Virginia: George Allen to discuss Jewish heritage

Tracing the Tribe's readers may remember former Senator George Allen's refusal to admit his Jewish background during his failed 2006 election campaign in Virginia.

Sephardic researchers immediately recognized his grandfather's surname - LUMBROSO - as Jewish.

On Thursday, August 19, he'll speak publicly for the first time about his mother's and grandfather's heritage, as he delivers the keynote address to some 600 attendees at The National Jewish Retreat in Reston, Virginia.

According to the San Francisco Examiner story:

Allen's Jewish grandfather, Felix Lumbroso, was a resistance fighter in French Tunisia whom the Nazis imprisoned during World War II. Allen's middle name, Felix, honors his grandfather.

Allen's father, the late George H. Allen was a Hall of Famer coach of the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins. Allen's brother is now general manager of the Redskins. Allen and his siblings were raised as Christians.

During 2006, he told a questioner that his mother was French-Italian with a little Spanish blood. He's admitted errors since then and said that after his defeat he had learned about his mother's ancestry.

It had never occurred to him that his grandfather Lumbroso was Jewish, although he noted his concentration camp internment.

In 2006, his mother Henriette "Etty" Lumbroso said she kept her ancestry secret from her children as she was afraid they would be persecuted. She told her son in August 2006, before the debate, and swore him to secrecy, even from his siblings, wife and children.

Read more here.

Israel: 'Preserving memory' seminar, Dec. 1

Registration is now open for the Fifth National Seminar, this year under the joint auspices of the Israel Genealogical Society (IGS) and the Jewish Family Research Association (JFRA). The theme is "Preserving Memory: Family and Community."

The full-day event, from 8.30am registration to the 6pm conclusion, takes place Tuesday, December 1, at Bet Hatefutsoth, on the Tel Aviv University campus.

Readers who have not been to the museum recently will appreciate the beautiful renovation and new wing, permitting all lectures to be on the main level, along with an Aroma Coffee Bar branch (with wi-fi).

Searching for family roots and origins often leads to the discovery of ancestry in an historical perspective, thus revealing multilevel and layered cultural traditions of the community.

This year's event will focus on methods of preserving the memory of vanished communities in Poland, Galicia, Bukovina, Iraq, Yemen, the FSU, and other locations, even as the cultural and spiritual values of these communities remain alive.

Included topics:

- Writing and publishing Yizkor and Memorial Books.
- Preservation and restoration of historic cemeteries.
- Virtual digital reconstruction of town and communities.
- Preservation of customs, artifacts, crafts and cuisine.
- DNA and genetic research (Kohanim, Leviim, rabbinical lines)

Two simultaneous tracks (English and Hebrew) will follow the (1) opening comments and awards, (2) an introduction to the museum's databases by database department director Haim Ghiuzeli, and (3) Dr. Lea Haber Gedalia's presentation, "Reconstruction of Collective Memory: To tell about our Czernowitz (Bukowina).

The English track features:

- Prof. Daniel Wagner - Genealogical Database Merging: A tool for the reconstitution of vanished Jewish communities.

- Dr. Ida Selvan-Schwarcz - Yizker Bikher (Yizkor Books) as preservers of family and community history.

- Dr. Isaac Solomon - The Bene Israel Community of India.

- Rose Feldman - Building a virtual site for a place that no longer exists.

- Tova Waks - The Rejowiec Congregation in Israel: Memory of the home town.

- Dr. Racheli Kriesberg - Genealogical mapping of the Wiesenthal family: Skala (Galicia, 19th century. (Kriesberg is the granddaughter of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

The Hebrew track features:

- Dr. Victor Hayoun - The genealogical reconstruction of the Nabeul, Tunisia Jewish community.

- Orly Shtettiner - Siedlce (Poland) - An extinct community becomes a target for yearning.

- Hanna Kochavi - The silver spoon: Commemorating family through objects.

- Rachel Silko - The story of the Sasson families in Iraq and Israel.

- Dr. Ruth Marcus - Once upon a time, there was a shtetl called Lunna.

- Sara Weiss-Slep - Duesetos (Dosiat, Lithuania) Jewish community will be forever remembered.

Also simultaneous with the English and Hebrew tracks will be workshops, not yet publicly detailed, although Tracing the Tribe knows that Daniel Horowitz (of MyHeritage.com) will be participating.

The seminar ends with a joint Hebrew presentation by Avraham Sfadia,"From Aram Tsoba to Diaspora: Assimilation of Tradition, Identity and Heritage," and seminar concluding remarks.

Click here for the speakers' bios and abstracts. The Hebrew track bios and abstracts are not available in English, but readers may use Google Translate for a reasonable, if rough, translation into English or other languages.

The English registration form is here. Until November 15, registration is NIS 60 for members of IGS and JFRA, NIS 100 for others. Prices go up November 16 to NIS 80 and NIS 120.

Tracing the Tribe encourages readers in Israel, or those who plan to be visiting at that time, to register for the seminar. Seating capacity is limited for some events, so quick registration is suggested.

USHMM: July-August 2009

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington, DC) has announced its July-August programs.

North Africa and its Jews in WWII: 2-4pm, Friday, July 24

The Center's Summer Research Workshop Program culminates in a public presentation of participants' work. This program will examine the experiences of North African Jewry with especial focus on Nazi, Vichy, Spanish fascist, and local policymakers; anti-Jewish legislation and property confiscation and its implementation and effects on the ground; Muslim-Jewish relations; and Jewish cultural life. Participants also assess postwar historiography and memorialization of Jewish experiences in North Africa during the Holocaust.

Topics include are "Implementation of Anti-Jewish Legislation in Morocco at the Local and Metropolitan Levels," "Saharan Jews under Vichy: A Historical Assessment," "The Final Solution in North Africa, 1942-43: An Analysis of the Failed German Project to Annihilate North African Jewry," "The Memorial to the Victims in Borgel Jewish Cemetery," "Aryanization" of Jewish Property in North Africa during the War," "The Detained of Hammamet during the War, 1942–43,"Moncef Bey and the Tunisian Jewish Community in the Context of the Political Tradition of the Tunisian Beys," "Morocco during World War II: The Dynamics of Historical Memory and Jewish-Muslim Relations," "Inventing the Ideal Mother and the Perfect Home: Jewish Women in Tunis, 1933-1943," "The Franco Regime and the Jews of North Africa, 1939-1945," "Stages in the Historiography of the Second World War in North Africa," "Information and Research on North African Jewry during World War II," "Between Mendoub and Khalifa: Tangier's Jews."

Bringing the Past into the Present: Missing Narratives of the Holocaust in Ukraine: 2-4pm, Friday, July 31

Workshop participants explore the experiences of Jews and Ukrainians during World War II and the Holocaust, with especial focus on Ukrainian forced laborers; the Lvov ghetto; the Janowska camp; and postwar historiography, collective memory, and contemporary treatment and presentation of this history in Ukraine.

Topics include "Ukrainian Forced Laborers in Austria: The Pain of Memory," "Histories in Discord: Stalinist and Nazi Terror in Ukrainian Historical Culture," "Narratives and Identities in Western Ukraine, 1940-2008,"As in the old days in Shanghai: Propaganda and Forced Recruitment of 'Eastern Workers' for the War Economy of the Third Reich," "Women of the Underground: Female Roles in the OUN and UPA," "Testimonies of Holocaust Perpetrators in Ukraine," "Eyewitness to an Occupation: Collaboration and the Holocaust in Olevs'k, Zhytomyr Region," and "Missing Jewish Narratives in the Publicly Presented Past: An Invisible Tragedy in Lviv."

Exploring the Newly Opened ITS Archive at the USHMM: 2-4pm, Friday, August 14

Drawing on their previous research, participants work in interdisciplinary groups to explore how the Museum's collection of digitized documents from the ITS can inform the study of foreign, forced, and slave labor in the Third Reich and in its occupied and allied territories. More than a dozen scholars will speak.

For more information, see the USHMM site.

Journal: Contents of GenAmi 47

Micheline Gutmann of GenAmi (Paris, France) announced the articles in the newest issue (no. 47) of the GenAmi journal.

Articles include:

- The family of Leefmann CALMER, glory and oblivion.

Born in Friesland (1713), married in Den Haag, he arrived in France where King Louis the 14th gave him important territory near Amiens. He was ruined by trials conducted by the Catholic Church. Of his seven children, two sons were executed during the Revolution, and several marriages were made with French noble families ...

- A very modest Jewish family from Alsace.
Jules ADLER was a painter born in Franche-Comte, a marvellous painter of poor people.

- Pont-Audemer in Normandy, a Jewish community in the Middle Ages.

- The Jews of Valreas (north of Avignon) in the 16th century.

- Livornese and Tunisian - History of the Jews of Tunisia and their names, by specialist Prof. Boccara.

- The Jewish cemetery of Tunis, the Borgel, the AICJT and the GenAmi project.

- New content at the GenAmi website.

- Djerba: The El Ghriba Synagogue.

For information on how to obtain the journal, click here (French) or here (English).

If your research focuses on France, consider becoming a GenAmi member as benefits include teh journal and an extensive member's only section with various databases.

Tunisia: Djerba pilgrimage

Legend has it that the sailors of the tribe of Zevulun in Solomon's fleet sailed to Djerba thousands of years ago. When the Babylonians destroyed the Temple, say other stories, some priests managed to save a door and took it away to safety. They discovered a Zevulunite colony in the southern part of Djerba called Hara Kabira; the newcomers founded the Hara Zerira settlement, built a beautiful synagogue and hid in it the Temple door.

The synagogue, called Al-Jeriba or Al-Ghriba, once had 60 ancient Torah scrolls.

The Djerba community worked in wool, fine metal, vineyards, precious stones and coral.

Genealogically speaking, there are interesting naming patterns. Male twins were always named Peretz and Zorach, female twins named Rebecca and Sarah, while twins of different sexes were called Isaac and Rebecca.

JTA had an interesting story on the Djerba pilgrimage.

Only about 2,000 of Tunisia's 10.8 million people are Jewish - half live in Djerba. Each year, they and many Tunisian Jews and their descendants who now live in other countries gather for the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai

According to the article, "a huge candelabrum called the Grande Menara is paraded down the street as women reach out to touch the multicolored silk scarves adorning it," and the right to ride next to it is auctioned off to the highest bidders.

The procession winds through the small village of Hara Sghira, home to oldest North African synagogue, Al-Ghriba, and the article says it recalls the memory of a legendary woman named La Ghriba -- Arabic for "the foreigner" -- who lived centuries ago on the island and hailed as a saint.

There is no direct flight between Israel and Tunisia, so Israelis must fly to a European city to take a flight to Tunis and then drive six hours through the desert. In 2000, some 9,000 pilgrims attended, but in 2002 a fatal terror attack brought the numbers to zero. The number of participants is now growing - 5,000 came - and there is heavy security.