New York: Balkan Jewish life exhibit, March 31

"Images of a Lost World: Pictures & Stories of Balkan Sephardic Life" will open at 6.30pm Thursday, March 31, at the Center for Jewish History, New York City.

Originally commissioned by the Foreign Ministry of Spain, it is funded by the Spanish Embassy (Washington, DC) and Casa Sefarad/Israel (Madrid), with the generous support of the Consulate General of Spain in New York. It is co-presented with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

It is based on family stories and pictures pulled from Centropa's archive of more than 200 interviews conducted in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Croatia. The pictures and stories take us back into the world of Balkan Sephardic Jewry in its last decades, and through these personal stories of going to school, falling in love and recalling family holidays, Jewish history comes to life.

A program follows, moderated by Edward Serotta, Director of Centropa.

Tickets: $12 General Admission/$8 ASF/YIVO members. Advance registration requested.

Jewish History: Do you know......?

What happened on June 24 in Jewish history?

Do you know about the Mortara affair in Italy, a British law requiring Jewish parents to support children who had become Protestant, a second exile from France, several massacres, Italian ghettos, a Hungarian residence tax, the Red Cross, or when Jews received full Polish citizenship?

This Day in Jewish History provides a great day-by-day list of such happenings. Today's list goes back to 1298, and covers events in Austria, France, England, Jamaica, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Russia, US, Turkey and Ukraine.

These events may help explain your family's movements to various countries at certain times, and clarify family stories handed down over the generations. I always find the site fascinating!

1298: Massacre of the Jews of Ifhauben, Austria.

1322: Charles IV of France expelled all the Jews from France without the promised one year's warning. This marked the second expulsion of the Jews from France.

1509: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon crowned King and Queen of England. There were no Jews living in England at this time. Henry’s father (Henry VII) had promised Catherine’s parents (the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella) that Jews would never be allowed the realm of the English monarchs. Thanks to the turmoil that Henry would create when he went to shed Catherine as his Queen and royal mate, small numbers of Marranos and crypto-Jews would be living in England by the end of the century.

1692: Founding of Kingston, Jamaica. By now, Jamaica was an English colony and Jews can practice their religion as opposed to their secret observance that had been the norm during Spanish rule. There were enough Jews living in Kingston that synagogues were reportedly opened in 1744 and 1787.

1648: In Tulczyn, Poland, an agreement between the 2,000 Jews and 600 Christians to defend the town at all costs succeeded in preventing the Cossacks from capturing the town. The Cossacks persuaded the Christians that they would let them go free if they would give them the Jews. The (furious) Jews were persuaded by the Rabbi that if they took revenge on the Poles other Jews would suffer. The gates were opened and most of the Jews killed. The Cossacks then turned on the Poles and killed most of them as well. For the most part, during the entire war the Poles and the Jews were uneasy allies against the Cossacks.

1702: In Great Britain an “Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children” took effect. This act of Parliament grew out of case involving Jacob de Mendez Berta and his daughter Mary who became a Protestant. According to one source, the father refused to continue to support his daughter after she converted and her newly adopted Protestant community did not want to shoulder the burden of her support. Hence, this legislation was adopted and would stay in effect until the middle of the 19th century.

1843: The Inquisitor of Ancona, Italy decreed that Jews may not live in any municipality where there was no ghetto.

1846: In Hungary, the residence tax was officially abolished. In order to have it cancelled the Jews had to pay a one-time fee of 1,200,000 florins.

1856: In Rome, a contingent of papal carabinieri “acting at the orders of the local Inquisitor, Father Pier Gaetan Feletti, took six year old Edgardo Mortara from his parent’s apartment because church officials discovered that Edgardo had been secretly baptized by a servant girls five years ago and that he could no longer “be raised in a Jewish household.” Thus began the scandal known as the Mortara Affair.

1873: In a sermon, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher gave the first public warning of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. Beecher was a fighter for social justice, an abolitionist and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1908: President Grover Cleveland died of heart failure. As President, Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Strauss envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey in 1887. In 1897 Cleveland vetoed an immigration bill that included a literacy test. The literacy test was a thinly veiled attempt to close the doors to immigrants including the wave of Jews coming from Eastern Europe. In 1903, Cleveland, who was by now former President, was the featured speaker at the New York City rally protesting the Kishinev Pogroms.

1918: Jacob Schiff of New York City protests against the Red Cross which has discriminated against Jews from Bulgaria and Turkey, Germany and Austro-Hungary. Red Cross stated Jews from these lands, or children who have fathers who were born in these lands cannot serve in the Red Cross.

1919: In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, France, Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski signed the Minorities Treaty that “awarded full civil, religious and political rights to all citizens of the new Poland, with the term ‘citizen’ applied broadly to all person either born or ‘habitually’ resident on Polish territory.” This meant that the Jews of Poland were guaranteed full citizenship in the newly reconstituted Poland ... opening the path to full citizenship for the Jews of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.

There's much more. See the link above.

Ladino Music: Romansas, folksongs CD

"Ladino Reflections" is a double CD set of Ladino romansas and folksongs, released by Hazzan Isaac Azose of Seattle.

Tracing the Tribe met Hazzan Ike in Seattle when visiting our Jassen family. He is a beloved friend of our family and of the Sephardic community.

For some 40 years, he has dedicated himself to the preservation of Mediterranean Sephardic traditions. Although he retired as the hazzan of the Sephardic Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, he wrote me that he's busier than ever with many projects on his desk. Think of the energizer bunny!

"Ladino Reflections" has been 20 years in dreaming and six months in production.

Hear the samples and find ordering information here. If you enjoy authentic Ladino music, this CD will make you happy.

Songs on the first CD:

Pasharo Dʼermozura, A La Una Yo Nasi, Alta Alta Es La Luna, Arvolikos Dʼalmendra, Durme Durme, Una Matika de Ruda, La Roza Enflorese, Yo Me Akodro Dʼakeya, Noche, Avre Este Abajour Bijou, Yo Tʼadmiro, Kuatro Anyos Dʼamor, La Serena, Sos Muy Ermoza, Los Kaminos de Sirkedji, Puncha Puncha, Eskalerika de Oro, Noches Noches

On the second CD:

Avre Tu Puerta Serrada, Adio Kerida, Ijika Dile a Tu Mama, Esta Montanya Dʼenfrente, Arvoles, Yorran Por Luvyas, La Vida Do Por El Raki, Misirlu, Morenika, El Dyo Alto, Mama Yo No Tengo Visto, Povereta Muchachika, Tres Ermanikas, Eran Siempre Te Ami, Avrij Mi Galanika, Por La Tu Puerta Yo Pasi, Porke Yorraj, Blanka Ninya, Kuando El Rey Nimrod

For ordering information ($28, includes $3 s&h/US orders only), click here.

Readers interested in Sephardic liturgy as sung at Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, should click here, listen to the samples and order this double CD ($23, includes $3 s&h/US orders only).

For international orders for the new CD or the liturgy CD, click here to contact Hazzan Azose.

Look at the calendar - Pesach isn't that far off. Want to learn the Sephardic melody and the Four Questions in Ladino? Click here.

Sephardim: Museum of Family History exhibits

The virtual Museum of Family History also has material for researchers of Sephardim.

-- Holocaust Memorials in Havana and Santa Clara, Cuba

-- Synagogues of Asia: Burma, China, Hong Kong, India, Lebanon, Singapore, Tajikistan, Turkey [Asian side].

--Synagogues of Turkey: (European side of Istanbul)

-- Synagogues of Spain. The photo at left is the El Transito Synagogue in Toledo.

-- Postcards from Home: Turkey

Museum creator Steve Lasky wishes to include more pre-war family photos. Readers with such photos are invited to contact Steve.

Bulgaria: Jewish surname dictionary online.

Bulgaria's Jewish community is a fascinating one and a new database on SephardicGen.com will help researchers of this mostly Sephardi community.

If your families of interest lived in Bulgaria at one time, search the Dictionary of Jewish Bulgarian Surnames at Jeff Malka's site, which offers extensive resources for Sephardi genealogists looking for information on family that lived in many countries.

With nearly 800 surnames - most found all over the Balkans - the details include the surname, its variants, its etymology (and original language), meaning and a reference to historical background in medieval Spain.

The notes on name origin are fascinating and offer a different perspective. Even if your family doesn't come from Bulgaria, the notes will help when looking at any list of Jewish Sephardi surnames.

Search with only the first letter of a name, unless you know the exact spelling; that's the simplest method. For example, enter "A," check "begins with," receive a list of all names beginning with A.

Unfortunately, only 10 at a time are shown and you'll have to keep hitting "next 10" to see the rest. I found that mildly annoying and wished for a way to choose how many names to display for each search. But the benefits of this database far outweigh the slight annoyance with having to click on succeeding screens.

Mathilde Tagger of Jerusalem wrote the introduction to the database at the link above. It includes the history of Jewish surnames in the former Ottoman Empire, information on various alphabets and spelling curiosities, in addition to a large bibliography for more information.

She writes that these surnames have been detailed in only three publications, which Tagger analyzes. They include Asher Moissi's booklet on Greek Jewish names, Baruch Pinto's Sephardic Onomasticon (mostly on Turkish Jews), and Isaac Moskona's 1967 article.

Moskona's list of 509 surnames was based on three sources (1895-1967), but gave meanings for fewer than half. Current research covers 798 surnames, and additional ones were found in the passports of Bulgarian Jews when they immigrated to Israel (1948-49). The passports are on microfilm in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (Jerusalem).

Where do Bulgarian Jewish surnames come from?

Take a look at this chronology of immigration into Bulgaria:

2nd century BCE: Romaniote Jews are recorded arriving after the destruction of the Second Temple. Their names are Hebrew or Greek.

1376: Hungarian Jews, without surnames, are expelled; some reach Bulgaria. They receive mostly Turkish nicknames.

1394: Some Jews are expelled from France and reach Bulgaria via the Danube River. Their names reflect places from where they came. (NOTE: Some may have been Jewish refugees from the 1391 riots across Spain who fled by going north into southern France.)

1470: Bavarian Jews are expelled by King Ludwig X, many settle in Bulgarian localities along the Danube and in Sofia, the capital. Few have surnames and receive mostly Turkish nicknames.

1492: Expelled Sephardim from Spain find safety in the Ottoman Empire and reach Bulgaria after 1494, settling in towns where Jews already lived. They soon became the majority and leaders of the community. Spanish Jewish surnames had Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese origins.

1493: Expelled Sicilian Jews reach the Ottoman Empire with Spanish and Italian names. (NOTE: Many Sicilian Jews are originally from Catalunya in Spain, who come to the Catalan-speaking island after the 1492 Expulsion. They thought they would be safe in Sicily, and they were - but only for one year and were expelled again in 1493. Most cross the Straits of Messina into Calabria.

1566-1574: Jewish immigrants from Calabria (southern Italy) arrived; many are descendants of Spanish Sephardim who went to Sicily following the 1492 Expulsion. They had Italian and Hebrew surnames.

Over the next 200 years: all Jews regardless of their origin (including the descendants of the Hungarian and German Jews) meld into the Sephardi community, with Ladino as their common language.

Late 19th-early 20th century: Ashkenazi Jews arrived from Ukraine, Romania and Russia, but the SephardicGen Bulgarian dictionary only includes Sephardi surnames.

Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire 1378-1878, so Turkish was a major influence on the Jewish community.

The introduction includes the quirky transliteration rules of Cyrillic, concerning the non-existent H (which became G in Russia and KH in Bulgaria), as well as letters with the sounds of SH, J, K

Istanbul: Jewish community records

Those with Jewish roots in Istanbul or other Turkish geographical connections will find this resource of interest, as will Sephardic researchers of surnames in many countries.

Music professor Daniel Kazez of Wittenburg University (Ohio) produced a major database of Istanbul's Jewish community records, with the cooperation and generosity of many individuals and organizations in that community. It was online for some time until privacy complaints took it offline.

There are some 100,000 Jewish records available, including more than 35,000 marriage records (Chief Rabbinate 1887-, Ashkenazi community, 1923-, Italian Congregation 1870s-), and some 30,000 burial records for the following cemeteries: Hemdat Israel 1899-, Italian burial list 1918-, Italian Şişli Cemetery 1800s-, Kuzguncuk Cemetery 1913-, Ortaköy Cemetery 1939-, Yuksekkaldirim Synagogue 1916-.

Remember also that there has been an Ashkenazi community in the city (formerly Constantinople) since the 14th century, that a very large number of Spanish Jews were invited following the 1492 Expulsion, that Crimean Jews were resettled there, that a large Italian Jewish community existed and that Istanbul welcomed many European Jews prior to the Holocaust.

The Istanbul Jewish community provided access to these precious records to enable translation from archaic handwriting (solitreo) and alphabets, by so many volunteers, who also typed and proofread them. Generous donors also funded the microfilming of records and converting them to digital images.

Consistent with Turkish privacy laws, the database is no longer publicly searchable. However, researchers can request a records search. Write to the Istanbul Chief Rabbinate's Office to request a search. In your email, include the following: 1) details on the person about whom you seek information (surname, given name, approximate birth year, names of parents or children) and 2) how you are related to the person about whom you seek information. Allow a week for a response.

For more information on these names, check out the searchable databases at Jeff Malka's SephardicGen and the name search engine at Harry Stein's Sephardim.com.

At Dan's site (link above) see all the names in the database, organized by frequency of records for each name, ranging from 4,332 for Levi, down to only one instance for thousands of names.

The complete list of names demonstrates the diversity of the community with names from Spain, Italy, across the Mediterranean and from Europe.

Here's a section of the most frequently mentioned surnames:

4332 LEVI, 3802 BEHAR, 2269 KOHEN, 2214 ESKENAZI, 1516 MIZRAHI, 1087 KOEN, 841 BARUH, 549 MENASE, 481 SARFATI, 479 FRANKO, 470 MITRANI, 449 KAMHI, 438 PINTO, 434 FRESKO, 432 OJALVO, 406 TOLEDO, 402 GABAY, 393 BAROKAS, 388 MESULAM, 364 PARDO, 360 ESK., 342 HASON, 341 YERUSALMI, 337 BENEZRA, 329 NAHMIAS, 324 ROMANO, 312 DANON, 308 OVADYA, 307 CIPRUT, 293 SALOM, 292 HABIB, 288 VARON, 281 GERSON, 279 PINHAS, 277 RAZON, 275 BICACI, 272 NAMER, 270 LEON, 268 RUSO, 262 ARDITI, 256 ANCEL, 255 VENTURA, 253 GERON, 251 ABUAF, 251 SABAN, 248 AMON, 242 HALFON, 240 KARAKO, 233 AZUZ, 228 ADATO, 228 ALFANDARI, 225 FARHI, 223 KASTORYANO, 220 UZIEL, 218 ELNEKAVE, 218 PAPO, 215 GALIMIDI, 215 TARAGANO, 213 ACIMAN, 209 PEREZ, 205 BERAHA, 203 KRESPI, 203 YANNI, 202 SEVI, 201 BENSASON, 195 MOLHO, 193 NASI, 188 RODRIG, 187 MALKI, 186 BAHAR, 184 ASEO, 183 AMRAM, 182 SAUL, 182 TREVES, 180 BENBASAT, 180 CUKRAN, 180 KORDOVA, 179 SASON, 177 SEVILYA, 176 NAHUM, 176 NATAN, 174 HATEM, 173 BALI, 168 SALTI, 167 KANETI, 166 ROMI, 154 MAYA, 152 KATALAN, 151 FIS, 150 MENDA, 148 KAZES, 148 YAHYA, 147 ADUT, 147 MOTOLA, 143 SURUJON, 141 KARMONA, 140 HAZAN, 139 GOLDENBERG, 138 SARANGA, 137 MATALON, 135 MEDINA, 133 FUNES, 133 NIEGO, 132 ALTARAS, 130 GRUNBERG, 130 TOVI, 129 ALMALEH, 129 ASA, 129 BABANI, 129 YAES, 127 BARZILAY, 127 ELI, 127 YOHAY, 126 MORENO, 126 RODITI, 123 HAYON, 122 KONFINO, 121 LEVY, 121 ZAKUTO, 118 CIVRE, 118 ROFE, 117 BENVENISTE, 117 KALAONRA, 117 PALACI, 117 ROZANES, 116 ALBUKREK, 116 BICACO, 116 COHEN, 116 DUENYAS, 116 PENSO, 115 HODARA, 115 KARIO, 115 POLIKAR, 114 FILIBA, 114 PALOMBO, 113 AVIGDOR, 113 MORHAYIM. ...

The list also includes a very long list of names which appear only once or twice in the records. Here are some which appear only once (a section of the As and an ending section). The records were hard to decipher and produced various interpretations of the old handwriting and alphabets (see many names with question marks):

AADATO, AARDEAN?, ABAH LEVI, ABAH? IMANU?, ABALAFYA, ABARBANEL, ABARESE?, ABARESI, ABARGI, ABAT, ABAT LEVI, ABATA, ABATLEVI, ABAUAF, ABAUKSEK, ABAYARA, ABCHEM, ABDALLA, ABDULLA?, ABDULLARHIM, ABDURAHMAN, ABEH, ABEHAR, ABEL, ABEN COIR, ABEN HABIB, ABEN HABIP, ABEN-HABIB, ABENDAVID, ABENDAVIT, ABENHALUP, ABENI ALAR, ABENI? (ALLELU? ALBENI?), ABENI? (ZENA)?, ABENSEL, ABENSSUSAN, ABERSMUKLER, ABGIN, ABIBOCHE, ABIGADOL (AVIGDOR), ABILDA, ABINOLI, ABJANAK?, ABLAMAN, ABLU, ABN? ALU? ISAK, ABOAF?, ABOCHONEETS?, ABODARA, ABOIF, ABOLOFYA, ABOLOFYA, GIBIGILI, ABORESE, ABORESI?, ABORESSI, ABOROSI, ABOUD?, ABOUF, ABOUHAIRE, ABOUKSEK, ABOUREU, ABRAAM, ABRAHAM OF KAVALALI, ABRAM, ABRAMO, ABRAMOVIC [ABRAMOVIÇ], ABRAMOW, ABRAMOWITS, ABRASAV, ABRAVANOL, ABRAVONEL, ABRAVRYA, ABRAYA, ABRENAYA, ABREUAYA, ABREUNAEL, ABREUYA, ABREVANET, ABREVAYA?, ABREVAZA?, ABRICHAMTCHI, ABRISAMETCI, ABUAF (HALON?), ABUAFOGLU, ABUAGLEAG, ABUALAF, ABUAT, ABUB (KHAJ), ABUCI, ABUDAR, ABUH, ABUHAIR, ABUISAK CICEKOGLU, ABUIZAN, ABULHAYRE, ABUMOMY?, ABUOF, ABUOUS, ABURDARAM, ABUT?, BARISAK?, ABUTBUL, ABUZAK, ACAMI, ACAR M, ACAR [AÇAR], ACATON, ACCHIOTI, ACCO?, ACEM, ACEMI?, ACHIOTE, ACHIOTTI, ACHITUF, ACHTER, ACIBEL, ACIBIL, ACIKBAS?, ACIL ACUBEL, ACIMAL?, ACIMAN YORGI MALGOCI, ACIMAY, ACIMON, ACINAN, ACITTONE, ACLYON?, ACUBEL (LEVIN), ACUBEL / ALUBEL, ACUBEL B. .....?, ACUDUR, ACUNAN, ADALAR?, ADALMI, ADALO, ADAMAL, ADAR, ADATO HAKER, ADATO PINHAS, ADATO SEMUEL, ADATOS, ADATOZ, ADE TOLEDO, ADEFINA?, ADEM (ADONI), ADENADUT, ADENI, ADES, ADETO, ADETOLEDO ...

YOHAY? YOHAZ?, YOHAZ?, YOHEY, YOL, YOLAD, YOLAK, YOLAP, YOLMAN, YOM LEVI, YONATAN?, YONAYOF, YONCOLGU?, YONNEZ?, YOOFA?, YORDAN, YORGANC OGLU / YORGANCOGLU, YORGANCIOGLU, YORGI MALGOCI, YORGOF?, YORKIN?, YOROHON, YOSEFOVIC, YOSEFOWITZ, YOSELEVIC, YOTAN, YOUR?, YOURKOVITZKI, YOZEF, YSAYA, YSRAEL, YUCAEM?, YUCAER, YUCEL?, YUDA? EZRA?, YUDELZON, YUDIT, YUFAN, YUGSAG, YUKARDI, YUKBATTI, YUKCU?, YUKEN, YUKLEKIN KALMAN, YUKSEKYILDIZ, YULA?(HASON), YULBAHAR, YULCU, YULER SEN, YULNIHAL, YULSEN, YUMER, YUMMIT TALAROWITZ, YUMUSTAS, YUNA?, YUNAY, YUNCEK?, YUNCI, YUNER, YUNIS KABAZ?, GUMUS MAKAZ?, YUNLU, YUNUS, YUNUSOF, YURIDA, YURKOVESKAYA, YURUK?, YUSELBERG, YUSUF, YUZUGULER?, YVASSMER?, YVNER, ZABAR?, ZABARO, ZABES?, ZABIT, ZABRANESKY, ZABUAN, ZABURI?, ZACCOUM, ZACHAROFF, ZAFERA, ZAFFIRA, ZAFIRA, ZAGARI, ZAGUTO, ZAHAHIYE, ZAHAR, ZAHARI, ZAHAROF, ZAHARYA LAZARI?, ZAHNAN?, ZAHURI?, ZAHUTO, ZAKALON, ZAKAT? TAKAT?, ZAKHAIM, ZAKMITZ, ZAKODA, ZAKOVALOF, ZAKUTO (DE), ZAKUTO LEVI, ZAKUYTO, ZALIA?, ZALMAN (FANRA)?, ZALMEN, ZALUNA?, ZALVISA, ZAMBAKA, ZAMBUKO, ZAMLOF, ZAMLOKA?, ZANANA, ZANARRO, ZANBOKA, ZANDLER, ZANDOKABO?, ZANDOKADO?, ZANGURSKI, ZANONO, ZANUNU, ZAPDIDISVILI, ZAPOZ, ZAPOZ?, ZARA, NARDEA, ZARAGANO, ZARAO, ZARCHIN, ZARKO (ALPDOGRUL?), ZARKON (SAULYA), ZARKOZ, ZAROCH, ZAROF, ZARY?, ZASKEWITSCH, ZASKIOVIC [ZASKIOVIÇ], ZAVARRO (YALDIZLI?), ...

Additionally, there is an alphabetical list of given names.

Readers may find the spellings difficult to understand. Note that C=SH (CIPRUT=SHIPRUT), that Y=I (YSAYA=ISAYA), and other common variants, such as ABEN=BEN. Some individuals with very Hebrew surnames may have adopted more Turkish-sounding names.

Do check the complete list of names at the first link above.

New York: Jews in the Turkic World

Although Tracing the Tribe missed reporting on this conference earlier, readers should know about such events which shed light on relatively unknown Jewish communities.

On November 23, the Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) and Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) joined the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), the "Turk of America" magazine and the Uzbek Initiative organized a one-day symposium on "Jewish Identity in the Turkic World," at New York's Center for Jewish History.

Note that Azerbaijan was part of Iran and that Farsi is spoken there as well as Azeri, a Turkic language. Additionally, the city of Baku was famous for its oil production in the early 20th century, and many of our ancestors from Belarus (including some of mine) and elsewhere, moved there to work in the new industry.

The region is also important as many Russian Jews were evacuated to Uzbekistan and other areas at the time of WWII. Each of these Jewish communities had indigenous Sephardic components as well as Ashkenazi communities.

For centuries, the Jewish peoples have lived in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and other parts of the Turkic world. Tens of thousands of "Sephardi Jews" lived in present-day Turkey since 1492, when Ottoman Turks provided shelter and acceptance to the Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition. One of the largest Azeri-speaking communities in America are the Mountain Jews. They settled in Azerbaijan over two millennia ago and tens of thousands of them continue to live in northern parts of Azerbaijan today, enjoying prosperity and acceptance. The Bukharian Jews of Uzbekistan thrived in this region for 2500 years in an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect.

The program included speakers representing the Jewish communities of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

Jews in Turkey: History and Presence

David Saltzman (Turkish Coalition of America)
Yildiz Yuksek Blackstone (President, Luca Luca)
Alan R. Cordova (Columbia University):
"Sephardi Jewish history in Rhodes and Marmara region "

Jewish Heritage in the Turkic World

Sergei Weinstein (International Charity Fund of Mountain Jews):
"Islam and Judaism in Russia"
Rashbil Shamayev (Azerbaijani Jewish Community):
"Azerbaijani Jewish community relations with Azerbaijan"
Farkhod Muradov (Uzbek Initiative):
"Bukharian Jewish Congress of the U.S. and Canada"

Art, Music & Film Industry

Barry Habib (Broadway producer, "Rock of Ages")
Victoria Barrett (filmmaker):
"Desperate Hours," Screening and Talk on the role Turkish diplomats played in saving thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Habib and Blackstone spoke about their life experiences. Paintings by Stass Shpanin were displayed along with the copies of historical documents from the Ottoman Archives which illustrated Ottoman-Jewish historical relations.

The conference was also co-sponsored by the International Charity Fund of Mountain Jews (STMEGI), the Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TACCI), the Bukharian Jewish Community of the US and Canada, the Turkish American Action Committee and "Kavkaz" Jewish Youth Center.

For more information, click here.

France: New issue, Sephardic gen journal

The new issue of ETSI, the Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Review is now out.

Among the articles:

-- In "An unfulfilled dream - The saga of Anusim families." Raphael Benghiat traces the history of the previous owners of Montfavier castle in the Gironde, France. It likely belonged to Jews of the Bordeaux and Bayonne area, where many New Christians (Conversos, Anousim) settled.

-- Laurence Abensur-Hazan explores the 1841 fire which partially destroyed Smyrna, Turkey. The Jewish residents were the ones most affected by this catastrophe.

-- There's also a book review of the recently published "Tanger, entre Orient et Occident." The Jews of Tangier (Morocco) were never required to live in a specific geographic area. The book details many aspects of this community, such as Jewish businesses, the city's first Freemason society, and provides information on the Fuente Nueva quarter where many Jews lived.

To see the indexes for this and past issues, click here. For membership information, click here. Here's more about ETSI:

"Etsi" (my tree, in Hebrew) is the first Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Society, founded in 1998 in Paris by: Mrs Laurence Abensur-Hazan, Anne-Marie Rychner-Faraggi, Lucette Marques-Toledano, Mr Sidney Pimienta, Jimmy Pimienta, Philip Abensur, Claude Missistrano

The purpose of "Etsi" is to help people interested in Jewish Genealogical and Historical Research in the Sephardi World. "Etsi"'s field of study covers the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Egypt...), North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia), Spain, Portugal, Italy and Gibraltar. The study of every Sephardi community or family who lived in other regions is equally within the society's aim.

The objective of the founders is to create an international exchange forum for genealogists and historians interested in research into the Sephardi world.

"Etsi" supports and encourages all research work on Sephardi Genealogy and History, especially archives records, cemeteries records, ketubbot (Jewish marriage contracts) and circumcisions registers inventories.

To obtain this issue or back issues of ETSI, contact Philip Abensur in Paris, France.

Turkey: A Ladino newspaper

Tablet Magazine has a story by Robin Cembalest on a Ladino newspaper in Turkey that is seeing a revival.

At the bottom of this post, also see Tracing the Tribe's note about "Mountain Spanish" still spoken in northern New Mexico (and elsewhere) by the descendants of the old families who arrived at the end of the 16th century.

Read A New Dawn here.

Ladino or Judeo-Spanish was brought to Turkey post-1492 Expulsion by the Jewish refugees from Spain. For Tracing the Tribe's Ashkenazi readers, think of it as the Sephardic equivalent of Yiddish. Both Jewish languages created literature, poetry, music and other hallmarks of history and culture.

When Sephardim arrived in New York in the early 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews didn't believe they were Jewish because they didn't speak Yiddish - they never knew that Ladino was a major hallmark throughout Jewish history.

Ladino nearly died as a result of numerous factors. Ladino-speakers and Yiddish-speakers alike were decimated by the Holocaust as just one reason.

The average age of native Ladino speakers is at least 70, according to Karen Gerson Sarhon, coordinator of the city’s Ottoman-Turkish Sephardic Culture Research Center and editor of El Amaneser (The Dawn), one of the world’s few remaining Judeo-Spanish periodicals, when I reached her office. “Ladino is dying,” she told me matter-of-factly in English, before switching at my request to Judeo-Spanish. I was surprised how much I understood. “Now more people are interested in learning the language,” she added, “but it’s too late. It’s more feasible to learn modern Spanish—and Spanish gives them access to their heritage.”

The editor noted that in the 1970s, it was expected that Ladino would have disappeared in 10-15 years. In the 1980s, Turkey allowed freedom on traveling abroad, and its Jewish population realized that with Ladino they could communicate in Spanish-speaking countries. The 500th anniversary of the Expulsion brought Sephardic scholars to Turkey, and raised awareness of Ladino - and acceptability - to the community.

The research center opened in December 2003, to research, archive, and transmit the language, music, and history of Turkish Jewry, a difficult task because very little was written down. Another problem was that Ladino switched from the Hebrew Rashi alphabet (called solitreo) to the Latin alphabet in the 1920s.

Only a handful of people can still read the old alphabet, which makes genealogical research difficult in Turkey, as the records were written in solitreo.

Today's El Amaneser was founded in 2005. Ladino publishing began in 1842 with Izmir's La buena esperansa. During the period between WWI and WWII, more than 300 Ladino periodicals were published in Turkey and the Balkans. In the 1920s, some 85% of Turkish Jews said Ladino was their mother tongue, although even then, the article states, it was dying. It was supplanted by Western Europe's language of culture French and then by Turkish in 1923.

The new government promoted Turkish and suppressed Kurdish. Ladino was not suppressed, but according to scholars, the community itself helped to suppress it.

In Eastern Europe, where scholars were promoting Yiddish literature and education, Turkish Jews felt Ladino was backward and didn't transmit it down the line. Says Gerson Sarhon, because the Jews were notorious for speaking Turkish with horrible accents, they thought they should give up Ladino and assimilate with Turkish.

In this century, at a time when Yiddish continues to be used as the primary language in chasidic households around the globe, Ladino has “lost its function in the home,” said Gerson Sarhon, who wrote two master’s theses—in social psychology and applied linguistics—on Judeo-Spanish.

Jews today who are 50-70 years old, learned Ladino from their fluent parents who spoke it at home. Those who are younger may have learned it from their grandparents or not at all.

Gerson Sarhon is heading an effort to record the vanishing generation of native speakers and post sound files to the Internet as part of a study to analyze vocabulary and accent. As a lead singer in the Los Pasharos Sefardis musical group, she also documents Turkish Jewry's musical traditions.

The center has already published a new book on Turkish synagogues, although it focuses on publishing the monthly El Amaneser and the Salom weekly (in Ladino until 1983's switch to Turkish). Salom also prints a monthly Ladino supplement with some 4,000 subscribers. Amaneser goes to readers in Turkey, and also to Spain, China, Latin America and the Philippines.

While Salom publishes hard news—mostly stories from the Diaspora that don’t necessarily make it into the local papers—Amaneser provides a space for community news, history lessons, book and film reviews, memoirs, short stories, and recipes, many of them sent in by readers from all over the world and edited by the mostly female, mostly volunteer staff.

Along with the features and stories, ranging from music to recipes, each issue spotlights a transliteration of the Rashi (Hebrew character alphabet) with a Judeo-Turkish proverb. The example given is No ay koza ke trae yoro al mundo kuanto el vino (“Nothing makes the world cry more than wine”), from a Ladino commentary on the Torah published in the 18th century.

The article also covers an excellent interview by Gerson Sarhon with Spanish scholar Paloma Díaz-Mas who specializes in Sephardic culture.

Still, Díaz Mas comments, the revival highlights the way people use language to define their cultural and ethnic identity. The new generation, she says, is looking for a connection to the language “that identifies them as Sephardim, not only among non-Jews but among Jews of other origins.”

Read the complete article at the link above. To hear spoken Ladino, listen to this podcast with author Marcel Cohen ("In Search of a Lost Ladino: Letter to Antonio Saura")

[NOTE: In northern New Mexico, the descendants of Converso settlers who arrived as early as the late 16th century, still speak "Mountain Spanish." In reality, it is 16th century Ladino, and scholars who have visited them have been amazed at how well the language has been transmitted down through the generations. When people move away from that area, they need to learn modern Spanish, as those who speak the old language are considered uneducated. If they only knew.... El Amaneser might want to send some copies to northern New Mexico and see what happens. I will suggest that to my northern New Mexico friends.]

Atlanta: Turkish Jewish history, Oct. 12-23

Turkish Jewish history includes both Sephardic and Ashkenazi elements. The majority of Sephardim arrived after the 1492 Expulsion from Spain, while the small Ashkenazi community dates to the 14th century.

During October, an exhibit and lecture program will be sponsored by Georgia State University's Middle East Institute, Department of Religious Studies and Program in Jewish Studies.

"Under Vine and Fig Tree: 500 Years of Turkish Jewish History" will run from October 12-23, and will show images of artifacts and treasures from the Quincentennial Foundation Museum of Turkish Jews in Istanbul.

When Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism were expelled from Spain, Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II invited them to come to the Ottoman Empire, where some rose to prominent Ottoman Empire positions.

Some of the images in the exhibit will include that of the decree of Sultan Abdülmecid I in the 19th century railing against the “blood libel” that incited anti-Semitic beliefs across Europe and led to atrocities against Jews, as well as a menorah shaped as a minaret.

There will also be a lecture on Jewish contributions to Turkish society with Kennesaw State associate history professor Catherine Lewis, at 7pm October 20. The lecture, at Atlanta's Congregation Or VeShalom, is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending should RSVP.

Exhibit co-sponsors include the Istanbul Center, Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum and the Southeast US Consulate General of Israel.

Turkey: Ancient synagogue remains found

JTA reported that the remains of an ancient synagogue were found on Turkey's southern coast.

The story indicated that the report was in the Turkish daily paper Zaman, and that this was the first evidence of a Jewish presence in Anriake, a port city in Lycia.

Akdeniz University archaeology professor Nevzat Çevik was quoted: "We're adding another layer to what we know of Lycian culture. Now that we know that there was a Jewish presence in Lycia as well, we can follow this path and better understand other finds.”

Tracing the Tribe now has another dimension!

Turkey: The plight of the Doenmeh

If you've been curious about the contemporary descendants of the followers of false messiah Shabbetai Zvi, this book review will explain about today's Turkish doenmeh.

"A Scapegoat for All Seasons: The Doenmeh or Crypto-Jews of Turkey" (Isis Press, 400pgs, $45) is by Rifat Bali, and the review is by Dan Yardeni in Haaretz.

Three and a half centuries ago, a young, charismatic rabbi, Shabbetai Zvi, declared himself to be the Messiah and promised that the Jewish people would soon be redeemed and would return to Palestine, the ancestral Jewish homeland.

Masses of Jews believed in him, and the events of that epoch, which are among the most turbulent in Jewish history, culminated in tragedy: In 1668, forced by the Ottoman sultan to choose between death and conversion to Islam, Shabbetai Zvi opted for the latter.

Although most of his disciples abandoned him after his conversion, several thousand emulated their leader by outwardly accepting, though they continued to see themselves as Jews.

The historical and theological aspects of this episode in Jewish history have been extensively discussed by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, including Gershom Scholem. However, little is known about the present-day descendants of the Sabbateans.

A distinguished scholar who writes about Ottoman Empire Jewish life, Rifat Bali covers hundreds of historical documents depicting the past and present of the Doenmeh, along with personal testimony by today's doenmeh.

The book describes the status and history of the Sabbateans in contemporary Turkish society.

"Doenmeh" translates as "convert" in a pejorative sense. They refer to themselves, however as ma'aminim (believers, Hebrew). They are the Turkish version of Crypto-Jews, who willingly converted to Islam but also see themselves as Jews.

The present generation may well be the last one to retain the fragmented memories of the living members of this sect. A Doenmeh friend of mine told me his father had informed him that his father's mother used to go to the beach every Friday to recite a prayer in Ladino. My friend's father remembered only
the phrase "Esperano a-te" (I will wait for you [O Messiah]).

Bali covers their attempts to assimilate into Turkish society, and younger members who are trying to return to the Jewish people.

Both are motivated by increasing anti-Semitism in Turkey, and lessening of Kemal Ataturk prestige. While not proven, evidence supports the theory.

Bali also refers to various conspiracy theories that seem to blame Jews for Turkey's problems, and discusses the Doenmeh preventing Turkey from aligning with Hitler. As rulers of Turkey, the Doenmeh knew that it wouldn't be good if Nazis entered the country.

By 1720, the ma'aminim were divided into three subsects: Karkash, Yakubi and Kapandji.

Most of today's Doenmeh are descendants of 20,000 Doenmeh residents of Salonica who were exiled to Turkey in the 1920s as part of a population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Their exile came in the wake of a ruling of that city's rabbis, who refused to recognize them as Jews, something that would have allowed them to remain in Greece as a minority. The historical irony of that decision is that it actually saved their lives; nearly every member of the Jewish community of Salonica was ultimately annihilated in Auschwitz or Majdanek.

The review goes on to include a moving letter written by a Doenmeh friend of Yardeni, describing the plight of the Sabbeteans today.

Read the complete review at the link above,

Los Angeles: Sephardic music, Nov. 16

Voices of the East is a concert of Sephardic, Persian, Turkish and Moroccan Jewish music, at Stephen S. Wise Temple, 7pm, Sunday, November 16.

I'm glad to report that the line up includes:

- Hazzan Nathan Lam
- Pini Cohen
- Hazzan Haim Mizrahi (Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel), and
- The Valley Beth Shalom Choir under the direction of Dr. Noreen Green,

Importantly our cousins Hazzan Farid Dardashti (Beth El Congregation, New Rochelle, NY), and his daughter Galeet Dardashti, leader of then Mizrahi group Divahn will perform.

Tickets are $25. For more information, email sephardicconference@huc.edu.

The concert was made possible by a Milkin Family Foundation Grant, and is part of the Sephardic & Mizrahi Studies conference in conjunction with UCLA and USC.

Turkey: Jewish Culture Day

All over Europe, Jewish communities in more than 30 countries celebrated the European Day of Jewish Culture on the first Sunday in September. This year's theme was music.

It was celebrated for the sixth time in Istanbul, according to this story.

Among the programs were a simulation of a traditional Jewish wedding. Programs on Jewish historical and cultural heritage were held in Galata Square, which was the 19th-early 20th century Jewish residential area.

The Neve Shalom, Italian and Ashkenazi synagogues were open to the general public.

Some 11 concerts were performed during the day, including Turkish-Sephardic music, Klezmer music, and liturgical music. These included Turkish composer/pianist Tuluyhan Uğurlu and Israel-born percussionist/composer Yinon Muallem's ensemble.

Neve Shalom Synagogue was the setting of a Jewish wedding. The bride and groom, Cenk and Izzet Rofe, who were celebrating their first anniversary, re-enacted their ceremony.

First the groom's family came forward with religious hymns being sung in the background. Then the bride entered holding her father's hand. The groom signed the marriage contract and gave the wedding ring to the bride's father. After the marriage, the groom stepped on a glass.

The couple stood under the chuppah (wedding canopy) while rabbis sang hymns in Hebrew and, at the end, the couple and their families turned their backs to the crowd and showed their respect to a scroll of their holy book, the Torah, which was rolled up and placed behind a door that was in turn covered by a curtain under the Star of David.

Jewish artists held exhibits in several places: Neve Shalom Cultural Center, Schneidertempel Art Center, the Quincentennial Foundation and the Jewish Museum of Turkey.

Jewish history lectures included "The Star of David in Anatolia," by Ersin Alok, and "A Musical Search for Jewish Identity and Its Expression in the Diaspora," by Cem Mansur and Cihat Aşkın.

A conference hosted by Mesut Ilgım, who has been researching Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's 1933 university reforms and the contribution of German-Jewish scientists to Turkish universities after their escape from the Nazi regime in Germany, documented a short history of these scientists' lives in Turkey.

Sephardim in Vienna - Records and Graves - UPDATE

The Birth Register of the Vienna Turkish (Sephardic) Community has been completely indexed and is now online, thanks to Mathilde Tagger in Jerusalem. Many of these surnames originate in the Ottoman Empire, such as Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Some were Ashkenazi, adds Tagger.

Data includes register page and row number, birth date, baby's surname/given names, sex, single birth/twin, both parents' surnames/given names, mother's birth dates/place, midwife's/mohel's full names. Some 1,440 births and some 4,650 individuals are named in these records.

The marriage register will be online soon, according to Tagger, with information on bride, groom, fathers and grandfathers. There are some 10,000 individuals in both the birth and marriage registers.

The searchable database is here. For more SephardicGen.com databases, click here.

In the SephardicGen introduction to this new database:

According to article #1 of the Passarowitz Peace Treaty signed between Charles VI, the Austrian Emperor and the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed Khan in 1718, free sojourn was granted to the respective subjects of the two countries. This is how Turkish Jews began to enjoy unrestricted movement in Austria. This regulation was again confirmed in the Peace Treaty of Belgrade in 1739.

Moses Lopez Pereira, also know as Baron Diego Pereira D'Aguilar, (Portugal 1699 - London, August 10 1759), held the tobacco monopoly in Austria from 1725 till 1747. Baron of the Holy Roman Empire, d’Aguilar enjoyed the greatest freedom of belief, and was the founder of the Spanish or Turko-Jewish community in Vienna. He succeeded in obtaining many concessions for the relief of his oppressed fellow worshippers.

The community was called “Turkish” because most of its members were indeed from Turkey. Its origins have to be placed in the years 1740-1750, when the Sephardim asked for a synagogue. The earliest Sephardic Jews living in Vienna had the following surnames: Camondo, Nissim, Eskenasy, Amar, De Mayo, Benveniste etc.

Austrian authorities published a document fixing the community's statutes in June 1778; known as Punkten (German) or Los Puntos (Ladino). Austria required the Turkish Jews to register birth, marriages and death. In 1909, the Turkish Community officially became a part of Vienna's Jewish community.

During Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass, November 9-10, 1938) the Turkish synagogue building and books were destroyed. Most of Austria's Jews perished in concentration camps.

The Family History Library (FHL) has recently added microfilms to their Jewish records in Vienna collection. One is titled "Turkische Israelitengemeinde – The Turkish Jewish Community."

For pictures of Sephardic gravestones, go to London researcher Celia Male's site, which holds 51 images, including maps, of Sephardic Graves - Vienna, Zentralfriedhof, which she photographed and researched.

In her photographs of Wahringer Cemetery, opened when the old Jewish cemetery was closed in 1784. "All inner-city cemeteries were closed for health reasons," she writes. Wahringer was then closed in 1879, when Zentralfriedhof opened.

Male has just sent me an update on her site, writing that there are 152 pictures and she is adding births and other data to the photos, as a sort of pictorial history.

To see the genealogy information related to a deceased's family, Male gives two examples: click here and here.

Additionally, she has also discovered a few links to photographs from other individuals who have found relatives' graves in her photographs.

The following family names are represented in Wahringer Cemetery:

ABINERI, ADOUT, ADUTT, ALBACHARY, ALBALAG, ALBINERI, ALFANDARI, ALKALAY, ALKANY, ALMULY, ALTARAC, ALTARAS, AMAR, ARDITI, ASCOLI, ASRAEL, BAZAR, BENMAJOR, BENSEF, BENVENISTI, BENZION, CAMONDO, CARMONA, CHAMEIDAS, CHARMATZ, COEN, COHEN, CONFINO, DANON, DAVID, DOMAJO, ELIAS, EPHRAIM, EPHRUSSI, EPRIM, ESKENASY, FARCHY, FINZI, GENTILI, GILIBAN, GISKON, HAIM, HAIES, HALFON, HASSAN, KALDERON, KAMCHI, KAPON, LEON, LEWE, LEWY, LEVI, De MAJO, MAJOR, NADLER, NACHMIAS, NISSIM, PARDO, RAPPOPORT, ROSANIS, ROSSANI, RUSSO, SABETEY, SALOMON, SEGALLO, SEMO, Del SOTTO, VENTURA, VENEZIAN, and WIDIUM.

Yad Vashem: Arabic website to launch

Yad Vashem has announced that its Arabic Website will be launched January 24, in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Its Farsi website was launched in 2007.

During 2007, some 7 million people from more than 200 countries visited Yad Vashem, some 56,000 from Muslim countries, including 32,500 from Arab countries.

The event will begin at 11 a.m. with a panel discussion, "The Holocaust and the Arab World," with academics, journalists and others. It will be in Hebrew with simultaneous translation into English and Arabic.

The site:

will include the historical narrative of the Holocaust, concepts from the Holocaust, academic articles, artifacts, maps, photos, archival documents and an online video testimony resource center all translated into Arabic, as well as a special multimedia presentation of the Auschwitz Album, with Arabic narration, stories of Righteous Among the Nations- including Muslims from Turkey and Albania- and the movie We Were There, which documents a joint visit of Arabs and Jews to Auschwitz. The site also contains information on the study of Arabic in Theresienstadt, and the Yad Vashem exhibit, "BESA: A Code of Honor: Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust."

Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said

“The Arabic speaking public is substantial, and providing an easily accessible and comprehensive website about the Holocaust in Arabic is crucial. In light of the Holocaust denial and antisemitism that we are witness to in Arabic countries, we want to offer an alternative source of information to moderates in these countries, to provide them with reliable information about the Shoah.”

Turkey: Danger to shrine of followers of Sabbetai Tzvi

A great article from The Forward focuses on the little-known doenmeh community in Turkey. The doenmeh are descendants of the followers of Sabbetai Tzvi, a 17th-century false messiah who converted to Islam under threat of death in 1666.

An unknown number of doenmeh descendants -- perhaps thousands -- live in Turkey, and secretly follow their customs and traditions.

Tzvi had seemingly convinced about a third of Europe's Jews that he was the messiah, and his followers began arriving in Turkey at his urging. The sultan was miffed at this invasion and threatened Tzvi, who converted. He lost much of his following at that point, although some adherents adopted Islam for their exterior lives while keeping their faith in Tzvi.

Doenmeh means "turncoat," which is pejorative like "marrano" (pig), a term sometimes used when speaking of Sephardic crypto-Jews. The members of the community, however, call themselves ma'aminim (believers), and in English they are known as Sabbateans. Their commitment to Tzvi didn't die out even after he died in 1676.

There were subsequent messiahs - largely forgotten men like Baruchiah Russo and Jacob Frank - and, as recent scholarship has shown, Sabbateanism greatly influenced the 18th-century emergence of Hasidism. And then there are the doenmeh, who live on until the present day, in secretive communities, at first primarily in Salonika and today almost entirely in present-day Turkey.

Now, however, there is a plan to destroy the building in Izmir (formerly Smyrna) where Tzvi may have lived.

Over the years, most of the doenmeh assimilated into Islam; many more were annihilated during the Holocaust, and still more have, in modern-day Turkey, come to see their background as a curious but largely irrelevant heritage. But even those who did assimilate usually maintained some knowledge of their ancestry, and doenmeh were among the founders of the secular Turkish republic.

The existence of this community is not a well-kept secret in Turkey, but no one speaks about these people who are, according to the article's author, considered traitors by both Muslims and Jews.

The doenmeh who spoke to the Forward about his heritage was unwilling to use his real name.

Is the disintegrating building at 920 Agora Girisi in an old Jewish neighborhood really Tzvi's house? Dr. Cengiz Sisman, an expert on Sabbateanism who received his doctorate from Harvard University, has turned up substantial evidence to that effect.

The article says that Sabbateanism was the first Jewish movement to put women in leadership positions, that Israeli presidents Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Zalman Shazar were both scholars of Sabbateanism, and that "Theodor Herzl’s opponents labeled him a 'new Sabbetai Tzvi.'"

Istanbul: 100,000 records now online

Daniel Kazez of Ohio and his volunteers have put marriage, death and burial records from Istanbul online. The records now number nearly 100,000. The search engine at his Web site includes both Sephardic and Ashkenazi records dating back to the late 1800s.

The records include a treasure trove of data.

To work with the records, click here.

Flamenco's Jewish roots

If you've ever listened to the haunting strains of flamenco and heard what you believe are Jewish connections, you aren't wrong.

According to this article, flamenco has deep Jewish roots in addition to Indian, Greek, Roman and Persian influences.

The article begins with the art form's Indian roots, brought by Gypsies who traveled from northwest India to Pakistan and Persia into 14th-15th-century Europe and into Andalucia in southern Spain. Some historians say the music's debut might have been as early as 711 CE, brought by Arab armies coming from North Africa.

Andalucian music is an amalgam of Arabic music with Hindu, Greek, Hebrew, Persian influences with local folk music and dances dating back to Phoenician and Roman times.

Following the Spanish recapture of Granada - and the conversion and expulsion of its Muslims and Jews - flamenco "became a voice of protest of dissenting Christians, outlaws, Muslims, Jews and other social outcasts who did not fit into the new political order. Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or leave Spain and Gypsies were forced to settle down and put an end to their nomadic lifestyle."

Further, after the 1492 Expulsion, a Jewish voice "resurfaced" in flamenco.

The plaintive wailing of religious prayer, now forbidden, became the secular "aaiiee" of the conversos (Jews forced to convert to Christianity), with the notable exception of the Saeta. The Saeta sung today during Holy Week dates back centuries and is generally agreed to have Jewish origins. One can imagine the conversos singing in a very traditional manner for them but changing the words to provide their new faith and Christian devotion: singing, no doubt, with extra verve and passion to dispel any doubts of their sincerity. There are also strong similarities between certain synagogal chants and some early forms of cante flamenco.

One section concerns the Peteneras form of flamenco, which is likely linked to Sephardim who settled in Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries.

The Peteneras, writes the author, was passed down through the generations since the 1492 exile. Another hint as to Peteneras' Jewish origins is that even today, many Gypsies refuse to sing or dance Peteneras and consider it unlucky. The music's status as unlucky may be rooted to the long history of persecution of the Sephardim.

At the ICJG: Talking Turkey

Among numerous Sephardic topics at the ICJG was Leon Taranto's session on genealogical resources for Jews of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey.

The community's growth was directly linked to the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and an invitation for the refugees to settle in Turkey. This led to a large Sephardic influx, joining the small Ashkenazic community that had settled in Istanbul in the 14th century following Eastern European expulsions.

The online Istanbul Jewish genealogy project has been spearheaded by Daniel Kazez, a cellist and music professor at Wittenberg University in Ohio. He has been assisted by volunteers in Turkey and elsewhere and seeks additional helpers for the ongoing project.

Currently searchable online are 35,000 marriage records and 30,000 burial records, issued by the Turkish Chief Rabbinate since 1886, the Ashkenazic community since 1923 and the Italian congregation since 1870. The Ashkenazic records (1923-2003) add the mother’s name. More than 30,000 different surnames are represented.

Work has also been done on Izmir, which was home to 35,000 Jews. Online records include 6,000 burials from 1934.

Taranto noted that archival records are often written in solitreo, a particularly difficult form of handwriting that only a few experts can read. Saul Biton of the Atlanta Sephardic Congregation has created a transcription chart that seems somewhat helpful.

More resources worth a look

Sources for Izmir data include Avraham Galante’s nine-volume work, now being indexed by Matilde Tagger of Jerusalem. The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP) in Jerusalem holds Izmir records from 1760-1970, including wedding dowry registers. Professor Dov Cohen has extracted a list of 7,300 names of brides and grooms.

ETSI, a Sephardic genealogical journal printed in France, provides English summaries of its articles, which include coverage of consulate and notarial records, dowry records and diaspora colonies. Click for more about ETSI.

The newly published Guidebook to Sephardic and Oriental Sources in Israel, by Tagger and Yitzhak Kerem (Avotaynu, 2006) offers a wealth of information, www.avotaynu.com, and for more, see Dr. Jeffrey Malka’s website, www.orthohelp.com/geneal/sefardim.htm