Footnote.com: The Great Chicago Fire, 1871

Footnote.com is a wonderful resource for original documents.

October 8 was the anniversary of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and the site has a special collection of research material based on Chicago Tribune contemporary reports.

Primary sources available on Footnote.com for this historical event include:

--The original Chicago Tribune Article
-- Photo of Fire's destruction
-- Illustration of the Fire
-- Map of the Destruction
-- The Great Chicago Fire Footnote Page

Click here for more. Although Footnote.com is a subscription site, some collections are free and searches produce hits for free and fee materials. See what you can find in tthe site's extensive resources and you might find that a subscription could further your research.

On October 8, 1871, around nine o'clock in the evening, a fire started in the O'Leary's barn at 13 DeKoven Street and quickly spread throughout Chicago's business district.. Although legends hold O'Leary's cow responsible for causing the fire, the actual source is still unknown.

The blaze raged for two days, killing hundreds, destroying millions of dollars in property, leaving thousands homeless, and ravaging almost four square miles.

From the smoldering ashes, the citizens of Chicago began to rebuild and a new era began in the city's history. The resulting boom in building construction made Chicago one of the most populous, most economically profitable, and most modern cities in the United States. The Great Chicago Fire was a tragedy, but out of this disaster emerged the modern metropolis of Chicago.

9/11: Seeing it again

We saw it all again today, just as we saw it in 2001, via FoxNews.

The first plane, the second plane, the ash-covered crowds running through the streets, the thick smoke billowing through Manhattan, the fall of the towers, the Pentagon hit and the Shanksville crash.

At around 3pm on September 11, 2001, we had just returned from a Tel Aviv-area funeral to the mourners' Ramat Gan home. There's seven-hour time difference between New York and Tel Aviv.

It was a normal shiva call - as if these can be considered normal - until the son's teenagers came running out of a bedroom, shouting, "Something's happened in New York. Turn on the television." He resisted - television is not part of the mourning ritual - but the kids insisted.

Everyone in the room saw the plane slam into the second tower. An entire houseful of people sat there in stunned silence as we watched those tragic events continue to unfold.

I remember asking if it wasn't a movie, that the special effects were really good. We soon realized it was not a movie scene. If it only had been.

We all tried to reach family and friends in New York. The lines were continuously busy, as was to be expected, but we finally got through to a few people. Everyone we called was okay, but some had harrowing stories.

My niece had gone to school in Brooklyn Heights. Her father, who worked in Wall Street, walked across the bridge to pick her up. They walked back again and nearly all the way to their Upper West Side home. From the windows of the school, the students - some of whose parents worked and perished in the World Trade Center - watched the events as they happened.

Others told us of ferry trips - termed escapes - to New Jersey and Staten Island later that day.

Our daughter - then in Barcelona - had ducked into a bar to see what all the commotion was about. The patrons offered their sympathies. Little did they know - only a few years later - that Madrid would be the site of what Spain calls its own 9/11.

Many more stories would not be told for days.

None will be forgotten.

Canada: Yiddish oxen, tractors in Saskatchewan

The Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, Massachusetts) sends out periodic newsletters on books and events.

The latest update, just received by Tracing the Tribe, has several interesting items, particularly a Yiddish book on a Saskatchewan farming community and an update on the Hania, Crete synagogue fire and attempts at rebuilding its destroyed library.

Learning how our ancestors lived is key to understanding who they were and how they coped with local conditions.

When, in 1911, Michael Usiskin arrived in the Jewish settlement of Edenbridge, in northeastern Saskatchewan, he and the other pioneers struggled.

Weather conditions, isolation and other factors contributed to their attempt to form Jewish cultural life. He recorded this life in his 1945 Yiddish book, Oksn un motorn (Oxen and Tractors).

To learn more about this book, click here.

Readers may remember the devasting fire at the Hania, Crete synagogue that destroyed its library. Many people have already donated books to rebuild that important resource. The drawing at left is part of director Nikos Stravroulakis' drawing of the town.

Click here to read the thank you message from Stavroulakis and his staff. Read the names of those who donated books and see an interactive map, as well as a list of books they still need.

Subscribe to the National Yiddish Book Center's newsletter.

Crete: 4 arrested in arson attacks

The historic 600-year-old Etz Hayyim synagogue in Hania, Greece, on the island of Crete, has suffered two arson attacks.

For updates, see the synagogue site, and read its blog (click on OUR WEBLOG in the menu, upper left corner of the homepage). Information is given on how to help the reconstruction.

Read the account of the second arson here, by director Dr. Nicholas Stavroulakis. His blog posts and homepage right sidebar provide links to many stories about the attacks.

According to various news stories:

On January 5, a staircase was burned and there was major smoke damage, but the second attack on January 16 caused extensive interior damage and destroyed the roof, along with the library with 2,500 rare books, the archive and equipment.

Four men - two British, an American and a Greek - were recently arrested by the Greek police. Their names have not been released. A fifth man, also American, is sought and believed to have left the country.

The Greek was arrested, confessed and provided the other names. They said they committed the crime because they did not like Jews.

The Guardian (UK) newspaper reported that one of the British men apparently was the ring leader.

The Athens News website reported:

One of the two US citizens who were wanted in the recent arson attacks against the Jewish Synagogue in Hania, Crete, was arrested on Monday [January 25].

The 24-year-old US citizen, who has been residing the last months in Chania and was making a living by doing odd jobs, was sent before a local prosecutor on Monday together with two British nationals aged 33 and 23 years old and another local 24-year-old who had been arrested last Thursday.

The two British nationals and the Greek man will testify on Tuesday, while the US citizen was given a 48-hour extension to prepare his testimony.

According to the the case file, the four suspects, together with another US citizen who is wanted and is claimed to have fled the country, are accused, in addition to the arson, with a felony charge of setting up a criminal gang.

An announcement by the Police General Directorate of Crete said that, according to Greek suspect's testimony, all five suspects participated in the Synagogue's first arson attack on January 5, while only two of the Britons and the Greek took part in the arson attack on January 16, which resulted in the most serious damage. The 33-year-old Briton is believed to be the mastermind of the gang.

To contribute to Etz Hayyim's reconstruction, read all the details at the synagogue's site.

Haiti: The Jewish remnant

In the midst of the Haiti's great tragedy, there is also a long Jewish history.

A branch of our Talalay family escaped Berlin before the Holocaust with Haitian identity documents. According to their descendants, the documents were provided in exchange for the purchase of land. No one seems to know where that plot was located, and there is no evidence that any member of the family actually visited Haiti.

Resources Online: There is some information on this historical episode here, which mentions the immigration of European Jews, and here on the Jewish Virtual Library site, which mentions an ancient Jewish synagogue discovered by archeologists in the city of Jérémie, where mulatto families of Jewish origin lived. A 2004 JTA article by Larry Luxner is here.

Here is information on the Jewish community of Haiti from the Encyclopedia Judaica. Other articles mention that Jewish tombstones were discovered in port cities such as Cap Haaitien and Jacmel. Read more here (Jewish Social Studies, 1983). "The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, experiences, and culture" by Ehrlich, speaks of Haiti's Jewish history on page 660 (check Google Books).

Before the earthquake on January 12, there were an estimated 25 Jews among 9 million residents. Many lived in Pétionville, a community in the hills above Port-au-Prince. There is no rabbi or synagogue, but one resident, Gilbert Bigio (whose father came from Aleppo, Syria), keeps a Torah in his home.

Many of the country's Jews are among the wealthiest residents, with interests in many sectors.

For an excellent article on the Jews of Haiti - before the earthquake - read The Forward's interesting article, by Gabrielle Birkner, here ("Haiti's Jewish Remnant Keeps the Faith and Lends a Hand").

Back in 1492, Luis de Torres, Christopher Columbus’s interpreter, was the first known Jew to step foot on what is now Haiti. Brazilian immigrants of Jewish ancestry settled in what is now Haiti in the 17th century, though many perished in the slave revolts at the turn of the 19th century that ultimately established Haiti’s independence from France.

Then came a small wave of Jewish immigration to Haiti from Lebanon, Syria and Egypt — the influx that brought Dana’s grandparents — during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Many of these Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants made a living importing and selling textiles, and they sent their children to the local Catholic schools. The island’s Jews were joined during the 1930s by about 100 European Jews who came to Haiti fleeing the Nazis. The Haitian Jewish community peaked mid-century at about 300 members, many of whom left for larger, more established Jewish communities in the United States, Argentina and Panama.

Archaeologists have also found evidence of a Crypto-Jewish, or Marrano, community that once existed in the western Haitian city of Jérémie.

The Forward story focuses on Rudolph Dana, 61, who owns a propane-distribution company, and his efforts to locate his friends and 500 employees. He says hundreds of his friends and acquaintances died in the disaster. Those who survived are homeless. His own home suffered major structural damage.

He has deep Haitian roots, as his grandparents settled there in the early 20th century.

He has been in touch, via an Internet-enabled satellite phone that he kept in his Port-au-Prince office, with many of his employees, who have managed to set up a makeshift office, outside of the badly damaged building that housed his company. These days, they’re not dealing in propane, but in rice, beans and cooking oil. Dana said he managed, through his business connections, to get a shipment of food staples, and that his company has been distributing meals — cooked with firewood — to some 300 people camped out near the office park.

Read the complete story at The Forward link, as well as the additional links under "Resources Online."

Haiti: Israel/Jewish response to the disaster

For those who have been following the disaster in Haiti, here is a list of Jewish organizational relief efforts as well as an opinion piece by the editor of a Florida Jewish paper.

Here is the list of Jewish organizational relief efforts, as posted by Joel Magalnick, editor of Seattle's JTNews:

The 7.0 earthquake on Jan. 12 that hit Haiti devastated its capital and has left tens of thousands of people dead, with many thousands more injured. Several Jewish organizations have opened up relief funds and some have sent teams to the country to assist in rescue and burial efforts.

The following links take you to donation pages to assist in those efforts:

American Friends of Magen David Adom:
http://bit.ly/6QwnJm
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee:
http://bit.ly/5889Iq
American Jewish World Service:
http://bit.ly/7oywcx
B’nai B’rith International:
http://bit.ly/5YJX2N
Chabad Lubavitch:
http://bit.ly/7MSiUj
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger:
http://bit.ly/7OaNco
Orthodox Union:
http://bit.ly/8aVXIZ
Union for Reform Judaism:
http://bit.ly/6HxQQN
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism: http://bit.ly/6bFXms
ZAKA Jewish rescue organization, with personnel onsite:
http://bit.ly/4YEd9D

Lyn Payne is associate editor of the Heritage Florida Jewish News in Orlando. We've known each other through various connections for quite a few years. She prepared the following piece for her column in this Friday's edition and gave permission for Tracing the Tribe to reprint it:

Jewish hearts around the world open for Haiti
By Lyn Payne
Heritage Florida Jewish News

Thus said the Lord:
A cry is heard in Ramah—
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone.
—Jeremiah 31:15

It was the footage of the woman kneeling in the dust, her voice one long contralto keen of agony, that personalized it for me. And the man praying that the voice the rescue team heard under the stones came from his wife. The fawn-eyed gaze of the two-year-old girl who emerged physically unhurt from the debris that covered her dead parents. And the baby boy, born with the help of Israeli doctor Shir Dar of Hadassah Hospital in the IDF field hospital on Port-au-Prince’s soccer field, whose mother named him “Israel.” [photo, right]

We’re into the second week after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti’s people and crushed its feeble infrastructure.

Bodies lie scattered over streets, and people smear toothpaste under their nostrils to dull the stench of rotting flesh. International aid, from governments and organizations, has mobilized on a massive scale, but until this week, much of it languished in the capital’s airport, because the means of delivering it had collapsed. Only a few days ago, doctors begged for antibiotics to treat limbs infected with gangrene, as they pleaded with parents to allow their children to have their legs amputated to give them a chance to survive.

If such a thing as a shining light can even be said to exist in this hell on earth, Israel is a major part of the reason. On Jan. 18, CNN reported that the Israelis were running the only fully functioning field hospital; other countries’ teams were sending patients there, and the Israelis had treated hundreds. ZAKA search and rescue teams, whose members are observant Jews, worked through Shabbat to free victims from the wreckage, keeping the holiest commandment of saving lives.

A surreal news clip shows a group of Haitians thanking their rescuers with a chorus of “Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem.” Even the BBC, often criticized for anti-Zionist bias, reported the Israelis’ efforts.

The 220-person Israeli team set up their MASH unit as soon as they arrived, and plan to keep it in place for at least a few weeks. When a tiny, impoverished and brutalized country—one with no obvious historical or ethnic connection to their own—needed them, the Israelis, helped by the Jewish Diaspora’s alphabet soup of aid agencies, synagogues and individuals—flew thousands of miles to say, “Hineinu.” We are here.

Why?

Jews are certainly not alone in caring or in the ability to raise funds and deliver aid: The U.S. government, along with nations like Turkey, Mexico and China, and religious and secular groups of all persuasions, have raced to help. Yet the instant and unstinting—and highly effective—response of the worldwide Jewish community has me pondering the particular map of the Jewish heart, as it has historically opened to aid the afflicted of every race, nation and creed.

Judaism continually insists that helping those less fortunate is not simply a generous option, but rather a religious obligation. Contrast that with right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh’s belittling diatribe against the Obama administration for aiding Haiti, saying the President wanted only to gain favor with “the black community, with the light-skinned and the dark-skinned community” of African-Americans. Fortunately, Limbaugh’s is the position of only a tiny minority of unsophisticated and emotionally stunted Americans. His disgusting bigotry was disavowed by former President George W. Bush, and aid efforts have been embraced by people across the political landscape. But extreme as it is, Limbaugh’s rhetoric offers a clear opposite against which to better see the power of Jewish ethics. To this puerile, spiteful, hateful voice gleefully chortling, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” into the face of the universe, Judaism replies, Yes, you are.

As Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks describes in his book “To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility,” Judaism is alone among religions in proclaiming that human beings are given the power by God to become partners in perfecting the world. Sacks points out just how radical that concept is, and how it confers responsibility to act with justice and righteousness. It’s as if he were saying that Judaism is a continual dialogue between the reality of what exists now, and the possible futures, good and bad, which will only be brought about by our own actions—or lack of action.

“Each religious act we do has an effect on the ecology of creation,” Sacks writes in explaining the kabbalistic concept of tikkun olam. [repairing the world]

This holistic view is not only humane, although, dayenu, that would have been enough; it also fits the emerging reality of life in the 21st century—in a world Thomas Friedman calls “hot, flat and crowded,” where a political upheaval, climate change or natural disaster in one place increasingly and directly affects economics, infrastructure and lifestyles everywhere else. A butterfly’s wing moving in China can now truly be said to set off a revolution on the other side of the globe. To deny this reality is to join the likes of Rush Limbaugh, not only in bigotry, but in self-destructive ignorance.

In this ultra-connected world, it is not just our moral duty as Jews, but in our enlightened self-interest as human beings, to say, with the same passion as we view ourselves at Passover as having been personally redeemed from slavery in Egypt: I personally was pulled from the rubble in Haiti.

For more, read the JTA story by Jacob Berkman on additional efforts being made within the Jewish community.

Family Tree Magazine: New issue

The March 2010 issue of Family Tree Magazine provides another great issue for researchers, providing many practical resources and articles.

It went on sale January 5 and, if you have a subscription, you're already enjoying it.

Diane Haddad covered the new issue in her Genealogy Insider post.

--Assess your genealogical fitness level with a “Shaping Up” survey. Find links to classes, websites, books and organizations to help everyone, from beginners to experts, brush up on skills or learn new ones.

--Learn about your ancestors with a social history of their times, such as childbirth practices in our grandmothers' and great-grandmothers' days, in"We Deliver for You." There's information on birth, hospital and midwives' records.

--"Flirting With Disaster” will help you understand about disasters our ancestors lived through ... or didn't. Find sources to victims' names.

--"Go Go Gadgets" tells researchers what to look for in seven technology tools - a practical article comparing popular models for each tool.

--There's a Toolkit Tutorial on Twitter and its new vocabulary for social networking.

--How to keep your family connected via a family website with the MyHeritage Web Guide, detailing how to use a tree on MyHeritage.com to do research and connect with family.

Other articles include Puerto Rican root tracing, color photography and sources to help African-American researchers.

Australia: 'Catskills' destroyed by fire

Burned to the ground on February 7 during the terrible Australian fires, the once-upon-a-time gold mining center of Marysville was known as the Australian "Catskills."

Many Melbourne Jewish families and groups went there for Passover and other holidays, traveling the 100 kilometers northeast of Melbourne (Victoria's state capital) in about 90 minutes.

The town was established in the 1850s after gold was discovered and, by 1861, some 6,000 miners had living there.

Before the fire, the population was 518. At least 15, and possibly up to 100 residents, may have lost their lives in what officials believe was an act of arson, according to this Jerusalem Post article.

By the 1920s, Marysville had become a popular tourist resort, largely due to its proximity to the Yarra Valley, dozens of wineries and Stevenson's Falls, Victoria's highest waterfall. The Cumberland opened in 1917, and was always booked out during school vacations, often 12 months in advance.

For the local Jewish community, Marysville was the equivalent of the Catskills for east coast Americans. Over the last 21 years, on Pessah and other holidays, dozens of Jewish families, primarily from Melbourne, would drive up to the scenic resort for a week of eating, schmoozing, bush walks and horse riding.

Sydney's Rabbi Chaim Ingram summed up the uniqueness of the experience in a letter to the Australian Jewish News last year.

"One hundred and sixty men and women of all ages and varying native languages, prayer rites, synagogue affiliations and shades of observance bonded together as one havura - the very opposite of the old joke about a man who builds two shuls on a desert island, one of which he would not be seen dead in," he wrote.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Gendisasters.com: Our Jewish ancestors

Gendisasters.com is subtitled "events that touched our ancestors' lives." It compiles information on historic disasters, events and tragic accidents our ancestors endured. We can learn about their lives and deaths, unfortunately, in some cases.

Database and records are searchable by surname. I tried a quick search for COHEN and obtained numerous references to articles detailing someone with this name as a victim (or related in some other way) to disasters involving a fire, hurricane, tornado, avalanche, train, plane, ship, mine, home accident and others. Locations were across the US, with events from the mid-1850s, 1860s, 1880s, 1900s, 1910s, 1930s, 1940s and into more contemporary times.

A recent post details a September 23, 1892 synagogue panic on Rosh Hashanah. According to the transcription by Tim Taugher, the story appeared on September 24 in the Knoxville, TN The Daily Journal, the Journal and Tribune, and the Baltimore, MD Sun.

There were four synagogues in the tenement building at 27 Ludlow St., named as Talmud Torah Ohel Itzchok, Padolski/Podolski Society, Sons of Aaron and Beit Achim Anschel. Some 2,000 men, women and children were worshipping, when the fire started in Talmud Torah as the cloth covering the bima (altar) caught fire from a burning candle, causing the ensuing panic. The Rabbi was named as WALIOZINSKI, the assistant SOLOMON and secretary KRAMER.

The article gives the first and family names, type of injury (or death), ages and addresses (in some cases). There are spelling variants - likely a result of OCR (optical character reading) processing - in the articles. Here are only the family names of the victims: FRIEDMAN/FREIDMAN, MILLKER/STILIKER, ALTMAN, BOISUK/BORSUK, COHEN, DACKOWITZ, SMILOWITZ, GREENBURG, BECKER, ROSENTHAL, BEYMA/BOYAM, PORTMANN.

In addition to the named victims, the police captain said an additional 25 individuals were taken to their homes with no report given.

Here is a portion of the transcription. Read the complete story via the link above.

FATAL PANIC
Is a Jewish Synagogue in New York City.
CAUSED BY A FIRE ALARM.
A Rush Results in Packed Stairways and Frightful Confusion.
FOUR WOMEN ARE KILLED
And More Than a Dozen Persons More or Less Seriously Injured.

NEW YORK, September 23. - There are four Jewish synagogues in the tenement house, No. 27 Ludlow street. They were all crowded this morning with devout Hebrews attending the festival services of New Year when some person in one of the places of worship raised the cry of fire. Immediately there was a panic, everybody rushing for the doors. The stairway, which is not very wide, became packed with people. They piled right on top of one another in the stairway. Some person out on the street had enough presence of mind to send out the fire alarm which brought the department to the scene. The firemen succeeded in extricating the people from the blocked stairway and found four dead and about a dozen injured.

Following are the names of injured persons at Governeuer's hospital:
Rebecca Freidman, 40 years, fractured skull.
Tillie Millker, 33 years, skull fractured and will probably die.
Julius Altman, 9 years, thigh injured.
Rachael Boisuk, 47 years, skull fractured.
Ida Cohen, fractured skull, injuries fatal.
Herman Cohen, 15 years, wrist fractured and internal injuries.
Rachel Dackowitz, skull fractured.
Annie Cohen, 58 years, widow, skull fractured, injuries fatal.
Mrs. Annie Smilowitz, several ribs broken. Simon Greenburg, 33 years, skull fractured, injuries fatal.

The alarm was caused by setting fire by a burning candle to the cloth drapery over the altar in the synagogue of Talmud Thorah, which is on the second floor front. There were four congregations, numbering nearly two thousand persons, men, women and children, worshipping. The stairway was narrow, and Mrs. Annie Smilowitz, a very short woman, fell, blocking the passage way and causing the deaths of those right behind. The four synagogues were the Padolski society, Talmud Thorah, Sons of Aaron and Betti Achin Anschef. There was also a Hebrew school in the building. ...

Historical newspapers can be valuable to all researchers. You could learn important family details that might explain a family mystery or a relative that disappeared.

Disasters and preservation

After reading the Galveston story, I thought it might be a good idea to again remind Tracing the Tribe's readers to be prepared for disasters. No one wants to lose forever all that hard-won research. Protect your valuable documents, files and photos.

- Make sure you have made copies of your documents and photos. Keep copies somewhere else - in another state or country - by sending them to relatives in several places. Even if those relatives never look at the items, you know they will be safe sitting on a shelf in a closet somewhere and from where they can be retrieved if necessary. Make both hard copies and electronic copies (CDs, flash drives, portable hard drives); investigate online storage and back-up services for files, documents and photographs; place your family tree and photographs online in a family website (such as MyHeritage.com). Make sure you have made negatives - any photographer can do that - from important photographs and store them separately.

- Where will you store items at home? Make sure they are not in damp basements (think humidity and possible flood or other water damage) and not in attics (hot, cold and possible wind and rain damage). Top shelves of closets may be a good start.

- Protect photographs and documents in page protectors (plastic sleeves); most are hole-punched for handy album storage. Tracing the Tribe has frequently advised readers about the dangers of those old "magnetic" albums where photos are affixed permanently to an adhesive backing. Often, photos cannot be removed without serious damage. Instead, bring pages to a photographer to make negatives and prints of each image, or if you're an expert with a digital or film camera, do it yourself. Consult an archivist at a nearby museum, library or university if valuable antique photos are stuck on those pages for advice on how to liberate them, if at all possible.

- In California and other earthquake-prone states, use sticky wax to anchor small items to shelves and walls (in addition to nails and wire for pictures). Attach heavy bookshelves and cabinets to walls for stability, add shelf protector strips to open shelving to keep items from tumbling to the floor. There are also special closures for cabinets to keep doors from flying open and items spilling out.

- Store items in plastic containers (such as Tupperware or Rubbermaid) - these come in a large variety of sizes. Some have lids that clamp down, which are better than just pressing lids closed. Try not to store items in cardboard cartons on the floor, which may flood. Using transparent containers also helps you see what's where - and they float!

- Spend some time thinking about what you would grab first in an emergency, whether it's a hurricane, fire, earthquake, tornado, flood, etc. After making sure family members are safe, what's next? What can't you live without, and where can you store it for easy access in an emergency?

Sally Jacobs of the Practical Archivist blog has compiled a great page of preservation information from reliable sources here. It's called the Preservation Answer Machine - try it out. Great job, Sally!

It's always better to be prepared now when you have time to think calmly about tasks to be done. As a former Florida (hurricanes) and California (earthquakes and fires) resident, I know anything can happen and just might - usually at the most inconvenient times.

What are your best tips for protecting your genealogical treasures? Have you personally experienced a disaster? What would you have done differently? What improvements have you made to prepare for the future? Your experience may help other readers.

Galveston: A sense of community after Ike

Galveston was decimated by Hurricane Ike. Read about the Jewish community of this city of survivors and how it is picking up the pieces of communal life in this story, "Island of Hope," by Michael C. Duke, in Houston's Jewish-Herald Voice.

GALVESTON – An island of hope emerged in a largely devastated city of Galveston this past Tuesday morning, Sept. 30, as 110 local Jews congregated on the back patio of Temple B’nai Israel for a spirit-uplifting and community-rebuilding Rosh Hashanah morning service.

The state of Texas’ oldest extant Jewish congregation, formed in the 1850s, was forced to usher in the New Year 5769 outdoors, after Hurricane Ike caused flooding and power-outages to its synagogue building, back on Sept. 13. Like much of the island, both Galveston synagogues, Temple B’nai Israel and Beth Jacob synagogue, still were without electricity and plumbing more than two weeks after the storm.

B’nai Israel, a Reform synagogue, is home to 180 member households, serving two-thirds of Galveston’s Jewish community. Beth Jacob, a Conservative congregation, did not host High Holy Day services this year, after its building suffered heavy damage by the storm.

Service outdoors

With sun blazing overhead, and mosquitoes feasting below, B’nai Israel Rabbi Jimmy Kessler held an abbreviated Rosh Hashanah worship service, which included Torah reading and the blowing of the shofar. Music was provided via battery-powered Karaoke machine, perched next to a folding card table, which supported a Torah scroll that had been protected in a watertight container during the hurricane. Narrow rows of chairs were laid out in partially shaded areas along the patio.

Some B’nai Israel congregants turned out for the service wearing slacks, neckties and dresses. Many, however, followed the rabbi’s lead and showed up in shirtsleeves and shorts. Most slathered on sunblock and insect repellent shortly before the service began at 10:30 a.m., and swapped kippot for broad-brimmed hats and dark sunglasses.

The shofar blowing, in particular, was a poignant part of the service. Rabbi Kessler sounded one shofar from the front, while simultaneously, congregant Steve Feldman sounded a second shofar from the back of the patio. The horns’ blasts echoed around the surrounding neighborhood, still largely devoid of life.

Read about the service, how both young families, newcomers, old timers and even visiting Red Cross workers have reconnected, and why they returned for this Rosh Hashanah service amid the destruction and devastation.

Husband and wife, Dr. Armond and Barbara Goldman, have lived on and near Galveston Island for the past 60 years. The couple was married by former B’nai Israel Rabbi Henry Cohen, of blessed memory. The Goldmans made the trip to the Rosh Hashanah service from the mainland to support Rabbi Kessler and to see his wife, Shelley, a former classmate of Barbara’s.

“We also thought it was important to show support for the community here – not just for the Jewish community, but for the Galveston community, at large,” Dr. Goldman said. “Having gatherings like this will help the island come back, we hope.”

Immediately after the storm, Debbie Shabot said she was planning to ignore Rosh Hashanah and not celebrate the Jewish New Year, given all the hardships she and her family have endured after Hurricane Ike. “But then, at the last minute, I decided that it would be good to be part of the community. And, I’m glad that I changed my mind, because you can see how much community there is here today – people who have lived on the island their whole lives, and newcomers, as well,” she observed.

A family living in a century-old home across from B'nai Israel have been living in their home despite the 6 feet of water in the basement and first floor during the storm. Michael and Carla Brandon and their son Josh, 14, are determined to stay on the island. Brandon said:

“I think it reinforces the fact that Galveston is a city of survivors, and that many people will come back and rebuild.

“And yet, the hardest part for us is seeing a lot of friends and neighbors not return. We’ve seen some friends return right after the storm, become overwhelmed, and move,” he pointed out.

B'nai Israel's president Barbara Crews also served as the island's third Jewish mayor and first female Jewish mayor, 1990-1996.

“There’s so much Jewish history in Galveston, that it really hasn’t been any different,” she observed. “Jewish life here has been very much a part of the city, especially since the Galveston Immigration Movement at the turn of the last century. And so, I think it’s safe to say that Galveston has always been a diverse community and an integrated community. Jews have been so much a part of the civic life and the secular community, in addition to the religious community here, that we suffer and we celebrate alongside our non-Jewish neighbors.

“Galveston will come back,” Crews promised, “and the Jewish community will be an important part of the rebuilding, as we have been in the past. Those of us who are staying on the island are hopeful – as Jews have been throughout our long history – as we begin the New Year.”

Rabbi Kessler said that B'nai Israel will hold an abbreviated Yom Kippur service at 10.30am Thursday, October 9.

Emergency funds have been set up to accept donations. There are links at the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston website.

Do read the complete article here.

Houston update: Family Tree DNA

I received an email from Bennett Greenspan of FamilyTreeDNA.com which is located in hard-hit Houston, Texas, now recovering from Hurricane Ike.

The building - housing company offices and the Houston laboratory - is without power, as are most of Houston's office buildings, and sustained damage, like so many other city office buildings. The building will be closed for the next few days until tenants can return.

Despite this situation, several staff members worked over the weekend to transfer equipment to other locations so normal office operations can resume on Monday or Tuesday from an alternative location. Mail will be picked up at the local post office so kits can be checked-in and processed.

Other important points:

-FamilyTreeDNA's standard Y-DNA and mtDNA tests are processed at the University of Arizona lab in Tucson. This processing is functioning normally with no storm impact.

-Appropriate measures were taken to safeguard and protect data and servers and all computer systems are in place and functioning normally. The web sites have been up, available and running normally as they were before and during the storm.

Writes Bennett:

"The coming days will allow us to have a better assessment of when our Houston lab will resume normal operations, at which point we will be back to you again with additional information about any delays in delivering results for the advanced tests that our lab processes in Houston. (Advanced panels, FGS and Deep Clade Y SNP's)

Please forgive us if in the next few days we don't meet our standard level of customer service as to e-mails and phone calls. We will be back to normal as soon as possible. We appreciate your continued support."

Tracing the Tribe sends its best wishes to everyone at FamilyTreeDNA.com: Bennett Greenspan, Max Blankfeld, their employees and their families.