New York: The Tree of Life, June 12

A film - "Tree of Life" - on a Jewish Italian family will be the focus of the next Jewish Genealogy Society of New York on Sunday, June 12.

The film celebrates the passion for life, love and family that unites Jews and Italians, as Israeli-born director Hava Volterra traces her roots in Ancona, Italy.

Beginning in the ancient Adriatic city of Ancona, Volterra and her feisty 82-year old Aunt Viviana travel extensively through Italy, digging up rare historical manuscripts, interviewing an array of quirky historians, and discovering the astonishing and humorous stories of their ancestors, including the da Volterra family of bankers in Florence of the Medici; Ramhal, a Venetian rabbi and mystic involved in the Kabbalah; renowned scientist and mathematician Vito Volterra; New York City’s legendary mayor Fiorello LaGuardia; and Luigi Luzzatti, Italy’s first Jewish prime minister.

The program - a joint meeting of the JGSNY and the Primo Levi Society - begins at 2pm at the Center of Jewish History, 15 W. 16th Street, Manhattan. The Levi Society's deputy director Allesandro Cassin will facilitate the post-screening discussion of this personal family saga that illuminates the fascinating history of Italian Jewish people.

Admission: JGSNY members, free; others, $5.

Read the NJ Jewish Standard's review here, and a review in The Forward here.

Russia: Lenin's Jewish roots on display

A letter by Lenin's sister claiming their maternal grandfather was a Ukrainian Jew is on display in Russia's State History Museum.

The Jerusalem Post - reporting on the AP story on May 24 - indicated that Stalin told the sister to keep quiet.

Among newly released documents displayed at the museum is a letter written by Lenin’s sister, Anna Ulyanova, claiming that their maternal grandfather was a Jew from the Ukraine who converted to Christianity to escape persecution in the Pale of Settlement and have access to higher education, the report said.

"He came from a poor Jewish family and was, according to his baptismal certificate, the son of Moses Blank, a native of [the western Ukrainian city of] Zhitomir,” Ulyanova wrote in 1932 in a letter cited by AP.

In the letter written to Josef Stalin, who replaced Lenin after his death in 1924, Ulyanova wrote, “Vladimir Ilych had always thought of Jews highly. I am very sorry that the fact of our origin – which I had suspected before – was not known during his lifetime.”

Lenin, born Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov in 1870, adopted the name Lenin while in Siberian exile in 1901. Under Czarist anti-Semitism, he identified only as Russian.

According to the AP, he oversaw a brief period of promotion of Jewish culture ending in the early 1930s when Stalin encouraged anti-Semitic purges and planned to relocate Soviet Jews. Lenin's sister requested that her brother's Jewish background be made public to combat anti-Semitism.

Stalin ignored the request, telling her to “keep absolute silence," according to exhibit curator Tatyana Koloskova. Lenin's official biography (written by his niece Oga Ulyanova) refers to the family's Russian, German and Swedish roots.

In the early 1900s, Russian historians found the sister's letter, but questioned its authenticity.

Read the complete article at the link above.

Southern California: Ron Arons to speak, June 5

Author Ron Arons will be making his sixth visit to the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County, on Sunday, June 5.

The program begins at 1.30pm at Temple Adat Elohim 2420 E. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. There is no admission fee.

Ron will speak on “Wrongful [Jewish] Wrascals of the West.”

And you thought Jewish criminals were just on the East Coast (mainly New York), the Midwest (Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit) and Las Vegas!

Well, Jewish criminals have made their mark in the state of California for nearly 150 years. Above and beyond Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, Ron has found them – in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere in the Golden State.

Along the way, he shows the large variety of genealogical sources available to research these characters. Ron will show you how to track down your black sheep ancestors! Sale of books and  'Black Sheep' products after the presentation.

Ron has researched his roots for more than a dozen years. In the process, he learned that one of his ancestors served time “up the river” at Sing Sing Prison. Along the way, he's become an expert on how to research historical criminals.

Ron has given numerous presentations across the country and internationally on conducting genealogical research, especially research on criminals.

In January 2008, he appeared on the PBS TV series, "The Jewish Americans," discussing criminals who operated on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His book, "The Jews of Sing Sing," was published in June, 2008. In 2009, Ron published "WANTED! U.S. Criminal Records," a reference book listing where criminal records are located across the US.

For more information, click here or send an email.

Ohio: 20th-century black sheep in Cleveland, June 1

Learn about Cleveland, Ohio's Jewish black sheep at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland, on Wednesday, June 1.

The meeting begins at 7.30pm at Menorah Park, 27100 Cedar Road, Beachwood. There is no admission fee.

The speaker is Sean Martin, associate curator for Jewish history of the Western Reserve Historical Society. He will speak on "The Jewish Connection: Jews and Crime in 20th-century Cleveland."

For more information, click here.

JTA: Online news archive launched

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency - known simply as JTA - has launched a free, searchable online digital archive with some 250,000 articles dating from 1923.

JTA is near and dear to Tracing the Tribe's heart as that organization, in 2006, contacted me and requested that I begin a genealogy blog. A year later, due to reorganization, Tracing the Tribe became independent.

In my talks with various JTA people over the years, I always stressed that its archives would be of immense value to genealogists and family history researchers. As plans were made to make the archive available, I was delighted.

On Tuesday night, May 3, the archive was launched at a celebration held at the Center for Jewish History, in New York.

What can you find in the archive? Here are some tidbits from just a simple search.

--The first article on the the Babi Yar massacre 
-- The founding of Israel.
-- Many articles on Jewish women through the decades.
-- The Holocaust.
-- A 1930 story on how upper class Persian Jews were becoming Bahai.
-- A 1932 story about a 1,000-year-old Polish synagogue formed by Portuguese Jews in the year 933 (Hebrew year 4693) in Wronke - on the river Warthe - in Posen.
-- A 1924 article about elections in a village near Mogilev, Belarus - spelled Mogileff in the article - named Slobodoa Davidovka, Mozyr district, and the agricultural colony Kormi, in Mogileff district.

(NOTE: There seem to be some search engine vagaries - JTA should have consulted with Steve Morse! - which the last article above showed. Searching for Mogilev did not show that election article - although there were many more modern ones. I used an old spelling, Mogileff, to see if there were other articles for the town and that spelling brought up three. A search for "Persia" showed that at some point in time, Hamadan was spelled Amadan and Isfahan was Ispahan (useful information for future searches). A phonetic parameter would be a useful addition to the search engine. For now, if you know other spellings of the towns you are looking for, try all of them.

However, you can search by keyword, by date/decades, and there are additional search tips. You can also save your searches by registering at the archive. It's free; click the Sign Up logo on the upper right of the archive home page. Do check out your ancestral towns, surnames and more!)

JTA was founded in 1917 towards the end of World War I by Jacob Landau to transmit vital information about what was happening in Jewish communities around the world. It was originally called the Jewish Correspondence Bureau and, was the first news agency that gathered and also disseminated news around the globe.

JTA correspondents, since that date, have reported what they could confirm at the time, although some facts in their articles were later corrected through research. Events covered by the agency would never have been documented.

The JTA Jewish News Archive is a powerful reference tool that offers a perspective on current events and modern Jewish history that is not available anywhere else. With free access to nearly a century of reporting about global events affecting world Jewry, the Archive will not only serve as a rich resource for both the casually curious as well as students and scholars of modern Jewish history, it will also transform the way the next generation of Jewish leaders and activists learn about their heritage.

Until now, there has been no authoritative site that provides a comprehensive chronicle of modern Jewish history, as seen through the eyes of journalists. From the aftermath of World War I, to the rise of Nazi Germany, through the Holocaust, the creation of the modern State of Israel and right up to today, JTA journalists have been reporting on stories and issues affecting Jews around the globe. The JTA Jewish News Archive holds over a quarter-million articles They provide a unique lens through which to view world events that no other news organization provides.

Read the bulletins that were sent out during the Holocaust and see the information that was available, contrary to conventional wisdom that said Americans didn't know about that tragedy while it was happening.

The digital archive effort was spearheaded by Brandeis University professor of American Jewish history Jonathan Sarna, who is also a JTA board member. He said that "The JTA Jewish News Archive has the potential to spark an interest in the past that will transform the future."

According to a JTA article, the nonprofit Digital Divide Data helped create the archive. The group serves Southeast Asian disadvantaged youth. Young Cambodians digitized the files.

The effort was also supported by the Gottesman Fund; The Righteous Persons Foundation; The Charles H. Revson Foundation; Elisa Spungen Bildner and Robert Bildner, in honor of Norma Spungen; George S. Blumenthal; and the Grace and Scott Offen Charitable Fund.

See a video about the archive here.

Library of Congress: Szyk Haggadah program, April 4

In the mid-1930s, Polish-Jewish artist Arthur Szyk created a haggadah in the style of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

The Szyk Haggadah will be displayed on Monday, April 4, at a Library of Congress program marking the Abrams publication of a new facsimile edition, with translation and commentary by Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin and Irvin Ungar.

The original Haggadah is housed in the LOC's Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Ungar's talk - "Arthur Szyk and His Passover Haggadah: A Library of Congress Treasure" - will take place at noon, Monday, April 4, in the African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, Room 220, Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street SE., Washington, DC. The talk is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required, but seating is limited.

Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) was an acclaimed artist, activist, illuminator and political illustrator. During World War II, his anti-Nazi caricatures were widely published in the United States, most memorably as covers for news magazines such as Time and Collier’s. For almost a decade, Szyk labored to create an elaborately illustrated haggadah that attacked the Nazis, but he could not find anyone willing to take the risk to publish his version of the Passover story. Szyk retold the ancient narrative as if it were an event unfolding in his own time, imagining the Hebrews as Eastern European Jews in need of a modern Exodus to the Land of Israel. His masterpiece was finally published in England in 1940, stripped of its anti-Nazi iconography.

Born of Jewish parents in Lodz, Poland, his early training was in Paris and Cracow. He served as artistic director of the Department of Propaganda for the Polish army regiment quartered in Lodz, 1919-1920. In 1921, he moved to Paris and lived and worked there for 10 years. In 1934, Szyk traveled to the US for exhibitions of his work, such as a Library of Congress exhibit of 38 miniatures commemorating George Washington and the Revolutionary period. In late 1940, after living for some years in the UK, he immigrated to the US.

In 2000, the Library of Congress celebrated the acquisition of several important original works by Szyk with an exhibition in the Swann Gallery titled "Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom." The display, which can be viewed online at www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/szyk, featured 17 representative works, from caricatures of Axis leaders to masterpieces of illumination such as the Szyk Haggadah.

A former pulpit rabbi, Ungar is CEO of antiquarian booksellers Historicana, founded in 1987. He has led the interest in Szyk; curated major museum shows, written and edited several books, and lectured internationally on the artist.

Jewish scholar and ethicist Sherwin has authored or edited 28 books and more than 150 articles and monographs. An Szyk authority, he has served on the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies faculty since 1970.

"The Szyk Haggadah" (128 pages, 48 color illustrations) is available from Abrams and nationwide bookstores and online ($40, hardcover; $16.95, paperback). Copies signed by Ungar will be sold at the April 4 event.

See an LOC online exhibit of some of Szyk's works here.

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.

Library of Congress: 'The Washington Haggadah,' March 23

In just a few weeks, Jews around the world will be reading one or another edition of the Haggadah.

While one of Tracing the Tribe's favorite nostalgic editions is that printed by Maxwell House Coffee, there are many others.

The 15th-century  illuminated Washington Haggadah, in the Library of Congress, is considered an exquisite edition. A new facsimile edition has just been produced by Belknap Press/Harvard University Press this year.

The importance of this work and its new edition will be discussed by David Stern (University of Pennsylvania) and Katrin Kogman-Apel (Ben Gurion University) at noon on Wednesday, March 23. The program will take place in the Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, DC. The talk is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

Both speakers wrote essays for the new edition, which will be on sale during the program, and speakers will sign copies.

The Washington Haggadah, held in the Library’s Hebraic Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division, will be on display.

According to a press release about the event, The Washington Haggadah is being discussed on the Books and Beyond page on Facebook, where readers can discuss books and access webcasts of LOC events.

New York: 'Jews of the Balkans," preserving memories, March 31

The Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation - known as Centropa - is headed by Edward Serotta in Vienna, Austria. Serotta informed Tracing the Tribe about recent events.

Serotta will speak on the Jews of the Balkans talk at the Center for Jewish History on March 31 in New York City, presented by the American Sephardi Federation and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The title is "Images of a Lost World: Pictures and stories of Balkan Sephardic life from the Centropa.org interviews."

An exhibit in the Constantiner Gallery opens at 6.30pm, while Serotta will speak at 7.15pm on using new technologies to preserve Jewish memory.

Seventy years ago this spring, Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, then set about destroying the Jewish communities that had been in this region since the expulsion from Spain in 1492 (in some cases, even longer).

Between 2001 and 2008, Centropa interviewed 200 elderly Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey and Greece. Rather than use video in its interviews, Centropa digitized 4,000 family photographs. Rather than concentrating on how Jews were murdered during the Shoah,

Centropa’s interviews are much more about how Jews lived--before, during and after the Shoah. This exhibition is comprised of pictures and stories from these interviews. All texts in this exhibition are in both English and Spanish.

Following the opening of the exhibit, Serotta will present a talk on how his institute has preserved Sephardic Balkan Jewish memory.

Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1949, he has lived in Berlin, Budapest and Austria since 1988. He has authored books and documentaries.

He presented a similar talk in Los Angeles. Read the LA Times article here.

A recent Philadelphia seminar for some 30 educators, organized by Centropa, was covered by the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.

For more information on Centropa, click here.

New York: 15th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, March 10-16

The 15th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival will showcase five US and six New York premieres March 10-16 at the Center for Jewish History.

The event is presented by the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) in association with Yeshiva University Museum (YUM).

The 2011 program includes critically acclaimed, award-winning, classic features and documentaries prsenting diverse global perspectives.

The annual event (since 1990) draws personalities, scholars, diplomats and filmmakers.

This year's themes include a special focus on the Jews of Morocco, as part of ASF's year-long series, '2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey."

The Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to Sephardi actor/filmmaker Ronit Elkabetz at the Opening Night Gala. She has received three Ophir Awards, the 2010 France Culture Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the Israeli Film Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award.

It is the only annual festival of this kind, and attracts more than 30,000 attendees.

The ASF is committed to exhibiting a selection of thought-provoking, international quality feature films and documentaries that examine the past and explore contemporary Sephardic issues and identity.

"Through cinematic exploration, our aim is to further elevate the understanding of the very rich history and culture of Sephardic Jewry," says ASF President, David E.R. Dangoor.

See the full program list and ticket information here.

New York: 30 Jewish marriage contracts exhibit, opens March 11

The Jewish Museum will open the exhibit "The Art of Matrimony: 30 Splendid Marriage Contracts from the Jewish Theological Seminary Library," on Friday, March 11 to run through June 26.

The library of The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City holds one of the best collections of ketubot - Jewish marriage certificates. Thirty of the finest will be featured in the exhibit, which dates from a 12th century piece to later examples.

Jewish family history researchers can discover much information on these documents (ketubah, plural ketubot), which exist for all communities around the world, and provide family details on the families, communities and customs

The JTS ketubah collection numbers more than 600 works of every type. The majority are from Italy, with others from Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iraq, Iran/Persia, Morocco, Syria and Turkey. Other examples represent Croatia, France, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and the United States. They represent the diversity of Jewish communities throughout history, with information on the couples, marriage customs and artistic styles.

Before a wedding, families negotiate a marriage contract (ketubah), which includes the husband's duties to his wife and monies due her in case of a divorce or her death.
Some examples:

• The earliest in the exhibit is a rare 12th century Egyptian fragment.
• 1764 earliest known decorated ketubah from Baghdad, drawn on paper from Augsburg, Germany, and indicating Jewish commercial ties.
• 1885 Damascus contract shows vivid colors and lush floral imagery echoing the blessing bestowed on a couple as they stand under the bridal canopy: “Grant perfect joy to these loving companions, just as You made your creations joyful in the Garden of Eden.”
• 1749 Venetian ketubah features the 12 Zodiac signs and an intricate love knot borrowed from Italian folk culture. The wording says that the bride and groom “agree to conduct their mutual life with love and affection, without hiding or concealing anything from each other; furthermore, they will control their possessions equally.“

Although hand-decorated ketubot began to go out of fashion in the late-19th century, there was a revival in the 1960s along with a new interest in Jewish identity. Examples include:

• A 1999 Archie Granot muti-layeredpapercut.
• 1961 ketubah by artist Ben Shahn, showing his fascination with Hebrew calligraphy.

Two related JTS faculty lectures are scheduled:

• Monday, March 14: Dr. David Kraemer, Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and Rabbincs at the JTS, will discuss the history of Jewish marriage contracts.
• Monday, March 21: Exhibition curator Sharon Liberman Mintz will speak about the art of the decorated marriage contract.

The Jewish Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today's collection numbers some 26,000 objects, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects and broadcast media.

Museum hours: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: 11am-5:45pm; Thursday, 11am-8pm; and Friday, 11am-4pm. Admission: Adults, $12; seniors, $10; students, $7.50; no charge for Jewish Museum members and children under 12. Admission is free on Saturdays.

For information on The Jewish Museum, click here  For program and ticket information, click here.

The Museum is at 1109 Fifth Avenue (at 92nd Street), Manhattan.

Denver: 'Getting past Grandpa,' February 13

Finding records outside the US will be discussed at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Colorado on Sunday, February 13.

"Getting Past Grandpa: Finding Records Outside the US" - with speaker Sandra Greenberg - begins at 10am, at Temple Emanuel, 51 Grape Street, Denver.

This session is part of the seven-session "Jewish Family Tree Initiative: Workshop and Mentoring Series" of the JGSCo. The series is free to members, and $30 for others.

Learn how to identify resources online and offline for documenting family history outside of the US. Some foreign archival holdings are not only online in English, but many provide indexes to find out what records exist for ancestral towns. Tips, tricks and techniques for successfully retrieving records will be discussed.

The mentoring series was develooped to help beginners get started in Jewish family history research. Each session includes an instructional lecture and a hands-on workshop to assist with the creation of family trees and historical research utilizing genealogical resources and techniques. Mentoring assistance outside of class will be available.

The series is open to all, with a $30 one-time fee for non-members for a book and materials. The fee also includes a one-year membership in the JGSCo. Attendance is not required at all seven sessions to participate; jump in any time to get started!

For more information, check out the JGSCo website.

China: The Talmud as business guide?

Tracing the Tribe is still catching up with a mountain of email, so here's an interesting article on the increasing popularity of the Talmud in China.

The Newsweek story, by Isaac Stone Fish, covers the surprising trend in publishing books on Jewish topics, including those supposedly revealing business secrets in the Talmud.

... Titles such as Crack the Talmud: 101 Jewish Business Rules, The Illustrated Jewish Wisdom Book, and Know All of the Money-Making Stories of the Talmud share the shelves with stories of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. There’s even a Talmud hotel in Taiwan inspired by “the Talmud’s concept of success” that features a copy of the book Talmud Business Success Bible in every room. With the increasing interest in business education in China, and a rise in sales of self-help literature, the production of business guides to the Talmud has exploded. The guides are like the Chinese equivalents of books such as Sun Tzu and the Art of Business. ...

Crack the Talmud's author, writing under a nom de plume, says a series on the Jewish Bible by a prominent publisher made him realize that “ancient Jews and today’s Chinese face a lot of the same problems,” such as immigration and isolation, and spotlights such business rules as “tell a customer about defects” and “help more people.”

A book titled Jewish Family Education claims to have sold more than 1 million copies.

Associate dean of Shanghai's Center of Jewish StudiesWang Jian says The Talmud “has become a handbook for doing business and seeking fortunes.”

The presence of mid-19th century Jewish real estate entrepreneurs - Hardoon, Sassoon and Kadoorie - may have influenced the lack of antagonism towards "members of the tribe."

Nanjing University Jewish studies professor Xu Xin is quoted in the article as saying that some 50% of Westerners active in Mao Zedong's China were Jewish, which led to interest in Jewish culture.

Athough the Talmud contains information on contracts, zoning and charging interest, in addition to many other topics, it is certainly not a get-rich-quick guide as many in China seem to believe, according to the story.

Read the complete and interesting article at the Newsweek link above.

DNA: Revealing more Jewish roots

It's always reassuring to read that major Jewish publications are carrying stories on what Tracing the Tribe and many others already know. A case in point is the new Forward story on how DNA tests are revealing hidden Jewish roots.

The story by Elie Dolgin - "Newer DNA Tests Uncover Hidden Jewish Bloodlines" - discusses both 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.

It covers University of Chicago genetics doctoral student Joseph Pickrell's DNA odyssey along which revealed similar results to an Ashkenazi Jew, New York attorney Dan Vorhaus. Pickrell was raised Catholic but his results led him to ask his mother about the results.

She did some sleuthing among other relatives, revealing that:

"her father’s father — Pickrell’s maternal great-grandfather — had been raised Jewish in Poland before moving to the United States, where he married a Catholic woman and left his Jewish upbringing behind.

“It’s amusing that using genetics, I could wrestle this out of the bushes,” Pickrell said.

The story also mentioned FamilyTreeDNA.com's tests to uncover Jewish origins. Many Hispanic Americans descended from Jews forced to convert or hide their religion more than 500 years ago in Iberia. 

The story does explain 23andMe's test and why it produces those results.

A molecular anthropologist in Estonia, Richard Villems, is quoted as cautioning against jumping to conclusions based solely on DNA unless there is corroborating evidence, like Pickrell's ancestor.

Another section goes further, answering in part the question about what happens once a person discovers such a link.

Pickrell said he has no plans to start going to synagogue. And since “genes do not define the Jews,” according to Edward Reichman, an Orthodox rabbi and physician at Yeshiva University in New York, the Jewish community at large probably won’t embrace him, either. But according to Bennett Greenspan, president and CEO of Family Tree DNA, many people who learn of Semitic ancestry through DNA often end up converting to Judaism.


Elliot Dorff, a conservative rabbi and ethicist at American Jewish University in Los Angeles, welcomes these conversions. “We would really want to encourage such people to rediscover their Jewish roots,” he said. Although people who find Jewish origins through DNA are not strictly Jewish, halachically speaking, Dorff noted that many people in this situation already feel a deep-seated connection to the religion.

The comments, as always on this type of article, are always interesting and cover the spectrum of belief. One, by "Jack," reads:

Bennett Greenspan regularly presents the services of Family Tree DNA at Crypto-Jewish studies symposia. Also in attendance at these events are Hispanic Americans interested in the potential Jewish ancestry of their families. It would not be an overstatement that a Levantine genetic signal only confirms the Jewish background that many of the test subjects either already suspected or were convinced of. The DNA test is merely a confirmation, not a revelation, afterwards conversion to Judaism is a small step.

Read the complete story and all the comments at the link above.

Tracing the Tribe always recommends that those with known or suspected Jewish roots test with FamilyTreeDNA because it has the largest DNA database, which also includes the largest Jewish DNA database. Nearly all Jewish genealogists test with the company because of the large number of samples, which increases the probability of genetic matches.

There's a related 2010 Forward story covers how Rabbis and Halacha Grapple With Advances in DNA Technology:

Advances in genetic analysis and its medical applications are bringing unprecedented, if uneven, change to the world of Jewish law. Most often, the matter of genetics is considered in the context of issues on either end of life’s spectrum: those that relate to fertility and to the identification of post-mortem human remains.

“DNA analysis is gradually meandering its way through the halachic literature,” said Dr. Edward Reichman, an Orthodox rabbi and associate professor of emergency medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he is also an associate professor of bioethics and education.

“Science has opened up a huge area of research and treatment in the area of the genetic code that just didn’t exist 25 years ago. All of those developments have required authorities in Jewish law to consider what effect it has on their approach,” said Rabbi Avram Reisner, spiritual leader of Baltimore’s Congregation Chevrei Tzedek and a bioethicist who sits on the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.

Read that complete story at the story link above.

San Francisco: Jewish calendar made simple, January 23

Jewish genealogists must learn about the Jewish calendar to understand archival and vital records, cemetery inscriptions and more.

The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society will present the famed Dr. Steve Morse in "The Jewish Calendar Demystified," on Sunday, January 23.

Doors open at 12.30pm for the 1pm program at Congregation Beth Israel Judea, 625 Brotherhood Way, in San Francisco.

The Jewish calendar is important to genealogists because Jewish vital records use Jewish dates. The calendar is both a solar and lunar calendar, with the months being synchronized to the moon and years to the sun. As such, the rules governing the calendar can be a bit daunting. This talk presents the calendar in an easy-to-understand - and sometimes tongue-in-cheek - fashion.

Now a genealogical household name, Steve Morse is the creator of the One-Step Website. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Outstanding Contribution Award from IAJGS, the Award of Merit from the National Genealogical Society, the first-ever Excellence Award from the Association of Professional Genealogists, and two awards that he cannot pronounce from Polish genealogical societies.

For more information and directions, click the SFBAJGS site here

Long Island NY: Primo Levi lecture, February 12

A lecture on Primo Levi and the Holocaust in Italy, by Professor Stanislao G. Pugliese, will be hosted by the Italian Genealogical Group on Saturday, February 12.

The meeting begins at 10.30am at the Bethpage Public Library, 47 Powel Avenue, Bethpage, NY. There is no admission fee.

Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies at Hofstra University, Pugliese is a specialist on the Italian anti-Fascist Resistance and Italian Jews. He has written numerous books.

Among his works is the edited collection of essays, "The Legacy of Primo Levi" (MacMillan):

These essays examine how Primo Levi has influenced the fields of philosophy, politics, and ethics, offering provocative comparisons with Dante, Giorgio Agamben, Franz Kafka, Emmanuel Levinas, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel. Topics include Levi's anti-fascism; the influence of Judaism on his thinking and writing; Levi's poetry and linguistics; the problem of memory and representation; the concept of the "gray zone"; and the controversy surrounding Levi's death. A unique perspective on the life and work of a writer who powerfully reminds us of what transpired in the extermination camps of Europe and what it means to be human after Auschwitz.

Visit the Italian Genealogical Group.

Latvia: 100 tombstones desecrated

Latvia's president condemned an attack on a Riga cemetery Wednesday.

President Vadis Zalters urged police to find the perpetrators - who desecrated some 100 tombstones with Nazi symbols - quickly, according to the European Jewish Press website. Other officials, including the prime minister and foreign minister, also blasted the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, state police spokeswoman Ieva Reksna told AFP that police officers had found around 100 tombstones spattered with white-paint swastikas.
   

A guard at the cemetery -- the only working Jewish burial ground in Riga -- spotted the defiled tombstones on Wednesday morning, Reksna said.  

Officials from Riga city council headed to the cemetery after news of the attack emerged, and mayor Nils Usakovs, who is on a visit to Russia, issued a statement condemning it.
   

Municipal police have now been ordered to boost patrols at the site.

The cemetery was also attacked in September 2003, following which five teens were sentenced to prison terms of from six months to three years.
   

Today, the Latvian Jewish community numbers less than 10,000 individuals in the general population of 2.2 million.

Prior to WWII, some 85,000 Jews lived there; 70,000 were murdered in Latvia or perished after deportation to concentration camps.     

New York: 'History of Ellis Island' author, Nov. 21

Vincent J. Cannato, author of  "American Passage: The History of Ellis Island," will speak at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York, on Thursday, November 21.

The program, followed by a book-signing, begins at 2pm at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, in Manhattan.

Cannato tells the story of Ellis Island from the days when it hosted pirate hangings witnessed by thousands of 19th-century New Yorkers, to the turn of the 20th century when massive migration sparked fierce debate and new immigrants often encountered corruption, harsh conditions and political scheming.

"American Passage" captures a time and place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic and bittersweet accounts of the immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all play an important role in Ellis Island’s chronicle.

The last immigrant was processed at Ellis Island omore than 50 years ago in 1954.

Cannato's book illustrates the port of entry’s legacy, from detention of WWII aliens to the rebirth of Ellis Island as a national monument.

As immigration policy, national security, and the war on terror remain at the forefront of national debate today, this timely history offers Americans an important perspective on how the nation addressed similar challenges a century ago.

Cannatto is an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He received his BA (Political Science, Williams College) and PhD (history, Columbia University) and teaches courses on New York City history, Boston history, immigration history and 20th-century American history. For more on the author and the book, click here.

The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at CJH will be open from 11am for networking with  researchers and access to research materials and computers.

Fee: JGSNY members, free; others, $5.

For more information, click here.

Columbia University: $4 million for Jewish Studies

New Yorkers interested in all aspects of Jewish studies will have something new to access for information.

The Columbia University Libraries have received a gift of $4 million to establish the Norman E. Alexander Library for Jewish Studies. It will fund endowments for a Jewish Studies librarian, the General Jewish Studies Collection and Special Collections in Judaica.

Michelle Chesner is the new Librarian for Jewish Studies is Michelle Chesner. Previously she was at the University of Pennsylvania as an archivist and Judaica Public Services Librarian at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Her research interests include 15th century Jewish history and early Hebrew books.

Special collections at the Jewish Studies library include 29 Hebrew incunabula, more than 30016th-century printed books, and nearly 1,500 Hebrew manuscripts, plus extensive archival collections related to Jewish life and culture, and Jewish individuals in all fields of study and work.

Key components were acquired in 1947 (the Oko-Gebhardt Spinoza Collection, nearly 4,000 books by and about the Dutch Jewish philosopher) and in 2009 (the papers of Yosef Yerushalmi, Columbia faculty member and scholar of Jewish history). New endowment funds will be used initially to catalog the Hebrew manuscripts, the second largest such collection in North America.

Jewish Studies collections at Columbia offer more than 100,000 monograph volumes, 1,000 current and historical periodical titles, about 60,000 Hebrew and Yiddish titles and large holdings of Jewish scholarly works in Western and Slavic languages. It also subscribes to relevant electronic titles, ebooks and databases. It is the only New York City repository for the Visual History Archive of the Shoah Foundation.

Read more here about Norman E. Alexander and the endowments. Learn more about the Columbia University Libraries/Information Services here.

Hungary, Austria: 'Spirit of Gradisce' website

Areas of western Hungary have been part of Austria since 1921. A website offers Jewish history and information about this geographical region.

Established by the former editor of the American Burgenland Bunch Newsletter - Hannes Graf - the website, Spirit of Gradisce, provides articles and stories about this region prior to and through the events of the Holocaust.

Sections include:

-- Jewish Lackenbach
-- Jewish Frauenkirchen
-- Jewish Kittsee
-- Jewish History Burgenland
-- Jewish Gattendorf
-- Destroyed Jewish Communities

The setions are interesting and provide much on the Jewish history of these places through the events of the Holocaust. Those with ancestral roots in this area should find information helpful to their general knowledge.

Visit the site at the link above for more.