jewish trade in silk and books between the 10th-12th century, but also the existence of sea and land routes that were in daily use between the Sicily and Palestine.

Around 120 CE, Rabbi Akiva stopped in Syracuse, reporting a small Jewish community. Almost every major Sicilian city has an area called la Giudecca, the Jewish quarter, and it is still possible to find the mikveh site. "In Syracuse, for example, the original ritual bath of the community is located under the church of San Filippo in the center of la Giudecca."

Sicilian Jews, says the article, had unique words for Jewish things. For example, Simchat Torah became La festa della Mortilla; kosher meat became carne tajura (possibly from the Hebrew tahor, or pure); and the synagogue is not Bet Knesset but la meschita (or muschitta).

Jews have left their mark in many Sicilian areas, from their language, to their culinary traditions, to the topography of cities, and in the names of the people. Most of these connections remain to be investigated, and much is yet to be done to better understand these Jewish communities, which have lived for more than fifteen centuries on the island, leaving us precious pearls still waiting to be discovered.

Read the complete article here.

Italy: Inquisition documents displayed

The Vatican has placed Inquisition documents on display through March 16, at Rome's Central Risorgimento Museum. For centuries the archives of the Holy Office were secret, but opened to scholars in 1998.

Among the items:

-1611 Holy Office order instructing Inquisitors how to carry out their job and how to conduct themselves when not on official duties.

-1703 list of rules spells out a crackdown on Huguenots and heretics and those sheltering them. Huguenots were persecuted French Protestants.

-1599 edict targets game hunters, bird hunters and fishermen who were poaching at a Vatican estate south of Rome.

Most importantly for members of the tribe:

The Vatican once controlled the lives of Rome's ancient, tiny Jewish community. On display is a 19th century drawing indicating the Ghetto neighborhood where Jews were allowed to live, and the streets where they could have their stores.

There is also a collection of maps of Jewish settlements across Italy, which are among the oldest evidence of the ghettos.

The edicts and orders were printed on remarkably durable material made from recycled rags at a Vatican printing house.

Monsignor Alejandro Cifres is one of the exhibit curators and on the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office), which relied on reports from Dominicans, Franciscans and lay people, and a network of monitors.

Napoleon's forces carted off bundles of documents from the Holy Office, and after his early 1800s fall, the French government wanted to return the material but the cost of shipping was too high. Rome gave the order to burn much of it. However, documents from famous trials (such as Galileo) were saved. He was condemned for supporting Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

Read more here.