Miami: Write your autobiography, Nov. 7

Ever thought about writing your autobiography? Wouldn't it be a great legacy for your future descendants?

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Miami thought this would be a good thing, so their next meeting - Sunday, November 7 - is devoted to just that topic with author Liz Coursen ("The Complete Biography Workbook."

The program begins at 10am, at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, 4200 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami.

Have you reached this stage? "I've been working on my autobiography but I'm stuck and need direction." Or even toying with the idea of writing one? Coursen will discuss how to organize and compose your autobiography. The Workbook received a recent rave review on C-Span's Book TV.

She will offer advice and guidance on how to leave a personal legacy for your children and grandchildren.

The focus of the program is to encourage people to record - on paper for their families and descendants - their first-person stories of struggle and sacrifice and delayed gratification covering WWII, the Depression, immigration, segregation, discrimination and success. Think about all the important stories that are lost every day. A question and answer session will follow.

The meeting is free. For direction and secure parking instructions, click here.

Got a memoir? Moment Magazine wants yours!

Here's a great contest for genealogists!

Moment Magazine is holding a memoir contest and wants to hear yours. It is open to all individuals residing in or outside the US except where prohibited.

Everyone has a story...To celebrate the rich and diverse narratives of its readers, Moment is holding a memoir writing contest. We are looking for short personal essays/memoirs (no more than 3,500 words) about you or your family that have some kind of Jewish connection or content. Moment will review all submissions and award one first place award and two honorable mentions to works of outstanding writing.

Prizes: 1st place, $500+possible publication; two honorable mentions, $150 each.

Submissions must be postmarked by December 31, 2010. Download a signed copy of the contest's official rules (download, print, sign and send with your entry). Winners will be announced in 2011.

In case you're wondering:

No previously published works, or works already accepted for publication elsewhere, are eligible. Work may be under consideration elsewhere, but must be withdrawn from the competition if accepted for publication.

Moment editors will review winning stories and contact the winners if their stories are being considered for publication. And - in case you think that each of your words is golden and may never be changed - all selected material is subject to editing by the mag's editors.

A reader fee of $35 is required for each entry; multiple submissions accepted.

For the nitty gritty on what each entry must and must not include, the format, address to send to and other essential details, click here. That link will also provide the important official rules link.

[Note from Tracing the Tribe: Pretty please, do not send in an entry about how your family's name was changed at Ellis Island. Thank you.]

Tablet: Roots and Family Trees

Today's Tablet Magazine has a book column focusing on family history in diverse ways.

The featured books include:

-- The 40 moves in 20 years documented in Brooke Berman's No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments (Harmony, June).

-- David Kushner’s account of harsh real-estate politics detailed in the 1957 integration of Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb (Walker & Company, August).

-- Adam Langer’s The Thieves of Manhattan (Spiegel & Grau, July).

-- Telling Stories: Philip Guston’s Later Works (California, May), by Tablet’s poetry columnist David Kaufmann surveys the machinations New York City’s avant garde art scene of the late 1960s and 1970s.

-- The strange story of the Aleppo Codex, the oldest surviving edition of the Tanakh in book form, date to 939 CE, which Maimonides himself purportedly studied, and which lived in Syria before being smuggled to Israel in 1957, is detailed in Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex (JPS, July), by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider. One can also see the Codex on the web.

... the Aleppo Codex has from time to time been the subject of fantastic claims and suspicions of forgery; in particular, the unscrupulous Crimean Karaite scholar Abraham Kirkovich (1786-1874) tarnished the manuscript’s reputation through his spurious claim that its author was a Karaite, rather than a Masorete.

-- University of Chicago historian Fred M. Donner surveys the first century of Muslim history in Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (Harvard, May).

-- Tracing the Tribe has already given a shoutout to Buzzy Jackson’s Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep, and Other Obsessions of an Amateur Genealogist (Touchstone, July), and Tablet provided a bit more.

[It] combines memoir and upbeat how-to elements as the author investigates her own family’s story through DNA testing, a Caribbean cruise, and old fashioned library research. Her father’s relations, with roots in Alabama, regale her with far-fetched family legends, but it turns out that the Galician Jews on her mother’s side tell one another “no stories about the old days or the old country.”

-- Genetics and DNA play a part in Jennifer Rosner's If a Tree Falls: A Family’s Quest to Hear and Be Heard (Feminist, May), as she describes discovering a history of deafness in her ancestors and a demonstration of "real" family ties:

When her two great-great-aunts, both deaf, were caring for infants, “they tied strings from their wrists to their babies at bedtime. When the babies fidgeted, they would feel their tugs and wake to care for them in the night.”

See the link above for more on each book.

Pennsylvania Dutch: Ashkenazi, German encounters

Matt Singer has an interesting idea.

He's writing an independent project on the encounter between Ashkenazi Jews and Pennsylvania Germans in Pennsylvania Dutch Country as a material culture analysis.

A Penn State American studies doctoral student, his project should be of interest to Tracing the Tribe's readers. Matt was happy to share additional information with me.

He plans to document and analyze material culture reflecting the encounter between Pennsylvania Germans and Yiddish- and German-speaking (Ashkenazi) Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who settled in the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch Country from the 18th through early-20th centuries. The area is centered in Lancaster, Lebanon, and Berks counties but encompasses most of southeastern and central Pennsylvania.

While Pennsylvania Germans and American Jews have both been the subjects of extensive scholarly research, this particular history - which focuses on the interaction and influence between two Germanic people whose separate diasporas brought them to Southeastern and Central Pennsylvania - has not been studied, he says.

Matt also plans to incorporate and focus on fraktur (example left), a text-based Pennsylvania-German art-form, as part of this study.

Fraktur (example left) is the decoration of paper with calligraphic texts and related designs, figures and symbols, using pen and ink and/or watercolors. Click here (a gallery of examples and many other articles) or here for another article. The first link has many examples of this vibrant folk-art that was used for many types of documents.

Says Matt, a small but significant number of Jews worked as itinerant fraktur artists and scriveners. They functioned much like countless Jews who - typically in their earliest years in the US - earned their livelihoods as peddlers. However, traveling fraktur artists and scriveners, unlike most peddlers, left surviving evidence of their work.

A Google search for "jewish fraktur" turned up a mention in Irwin Richman's book "the Pennsylvania Dutch Country." Pages 57-58 offer information on this variety and mentions two artists, Martin Wetzler who drew a Star of David on his creations and signed his name in Hebrew, as well as Justus I.H. Epstein who lived and worked in Reading.

Fraktur incorporating Hebrew words and phrases was created by Christian Hebraists, and at least one example was made by a Pennsylvania German artist for a Jewish patron.

Finally, through the examination of fraktur in relation to traditional Ashkenazi-Jewish forms such as the ketubah (marriage contract), wimpel (Torah binder), illustrated prayer-books, and mizrachim (a wall-hanging that indicates the direction for prayer - East, mizrach), Matt will search for artistic motifs, approaches, and intentions shared (or not shared) by Pennsylvania Germans and Ashkenazi Jews and their continuity (or discontinuity) as the two distinct yet geographically and culturally related groups established new lives, communities, and cultures in the New World.

Matt, like many of us first became interested in genealogy after watching "Roots" in 1977, as a young teenager. Later, the emergence of JewishGen in the 1990s "turned this interest into a passion."

His paternal SINGER line was from the Ponevezh (Panevezys) area in Kovno Gubernia, Lithuania.

Says Matt, according to a distant cousin (now deceased) who was equally obsessed with genealogy and family history, the family moved from East Prussia to Lithuania around 1840.

"Such a migration pattern is slightly counterintuitive," he says, "and I’ve never been able to document it.

What I do know is that my great-grandfather David Singer immigrated from Neustadt Ponevezh, Lithuania, in 1886 and seemed to have moved directly to Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, a small Pennsylvania-German town outside of Harrisburg (where much of the family eventually settled).

His primary maternal line - the KLEINMAN/N) - were from the Kurland/Courland region (now southwestern Latvia) which, though absorbed by Russia in the Partition of Poland in 1795, was German in language and culture and not part of (although not far from) the Pale of Settlement.

My great-great-grandfather Abraham Kleinman immigrated from Friedrichstadt (now Jaunjelgava), Kurland, in 1887 and first settled in Lancaster, the heart of “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” and later lived in several smaller towns in the region before ultimately settling in Harrisburg.

Counting my older brother’s children, five generations of my Jewish family (I’m also one-quarter Austrian and German Catholic by descent) have been born in “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” and seven have lived in it (my great-great-great grandparents Elias and Sarah Rachel Kleinman—Abraham’s parents—followed their son, immigrating here in 1891).

All of Matt's Jewish ancestors were Litvaks, although he adds:

The Kleinmans represented a sort of German-Litvak hybrid, as did the Singers, I suppose, if they really did move from East Prussia to Lithuania ), as seems to be the norm in the vicinity of Harrisburg (of course, the Litvaks were preceded by Jews from southern Germany ). I believe the same is true of all of Pennsylvania Dutch Country—but that’s a matter for research far from completed!

Matt's geographical locations and names of interest include East Prussia, Singer; Courland, Kleinman, Toor, Tuch, Singer; and Lithuania, Singer, Tuch, Gerber, Garonzik, Ringer and Blau.

Do you have any written memoirs inherited from immigrant ancestors who settled in the area?

Would you share them with Matt? Readers are welcome to contact him.

Colorado: Memoir writing workshop, May 13

If you don't write the history of your family, who will?

The Jewish Genealogy Society of Colorado, under the leadership of Ellen Shindelman Kowitt, is an active group offering several programs each month.

The next program is a "Memoir Writing Workshop for the Family Historian," with Susan Jacobs, set for 6.30pm, Thursday, May 13, at Temple Emanuel, Denver.

Discover the joy of memoir writing in Jacobs' stimulating and fun workshop for family historians, regardless of whether or not they've written anything previously.

Jacobs holds a BA in oral interpretation of literature (USC) and an interdiscplinary gerontology certificate (University of Denver). She has 30 years of teaching experience and 18 years teaching memoir writing at such venues as Regis University and the Denver Jewish Community Center.

In addition to monthly programs, the JGS of Colorado also offers a community genealogy education series for which it received some interesting grants which could be duplicated in other communities. For more information on the JGSCo's programs, including resources and useful links, see the website above.

For more information, click here.

New Blog: Jewish food - and genealogy!

Tori calls herself a shiksa (a Yiddish term, generally negative, for a non-Jewish female) married to an Israeli-born Jewish husband.

Her blog is all about Jewish food. Her most recent post is Part I of "Uncle Dov’s Memoir: Polish Ashkenazi Food and Traditions."

My friend Etti Hadar descends from a Polish family. Her maternal ancestors, the Levin family, lived in the Pinsk region of Poland (now considered Belarus) in a small town called Luninets. While researching her ancestry, Etti found a 280 page memoir written by her late uncle, Dov Shimon “Beraleh” Levin. Dov grew up in Poland in a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish family. He later served in Italy in the Jewish Infantry Brigade, and fought the Nazis during World War II. His memoir describes in great detail what Jewish life was like in Poland during the 1920’s and 30’s.

The post provides many glimpses of Eastern European Jewish life that should be very interesting for Jewish and other genealogists. Part II will cover some recipes and dishes prepared by the Levin family. Tori and her friend Etti selected a few of them and recreated a Polish Shabbat dinner. With Etti's mother, they spent a day preparing a feast.

Since meeting her husband, Tori has traveled the world learning about Jewish cuisine, and friends and family have shared their culinary knowledge, keeping traditions alive.

She's now working on a first cookbook, "The Shiksa in the Kitchen," which will include recipes gathered from international Jewish family kitchens.

I am fascinated by the traditions and history associated with Jewish cuisine. Food is a way of communicating; the energy we pass on through our cooking feeds the body as well as the soul. By recording the stories and recipes of Jewish family cooks, I hope to help preserve and cherish the past, present, and future of the Jewish people.

Visit Tori's blog and read Parts I and II about Uncle Dov's 280-page manuscript.

Everything has a Jewish genealogy hook to it, including cuisine!

Israel: 'Every person has a story'

In Israel, memories of elderly Holon residents are being documented and published under a new municipal-sponsored program launched and overseen by city social worker Ella Podolitch.

"Our motto is that every person has a story and he has the right to have it written,"she said "We don't filter out people and say this one can and this one can't. Our motive is to record the stories of the city's residents. The main thing is that they should not be lost forever."

The four-month course was attended by 13 retirees who volunteered to record the biographies of the city's elders. The writers met with the residents over a year, resulting in 16 biographies.

Read the Haaretz story here.

Holon resident Leah Ofri recently celebrated her 100th birthday. During her 100 years, almost all of them in this country, she endured a number of experiences, many of them more bitter than pleasant. She came to Palestine together with her parents and two small brothers at an early age and when she was 5, her mother died. With her father unemployed and not functioning properly, she became the family's sole provider.

During World War I, Leah and her family were banished from Tel Aviv and went to live in the Galilee, but when the Turks left the country, they returned to Tel Aviv. Then her father remarried and, at the age of about 10, she was separated from her family and sent to live with the well-known Chelouche family in the Neveh Tzedek quarter of Tel Aviv. She remained there for seven years, helping the Chelouches with household chores, and was treated warmly.

During those years, Leah would see her father only twice a year, when he used to come to collect the money she was paid for her help. When Leah was 17, she was married off to a man she did not love and they had eight children. Her eldest son, Avraham, was killed during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Today she has 25 grandchildren, 45 great grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. The events of Leah's long life were recorded in a book written by Tirza Tam ....

Tirza Tam, a retiree himself, took the course sponsored by the municipality and taught by biographer Amotz Shorek.

Relatives of the subjects, according to the story, were very positive about the project which revealed the individuals' diverse backgrounds and experiences.

A recent meeting brought together 10 writers and three subjects, including Leah Ofri, as they described the writing process.

The story also includes the story of Zvi Gil, 90, who arrived from Poland to Palestine at age 2 with his grandparents. His parents and six brothers remained in Poland and perished. Says one of Gil's biographers:

"It was very emotional for me to hear Zvi's stories," she said. "When I was a little girl, I didn't want to listen to the stories told by my mother and father. Now I am here to correct this attitude. Today I can deal with material that I never ever dared to touch before."

Read the complete story at the link above.