Three conferences in 10 days!

Tracing the Tribe has just arrived home after speaking at three conferences in two countries in 10 days!

Each was very different in format and topics addressed, and Internet access - on a personal level - varied, significantly curtailing communications. Jet lag, surprisingly, wasn't an issue on this trip. Along with the events themselves, Tracing the Tribe also connected with family, old and new friends.

The Society of Genealogists' Centenary Conference (London, UK; Saturday, May 7), was followed by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain's Northern Regional Conference (Manchester, UK; Sunday, May 8). Just two days later, I flew to the exciting National Genealogical Society's event in Charleston, South Carolina.

At the SOG and NGS, my topic was the IberianAshkenaz DNA Study as a case study - administered by Judy Simon of New York and myself - at FamilyTreeDNA.com. Each time this topic is presented, there is more to update on results and participants. It aways changes.

In Manchester, I spoke on social media for 21st-century genealogists, also an evolving topic.

At SOG and NGS, DNA was an interesting topic as the number of Jewish attendees is traditionally rather small, although there were more who had Jewish ancestry, some recently discovered. It was a different audience, with different questions, and we believe that these two opportunities helped to raise awareness of genetic genealogy - and FamilyTreeDNA.com.

From questions asked in session Q&As to those fielded during the rest of the events (and later emails), it was obvious that people are fascinated by this rather amazing tool available to us. The presentation includes the nuts and bolts of creating a DNA project applicable to any ethnicity, religion or geographic region.

At the JGSGB event - with some really excellent topics presented - it was a privilege to help explain how genealogists (as well as genealogy societies and other institutions) can benefit from today's social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and more.

Watch for separate posts on each conference.

Now back home in New Mexico, I still have a few weeks before the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree 2011 (speaking on creating online ancestral communities) and the Association of Jewish Libraries' event in Montreal (speaking on Sephardic research) soon after.

What do I do when at home, other than reading accumulated email, getting some needed sleep and generally not travel farther than the supermarket? Well, there are articles to write, a stack of books to review, and local genealogy goings-on, including genealogy presentations at local senior centers.

The schedule includes even more as I am genealogy co-chair of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, and involved in the creation and organization of the new general Sandoval County Genealogical Society.

Tracing the Tribe firmly believes that all Jewish historical societies should join the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), as the NMJHS has recently done. It always seems that genealogists understand the connection between what we do and history, but that historical societies don't always see that essential connection. More cooperation between local genealogical and historical societies provides more learning opportunities for members of both.

What's on the menu for these two societies? We'll soon begin working on the new program year for both groups and contacting prospective speakers.

The Sandoval County society will be meeting the first Saturday of each month, from 10am-12.30pm, and we are working on the timing for the NMJHS events, which will be on Sundays (to be scheduled) at the Albuquerque JCC.

Back to email!

NGS: "Where the Past is Still Present," May 11-14

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) 2011 event is set for Charleston, South Carolina, from May 11-14. This year's theme is "Where the Past is Still Present."

Tracing the Tribe is proud to be among more than 75 speakers presenting more than 180 programs at this year's event, and looks forward to greeting readers in Charleston.

NGS issued the following press release:

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) selected Charleston, South Carolina, for its 2011 Family History Conference in part to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War which began with Confederate artillery firing upon Fort Sumter 12 April 1861.

If a member of your family served for the Union or Confederate forces, the NGS 2011 Family History Conference will provide a number of lectures about researching Civil War records and learning more about the lives of your ancestors.

The four-day conference, 11-14 May 2011, will be held at the Charleston Area Convention Center, 5001 Coliseum Drive, North Charleston, SC 29418.

More than 75 nationally recognized speakers will provide over 180 lectures on a wide variety of topics including research in South Carolina and the surrounding states, migration patterns, ethnic research, religious records, research methodology and problem solving.

Lectures about Civil War research will include: records of the Confederate conscription office, life on the battlefields, the service of Native Americans and African Americans, the Southern Claims Commission, confederate pardon and amnesty records, prisoner of war records, Civil War pension records, facilities for disabled soldiers, and analysis of photographs from the war.

Two lectures will also review many of the websites available for military research.

The NGS banquet on Friday night will feature Stephen B. Bacon, Major USAF (retired), speaking on “Separating Fact from Myth: A Look at the US Civil War from Both Sides.”

For more details and a copy of the conference registration brochure, click here.

An exhibit area with more than 100 exhibitors will be open and free to the public Wednesday through Saturday and will include the latest in genealogical software, online research providers and DNA testing services.

Founded in 1903, the National Genealogical Society is dedicated to genealogy education, high research standards, and the preservation of genealogical records.

The Arlington, VA-based nonprofit is the premier national society for everyone, from the beginner to the most advanced family historian, seeking excellence in publications, educational offerings, research guidance, and opportunities to interact with other genealogists.

For more information, visit the NGS Pressroom.

Tracing the Tribe looks forward to greeting readers in Charleston.

Mississippi: Natchez Jewish history at conference

Most of the world's Jews might not recognize Natchez, Mississippi as a hotbed of Judaic activity, but the eighth biennial Historic Natchez Conference is including this topic on its program.

And, in November, the 10th Angels on the Bluff Cemetery Tour takes place, in which historic characters come to life. This year, one of them will be Clara Lowenburg Moses (see below for more).

On Thursday, October 8, the conference begins at the Eola Hotel and among the sessions are will look at post-Civil War Natchez merchants, yellow fever epidemics, and a session on the Southern Jewish experience (3pm, Temple B’nai Israel). Photo above right is the synagogue in 1872.

The Institute on Southern Jewish Life has an excellent history of Natchez Jewish community, click here.

When the US took over the Natchez territory in the late 1790s, peddler Henry Jacobs got full American citizenship, a first for the Jews of the area.

Some early Jewish families in the town were MONSANTO, ABRAMS, BUCKHOLTZ/BUCKELS, LEHMAN, HARRIS, BEEKMAN, TILLMAN, DAVID, BLOOM, ADLER, BENJAMIN, FRANK, LOWENBERG, GEISENBERGER, LEMLE, ROOS and MOSES.

Friday sessions cover archeology, Natchez Indians, the Black experience, slavery, the Civil War, church history, Natchez women during the war and more.

On Saturday, there will be a genealogy workshop with Teri Tillman at the Armstrong Library at 2 pm.

See the Natchez Democrat article for more details on the conference.

For more on the Angels on the Bluff Cemetery Tour, click here.

The tour is set for 5-8pm, Friday and Saturday, November 6-7, at the Natchez City Cemetery; tickets are $15.

An event organizer said that people enjoy history when it comes alive to them. “And that is what our actors do. They don’t just stand and recite a bunch of facts. They bring these people to life.”

Funds raised benefit preservation projects of the cemetery association. This year's Jewish character (of the six characters to "come to life" this year) is high on the cemetery's Jewish Hill. For the index to individuals buried in the city's Jewish cemetery, established in 1843, click here.

Clara Lowenburg Moses was born into a prominent Natchez Jewish family. While privileged, she also experienced tragedy.

According to event publicity organizer Teri Tillman, Moses was a wonderful story teller and wrote down stories to be passed through her family. “Anytime I want to study anything about the Jewish history of our city, I can look to those stories,” she added.

The other characters are Louis Winston, Isaac Hathaway, the Rev. Joseph “Buck” Stratton, Hunter Course, T. Otis Baker and S. Quinn Booth.

See more about these individuals at the second newspaper article link above.

Florida: How Fort Myers got its name

Have you visited Fort Myers in Florida and wondered how it got its name?

The story has a bit of everything: Love, gossip, war.

Read all about it here.

It was the love of a woman that got Fort Myers its name, but that same woman's tart tongue effectively ended its namesake's career.

The name originated as sort of an engagement gift from General David. E. Twiggs, who in 1850, was in charge of a fort on the Caloosahatchee, yet the Jewish Confederate who received it never actually visited the place.

According to the story, Twiggs was not the kind of guy you'd like to invite home for dinner, but he commanded the respect of his men.

He did however like one of his staff officers. Abraham C. Myers, born c1811 in Georgetown, S.C.

An 1833 graduate of West Point and the scion of a prominent Southern Jewish family, Myers was the son of an attorney, and a descendant of Moses Cohen, the first rabbi in Charleston, S.C. He'd fought with distinction in the Seminole and Mexican Wars before becoming the Chief Quartermaster of the Department of Florida.

Twiggs' daughter was in love with Myers, having met him in Texas. In honor of his future son-in-law and to make his daughter happy, he named fort for Myers. The couple married in 1853 when she was 15 and he was 42.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis also liked Myers who had joined the Confederate Army in 1861. He appointed him the first quartermaster general and Myers remained in that post until 1853 when Myers had some "problems." That's the public story anyway.

The real story was that Marion caused the problem as she was "quite the gossip." Beautiful and with "a wicked tongue" she had her father's temperament.

The final blow to Myers' career came when Marion publicly described the olive-skinned Varina Howell Davis, the president's wife, as a 'squaw.'"

Historians didn't say whether the colonel apologized to Mrs. Davis, but Davis replaced him in 1863. In 1865, the Myers family left for Germany and returned in 1876.

If you're planning to be in Miami Beach in 2010, Myers will be featured in a Florida Jews in the Military exhibit, from February 23-September 12, at the Jewish Museum of Florida.

Read the complete article and related stories at the link above.

Mississippi: Last holiday in Lexington

All over the Southern US, there are small towns with synagogues barely keeping their doors open, and other communities whose congregations disbanded long ago. In Lexington, Mississippi, this will be the last Yom Kippur at Temple Beth El after 104 years of services.

The Dixie Diaspora's disintegration makes such archives as the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life even more important.

In Andrew Muchin's article in the Forward, the story of Lexington is detailed.

As the members of Temple Beth El in Lexington, Miss., pray this Yom Kippur for inclusion in the Book of Life, they’ll be attending a funeral of sorts. The Ne’ilah, the day’s traditional closing service, will be the last scheduled worship to be held in their 104-year-old white wooden synagogue.

“Our last regular service had four people,” said Phil Cohen, 72, operator of Cohen’s department store which his grandfather founded on Lexington’s town square in 1908.

“This is it,” agreed Henry Paris, 79, who has led Beth El’s High Holy Day services for the past 39 years. “We can’t continue to have a temple for four people. This is it.”

Lexington is a city of about 2,000 people and covers just 2.5 square miles in west-central Mississippi. It’s the smallest community in the state to have supported a synagogue for scores of years.

Jews have lived in Lexington since the 1830s, when German-Jewish immigrants arrived and soon found success as merchants, according to Stuart Rockoff, historian at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss.

In the late 19th century, Russian Jews arrived; a Reform congregation was founded in 1904, and a synagogue built in 1905. There were 80 Jews in 1927, but the Depression caused a decline in numbers. During World War II, 16 Jewish men served in the armed forces; two returned in 1945, 13 moved elsewhere and one was killed.

Lexington took a hit during the 1960s civil rights movement. While Lexington's African-American citizens praised the Jewish businessmen for treating them correctly - as recorded in oral histories - Freedom Summer volunteers registered African-Americans to vote, and several economic boycotts in the late 1960s-70s also impacted Jewish merchants.

Some 40 people attended Rosh Hashanah services - most of them live elsewhere but showed up for the final services.

The synagogue’s well-maintained interior is 90% sanctuary. Each side wall features four tall stained-glass windows with intricate Tiffany-style patterns.

The simple symmetrical exterior with its tall, gabled front porch resembles a rural church. The only visible Jewish symbol is a round window with a small, six-pointed star above the entry.

One former congregant declared there’s “a time to open the synagogue doors and a time to close them. I guess this is the time to close them.”

Cohen and another former town businessman have ideas for moving the building to the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, but nothing has been formalized.

Apologies were not needed for the synagogue's closing, said congregants, and another attendee said they shouldn't sing the blues: “I’m happy that this small congregation survived for 104 years,” she said. “Who would ever have believed it?”

Thanks, Andrew, for a great look at this community. Read the complete article at the link above.

Alabama: Preserving Jewish heritage

Bert Rosenbush is nearly 80, and he's keeping the Jewish flame burning in an Alabama town of 7,500, according to this story in the Montgomery Advertiser

He may be the last of his faith here, be on the far side of three-score-and-10 and be recover­ing from heart surgery, but Bert Rosenbush is happy to keep Demopolis' Jewish flame burning.

It's just a flicker these days since he's the last Jew in the town of 7,500, but he's determined to do what he can to see that his religion remains relevant, especially for those who ask him about it.

On April 21, he and his wife, Mary Louise, will be joined by friends for a cere­mony at the Jewish ceme­tery where his parents are buried along with many of the 100 Jews who used to live in Demopolis.

They will unveil a monu­ment commemorating the Holocaust and the lives of six million Jews who per­ished before and during World War II.

Rosenbush paid for the monument but won't reveal its cost. His ancestors arrived from Germany in the 1840s; a grandfather even fought for the Confederacy. The family business - Rosenbush Furniture Co. - was a fixture for more than a century before it closed recently.

"No one in my family per­ished in Germany, but I've always had a place in my heart for the Jews who died during the Holocaust," Ro­senbush said. "This monu­ment is something I've want­ed for a long time."

The story touches on assimilation, intermarriage, closing of synagogues and even Jewish cemeteries in the southern US.

"I've always found that people in Demopolis respect my religion," he said. "I've never come across any anti-Semitism. I'm just so proud that the good Lord has allowed me to stay here."

When he retired, Rosenbush gave the family's store, valued at about $500,000 to the town for a new city hall, but it might wind up as a museum.

Read the complete story at the link above.

South Carolina: Jewish genealogy, Oct. 25-26

The annual meeting of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina (JHSSC) will take place Saturday and Sunday, October 25-26, at the College of Charleston's Jewish Studies Center.

"Jewish Genealogy: Explore Your Family Tree" will explore the subject through lectures and hands-on workshops.

Expert speakers leading the conference are Karen S. Franklin of New York, director of the Family Research Program at the Leo Baeck Institute, and Dr. Stephen P. Morse of San Francisco, creator of "One-Step Genealogy."

Karen and Steve together will present "Using Computers at the College of Charleston," using their expertise to guide participants in their person research using a variety of resources and developing strategies to solve a variety of research problems.

Karen will present "Tracking the Winter Family," demonstrating how she found the European roots of a Southern Jewish family in a remote village in Germany. Stories about four Civil War veterans, an “Embalmer on the Plain” (Jewish homesteader in South Dakota) and cousins-in-common will demonstrate search techniques.

Steve will present three talks based on his One Step website:

- "One-Step Webpages: A Potpourri of Genealogical Search Tools."
- "What Color Ellis Island Search Form Should I Use?"
- "Playing Hide and Seek in the US Census"

Fees for the two-day event: Jewish Historical Society member, $90; others, $125. For more information, click on the JGSSC site here, or the event brochure here.

Learn more about local resources and archives here:

The Jewish Heritage Collection documents the Jewish experience in South Carolina from colonial times to the present day. The archives grows out of an active program of collection, field work, and public education that was inaugurated in January 1995 by the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, the College of Charleston's Jewish Studies Program, and McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina. Project staff spearheaded research and development of a major museum exhibition, A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life, that opened at McKissick in January 2002, beginning a two-year national tour.

Located in Special Collections at the College's Addlestone Library, the Jewish Heritage Collection emphasizes individuals over institutions. It encompasses recorded interviews, manuscripts, photographs, genealogies, memoirs, home movies, and other primary sources. ...

Explore the JHSSC site for more information. Its newsletters and journals are online here.

Tracing the Tribe has previously written eight posts on South Carolina and the Southern US, in general. Topics include: Savannah, Georgia's 275th anniversary; Southern Jewish history grants, Deep South resources, Civil War's Confederate Jewish soldiers and books.

Georgia: Jewish Savannah's 275th anniversary

The New York Jewish Week's Carolyn Slutsky details the Jewish history of Savannah,Georgia in this article, "Southern Comfort, 275 Years On." Savannah’s Congregation Mickve Israel, an imposing Gothic building constructed in the mid-1870s, is the home of the third oldest Jewish congregation in the US. This weekend the Reform synagogue celebrates its milestone anniversary, welcoming 100 descendants of congregation founders, reading from the original 1733 Torah and enjoying speeches and performances by personalities.

On July 11, 1733, 42 Sephardic Jews from Portugal arrived on a ship to start a new life in what would become one of the most graceful cities in the Southern United States. The colony of Georgia had been founded earlier that year, and with a total population of 116 settlers, one third of the population of the new colony was Jewish.

Tracing the Tribe has written previously about Savannah's Jewish community, including the name list of the original Jewish settlers, such as Jewish doctor Samuel Nunez who arrived during an epidemic and cured inhabitants.

“Every 25 years is a generation and we feel it’s important that the congregation celebrate and commemorate important events in its history,” says Rabbi Belzer, who is originally from Westchester County. “Telling our story is a very Jewish thing, it’s what we do.”

Where smaller Southern Jewish communities have struggled or folded and Atlanta, a young but growing city now home to more than 100,000 Jews and poised to have a quarter of a million by 2020, Savannah occupies a stable middle ground. Many of its young professionals have left for Atlanta and other Sunbelt and northern cities for jobs, and at the same time it is attracting young retirees who are moving to the area in significant numbers and getting involved in all aspects of civic and Jewish life.

The original Sephardic settlers were joined by German and Eastern European Jews, while the Sephardim soon migrated to other Southern cities like Charleston. Savannah Jewish Federation executive director Adam Solender characterizes Savannah as, “a small Jewish community that acts like a large one.”

During the Civil War, Rabbi Belzer describes that Jews were just as Southern as any Southerner, with 17 percent of Savannah’s Jews owning slaves as compared with 14 percent of the general population. They fought for the Confederacy, and everyone harbored a penchant for duels.

“Duel, shmuel,” quips Rabbi Belzer, at his desk in his corner office adjacent to the synagogue’s museum, which houses historical letters and artifacts, of how he’d have liked to see differences handled, bringing a Yiddish flair to an old-South convention. “Let’s have a sandwich, work it out.

He says there are between 2,800 and 3,400 Jews in Savannah and points to the high per capita giving to federation, the heavy involvement of Jews in civic organizations and the fact that numerous families belong to all three of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox congregations as a way of supporting the community as a whole. The Orthodox Synagogue, Congregation Bnai Brith Jacob, with close to 600families, is about double the size of the Reform congregation.

Deep South Jewish Voice editor/publisher Larry Brook - whom I have met at several American Jewish Press Association annual conferences - spoke about Jewish life in the 13 Southern states his paper covers:

Woodville, Miss., he says, was called “Little Jerusalem” 120 years ago because of the proportion of Jews there; by the 1920s, that community was pretty much gone. In Selma, Ala., in the early 1900s it was said you could roll a bowling ball down main street on Rosh HaShanah and not hit anyone for all the Jewish businesses. Today, Selma has a gorgeous synagogue building, but only holds services a few times a year because there are a few dozen elderly Jews left. Congregations in Clarksville, Miss., and Demopolis, Ala., have had to close their doors because of Jewish migration to cities with more opportunities.

Brook describes Atlanta as a magnet, and Slutsky comments that If the number of Jews reaches 250,000 in the next 12 years, a figure cited by federation officials, Atlanta will be the fourth largest Jewish community in the US. Do read the complete article.

A new Jewish identity

I never expected to find an essentially Jewish identity and genealogy story in Vanity Fair, but here it is.

In "Jewish Like Me," author Amy Fine Collins reflects on her lifelong role — above and below the Mason-Dixon Line — of being the only Jew in the room, and how an unexpected declaration by her daughter helped her reconstitute her identity.

Doesn’t everybody at some point in their lives have something about themselves that they wish to conceal? It could be a class background, an actual age, an accent, an ex-spouse, an illness, a habit, a trait, an ethnicity, a proclivity, a perversion. You feel shame and you fear discovery, and shudder at others who you sense share the same distasteful characteristic. Often the very feature that one imagines to be hidden is to the rest of the world an open secret.

From childhood experiences as one of only a few Jews in a town, a make-shift Hebrew School, a little Yiddish, dual holiday celebrations, embarrassing school moments, stereotypes, trying to fit in, school prayers, Jews in hiding, education quotas, anti-Semitism, Tay-Sachs, David Mamet, Theodore Herzl, Israel, Hebrew, and her daughter who brought her back to her faith.

Read the complete article here.

Southern Jewish History: More grants

The Southern Jewish Historical Society offers grants for project completion, research and travel, and preservation of archival materials in the area of southern Jewish history and culture.

The application deadline is August 1. For more details, including information to be submitted for each proposal, click here.

For 2008, the SJHS will allocate $9,000 among grant recipients.

The Project Completion Grant is intended to facilitate the completion of projects relevant to Jewish history in the Southern United States. Such projects might include the publication of books or exhibit catalogs or the preparation of exhibit modules. Grants may not be used to fund research or travel; $6000 will be divided among funded applications.

The Kawaler Research/Travel Grant assists individuals with travel and other expenses related to conducting research in Southern Jewish history; $2000 will be divided among funded applications. Applicants must present a plan of research, indicating the libraries and/or archives where they intend to work, and their goal, as well as a budget of expenses and other sources of funding and contact information.

The Lowenstein Archival Grant encourages the preservation of archival materials related to Southern Jewish history; $1000 will be divided among funded applications. Applicants must include a description of the project and a budget and contact information.

The Grant Committe includes Dr. Phyllis K. Leffler (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.), chair; Hollace Weiner (Author, Ft. Worth, TX); Sandra Berman (William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, Atlanta, GA); and Catherine Kahn (Archivist, Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, LA).

Southern Jewish Historical Society: Grant program

The Southern Jewish Historical Society will provide a $2,500 grant to each of two individuals to assist with research and writing outstanding scholarship in southern Jewish history. The Bornblum Foundation of Memphis, Tennessee provided the funding.

The competition is open to any individual pursuing a project substantially enhancing knowledge of southern Jewish history. Graduate students, junior faculty and others are particularly encouraged to apply.

For details write to Dr. Mark K. Bauman, Chair, Bornblum Grant Committee, markkbauman(at)aol(dot)com.

Deep South: Jewish resources

if you have roots in southern US states, if you're trying to find information about ancestors who lived in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Northwest Florida; about synagogues and institutions in this geographical region, then consider contacting the Deep South Jewish Voice, the paper that covers this area.

The DSJV carries, in addition to its regular international and US Jewish news, local Jewish history stories, such as this one on French Jewish history in the South.

Last year, sociologist Anny Bloch-Raymond gave two talks on Jewish life in New Orleans in a series co-sponsored by the French Consulate in New Orleans, the Alliance Francaise of New Orleans, and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Bloch-Raymond, with a master's in American civilization from the University of Paris, and a PhD in social sciences from the University Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, is a member of the National Center of Scientific Research at the Center of Social Anthropology. She teaches Jewish culture in the anthropological department of the University of Toulouse LeMirail and in the Institute of Jewish Studies.

She's working on a new book - "Jewish Migrants from the Banks of The Rhine to the Banks of the Mississippi" - and her current field of research is migration from France and Germany to the American south during the 19th-20th centuries.

The two programs were "Languages, ways of cooking and religions: French inspiration, Jewish rites, and Creole practices" and "From the banks of the Rhine River to the banks of the Mississippi: a long story of the presence of the French Jews in Louisiana."

The first explored how French Jewish immigrants in New Orleans adapted their cuisine to include Creole traditions.

The immigrants who settled in New Orleans maintained their French Jewish heritage even if they had adjusted it. Cooking combined French and Southern mode, gumbos and matzo balls, gefilte fish, kugels, and pecan pies. Many families compiled their own recipe books. Some became professional cooks, such as Beulah Ledner, who created a French doberge adapted from Austrian cake, and opened a bakery in New Orleans in 1933, becoming very successful.

Her second talk focused on the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine who, in the mid-1880s, left their homes, landed in New Orleans and mainly settled in small towns along the Mississippi River.

They gave their names to the towns of Geismar, Klotzville, and Marksville in Louisiana. They owned plantations in Bunkie, White Castle, and Reserve. There are still dry goods stores and general stores bearing their names: Abraham Levy, Wolff, Lemann, Lorman, Fraenkel. They were founding members of synagogues in New Orleans, Donaldsonville, Alexandria, and Opelousas, along with the German migrants that they married ...

Other resources for the area include the private, non-profit Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL), dedicated to providing educational and rabbinic services to isolated Jewish communities, documenting and preserving the rich history of the Southern Jewish experience, and promoting a Jewish cultural presence throughout a 13 state region.

The Institute began as the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in 1986. Now a subsidiary of the ISJL, the museum helps to define southern Jewish culture through traveling and permanent exhibits. In recent years, the Institute has dramatically expanded cultural offerings in both small towns and big cities throughout the South.

Innovative regional programming includes annual Jewish film festivals, concerts highlighting cross-cultural music, literary programs, dance and theatre performances, and other activities that promote artistic interpretation of the Southern Jewish Experience.

Civil War: Confederate Jewish soldiers

The Jewish Magazine is a monthly online collection of articles. There's always something of interest to family historians. The May issue carries an article by Lewis Regenstein of Atlanta who describes his great-grandfather and his four brothers - all of whom fought for the Confederacy in 1865.

Regenstein writes about Joshua Lazarus Moses, brothers Horace, Perry and Isaac; his great-grandfather Andrew Jackson Moses, and cousin Albert Moses Luria. More than 24 members of the extended Moses family fought in the War; at least nine died.

Family members served and worked closely with legendary generals, such as Robert E. Lee. They fired some of the first and last shots of the War; fought on horseback and ships, in trenches and the infantry; built fortifications, led men in charges; one was responsible for provisioning an entire army corps of about 50,000 men.

Read more about this family history here.

New books with a Jewish genealogy twist

All holidays are family history times, as generations gather from near and far.

Passover is nearly here so we'll have extra time to catch up with our reading during the holiday. Not. That was a joke of sorts. Who has any time to do anything until after the holiday is over? I don't. But put these two books on your list for AP, as we call it, After Pesach.

There's a story here on a Brooklyn bookshop - BookCourt - owned by Henry Zook and Mary Gannett who started the shop in 1981. Today, they run it with their son, Zack Zook, 23.

I'm very curious about the Zook name and just wrote to them. I'll let you know what I find out. In any case, they have a nice website and also send out "These just in" alerts.

The latest list included two new paperback editions that should interest Tracing the Tribe readers because of the characters, backgrounds and historical periods. The books are "Landsman: A Novel," by Peter Charles Melman and "The Ministry of Special Cases," by Nathan Englander.

"Landsman: A Novel," by Peter Charles Melman

... a boisterous, sometimes brutal, and full-hearted tale of a Jewish hoodlum turned Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Elias Abrams is the son of an indentured servant in New Orleans who escapes a robbery gone awry–and the wrath of his old underworld gang, the Cypress Stump Boys–by enlisting in the Third Louisiana Regiment ...

Here's a snippet of an interview with the author:

Melman: ...And yet, there I am a couple years ago, working at a small bookstore in Brooklyn, when I come across a line in Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic claiming that several thousand Jews fought for the South during the Civil War. I was absolutely thunderstruck; the idea of a Jewish Confederacy had simply never occurred to me. As a Jew born in New York but raised in Louisiana, with an undergraduate degree in history and doctorate in English-Creative Writing,...

Learn more about Melman's research at the book's website for resources on the Jews of that time and place, an interactive map and more. Definitely worth checking out if you are interested in New Orleans, have ancestors from there (Ashkenazi or Sephardi) or want to know more about the Civil War.

A Brooklyn resident, Melman has an interesting background: "Born along Long Island’s north shore in 1971, Peter Charles Melman moved with his family to Louisiana at the age of twelve, where he learned to hunt woodcock, skin catfish, dip tobacco, and in so doing, thoroughly offend the more nebbish-y tendencies of his cousins back up in New York." He also used to work at the BookCourt, so this is kind of full-circle for him.

"The Ministry of Special Cases," by Nathan Englander

From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, Nathan Englander’s debut novel "The Ministry of Special Cases" casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, a terrifying, byzantine refuge of last resort...

There's more on the book at the National Yiddish Book Center, and a bit from the LA Times review:

How to honor the dead, if there's no way to prove they are in fact dead? The question drives Kaddish to distraction and "The Ministry of Special Cases" to its macabre end. As suggested by the current wave of trials in Argentina, this impossible question lingers for thousands of Argentine fathers and mothers and grandparents, most famously the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who have gathered in protest every Thursday in Buenos Aires for decades.

Enjoy!

Book: Southern Jewish Roots

Did your Jewish families settle in the American south? Here are two books - one recently published and one upcoming - which focus on southern Jewish roots.

Mark I. Greenberg and Marcie Cohen Ferris are the co-editors of the anthology Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (Brandis University Press, 2006), and Greenberg is the author of the upcoming Jews of Savannah Georgia (1733-1900).

Greenberg is at the University of South Florida, where he is associate librarian, Special Collections director, Florida Studies Center director and Oral History Program director. His focus is on Southern and immigrant/ethnic history, and particularly southern Jewish history.

For more on how he became interested in the Jewish history of the South, click here.

There are numerous review of the book at the site, and I liked this one by J.Book.com's Danny Miller:

"Jewish Roots in Southern Soil helped shatter my arrogant belief that Jewish culture in this country was invented by New Yorkers, Chicagoans, and other Northern Jews. The story of how the Jews of the South acculturated to their region while still holding onto their Jewish identity is a vitally important chapter in the history of American Jewry. The scholars represented in this excellent resource prove once and for all that being a Jew in the United States does not begin and end with a plate of lox and bagels but can also include a little gumbo, black-eyed peas, and some matzo-meal fried-green tomatoes."

Additionally, both this book and the upcoming Savannah-focused book, should prove interesting to Sephardic researchers, as many of the first Southern Jews were Sephardim from the Caribbean.