JGSLA 2010: Postcards, Sephardi Ketubot

A picture is worth a thousand words, according to the JGSLA 2010 program committee.

Since 1869, European and American Jews participated in the new postcard phenomenon.

As early as the 14th century, Jews sent New Year's greetings. The Maharil, Rabbi Jacob of Moellin (1360-1427) documented the custom and recommended that, during Elul (the Hebrew month when the High Holidays are celebrated), Jews should include wishes for a good year in all written correspondence.

Both postcards and greeting cards are popular collectibles today. Researchers can find postcards of their ancestral towns and villages, or find greeting cards sent to their ancestors. A popular genealogy blogging event is the Carnival of Postcards, for which geneabloggers write about a postcard they might have. Find out more about postcards in general at Geneabloggers.com.

At JGSLA 2010, Professor Shalom Sabar of Hebrew University will present "Between Germany and Poland -- Jewish Life and Rituals on Late 19th to Early 20th century Illustrated Jewish Postcards."

a fascinating visual resource, Jewish postcards provide rare documentation of important events in Jewish life and Jewish history.

Sabar's second lecture will be "Sephardi Ketubah - Before and After the Expulsion (as a research tool for genealogy) and Childbirth and Magic - Jewish Amulets and Popular Beliefs in the Pre-Modern Era." Included in that program will be an exploration of Jewish midwife customs.

GenAmi: Paris Archives, journal articles

GenAmi (Paris, France) has announced information on new online access to the Paris Archives and the list of articles in its new issue. Read on for more.

If your quest includes family that had lived in Paris, remember that GenAmi is an important resource.

Click GenAmi for more information on the organization, its publications and other events, such as its annual meeting, set for March 9, 2010.

Paris Archives

In the photo above, see (left) Victor Hugo's death certificate on May 23, 1885.
At right, see a ledger page for 10 births from 1872-1881.

The Paris Archives are now online, click here to view. Records include reconstructed data through 1859, as well as decennial lists and records through 1902.

The site is only in French, which Tracing the Tribe reads but doesn't speak. I also used Google Translate and the English translation was sufficient for those who do not read French.

The first section: 1860-1902. It contains civil records for each of 20 districts. In the The research is done in conventional tables and decadal records of acts within each of 20 districts. Birth certificates, however, in the 12th arrondissement were destroyed for the period 1 January 1870 to May 25, 1871.

Choose the type of record (birth, marriage, death) and the district; these two fields are required. The date of the record is optional. There are 20 districts, so you might need to run multiple searches to find the individual you are looking for.

For the decennial records, there are alphabetical surname lists for each 10 year period for each of the 20 districts and by type of document. Records found will include the person's name and surname and the date. Again, if you do not know where they lived for each record, you will need to run multiple searches.

The second section: reconstructed records 16th century-1859. Of some 8 million records destroyed by fire in May 1871, only some 30% has been restored. You can check for a record in the alphabetical surname database - organized by type of document - to see if it has been reconstructed. A digitization program is ongoing.

Each sheet has the year of record, where recorded (parish, former district or municipality annexed to Paris), name and surname of the person, and the date the event. For weddings, there is a record for each spouse with the wife's under her maiden name. sheet has been developed for each of the spouses, the wife is to look at his birth name.

I checked for Cohen under marriages and found this:

Click on the second record and see this:
New Journal Issue

GenAmi has also announced the articles in its new journal issue. See the site link above for more information.:

- Bond to the soil and ties of blood: foundation of Jewish tradition, by historian Stephane Encel

- Simon Hayem and his descendents: Merchants, artists and doctors.

- Chief Rabbi Abraham de Cologna: Four known children.

- UK research: CemeteryScribes.com

- Tunisia's civil records during the French Protectorate Acquisitions

- "Une Memoire de papier", (Silvain, Perret) - Jews of Belgium in postcards

- "Atlas des Parisiens" from the Revolution to today

- "Mes anciens et la mer" by Lionel Levy- "Jews of Morocco", bibliography

- "Durmenach se souvient"

- Booklets on Jewish Basel (Switzerland)

GenAmi is a good source of information.

Postcard Festival: Wheels go round and round!

If postcards of bygone days and modern subjects interest you, make sure to see the first Festival of Postcards at Evelyn Yvonne Theriault's blog, A Canadian Family.

The new carnival is for bloggers to share their love of vintage and modern postcards, and some two dozen bloggers (some international) participated in this inaugural edition.

The topic was wheels, and entries showed bicycles, boats, cars and trains, water wheels and oil derricks, spinning wheels and amusement park rides. Cards included old black-and-white, shiny chrome, and subjects went from serious to funny.

Categories ranged from motorized transportation, non-motorized transportation, wheels in the workplace, to grab bag. Some two dozen bloggers participated. See the article link above.

The deadline for the next Postcard Festival is June 20, and the topic is Main Street. Interpret it literally or creatively. The post should contain the front and back of the card, its size and other details.

Another way to participate is an article on the topic of deltiology. Evelyn asks bloggers to share their expertise and passion and answer why you collect cards, how you got started and whether your collection serves a specific purpose.

Sounds like this Postcard Festival may really fly! I'm guessing "wings" will be a future topic.

Museum of Family History: New this month

There's always something new at Steve Lasky's virtual Museum of Family History. Here's the March update:

- “Churbn Lettland: The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia” – Very important telling of events, written in 1947 by a survivor. More material from the English translation has been added, mainly about the Small Riga Ghetto. Also included, an index of all surnames in the book. Visit the “Wall of Remembrance,” with photos of some who died or were killed in Latvia during WWII. Add your own photos and biographies;

- The the film preview for "Horodok: A Shtetl's Story 1920-1945" is now online. Just scroll down to no. 19 and click. Make sure your speakers are on before you do, as the film clip begins once the page opens. The film is in Hebrew with English subtitles. There are several places named Horodok/Gorodok. This one is north of Minsk in the area between Rakov, Radishkovitz and Moladechna.

-Yiddish Theatre: Morris Axelrad, Yiddish actor; Placards of the Yiddish Theatre.

- Postcards from Home: Budapest, Hungary; Ilza, Poland; Czernowitz, Ukraine.

- World Holocaust Memorials: Lithuania – Kupiskis, Rokiskis.

- Living in America: The Jewish Experience – Thomas Jefferson High School, Brooklyn, New York. Currently, 32 yearbooks (1927-1949) are now online, browsable page-to-page or searchable using the Steve Morse one-step database.

Steve writes that he now has 20 additional books (from 1950) but needs volunteers for simple data entry. Watch for updates on the genealogical importance of yearbooks.

- Steve adds that he's working on a site redesign and would like some opinions. If you'd like to evaluate it, contact him.

He'll also be producing a free periodic Museum e-newsletter (not a blog) for those who have supported his work through contributions of material (photos, text, etc.) - see the “Credits and Acknowledgments” page. Supporters will be the first to receive news of future exhibits, links to previews, hear other ideas, read relevant words of inspiration, and more.

Those who would like to receive it by email, should write to Steve here, including your first and last name, email address and, for statistical purposes only, your country, state and town.

For other questions or information, write to Steve.

Los Angeles: Old Jewish postcards, May 15

Among today's genealogy collectibles are vintage Eastern European Jewish postcards.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, in association with the Skirball Center, will host Hebrew University Professor Shalom Sabar, who will speak on how Jewish illustrated postcards from Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1800s inspired those later produced in the U.S.

"Past Perfect: The Jewish Experience in Early 20th-Century Postcards" will begin at 7.30 p.m., Tuesday, May 15, at the Skirball Cultural Center.

The colorful images provide a nostalgic view into a lost world representing many facets of daily life.

Contemporary dress, household interiors, family rituals, religious celebrations and special customs were recreated in studios. There are shtetls and Jewish streets, synagogues, Jewish writers, Zionist leaders, views of Eretz Israel, war and pogroms. The Holocaust destroyed many European synagogues; these may be the only known images of some.

Sabar, a professor of Art History and Jewish and Comparative Folklore at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is chair of its unique Jewish and Comparative Folklore department. He specializes in the art and folklore of Jewish communities in Christian Europe and Islamic East. He was the last Jewish baby born in the ancient Iraqi Kurdistan Jewish community of Zakho.

One of his books, Ketubbah: Jewish Marriage Contracts of the Hebrew Union College received the American National Jewish Book Award.

Primo Levy Fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Sabar is UCLA's Amado Distinguished Visiting Professor in Sephardic Studies.

No charge for Skirball/JGSLA members; others, $5

Try to arrive early to see the vintage Israeli travel poster exhibit in the Ruby and Hurd Galleries, with more than 30 posters (1950s-60s) by government tourism agencies, national and private transportation companies, along with continuous video screenings of Israel's landscapes.

The JGSLA's Spiszman Traveling Library, a genealogical reference collection, will be available on the Magnin Auditorium mezzanine from 7 p.m.

For more information, click here.