Washington DC: 'Women in WWII,' dual program, April 17

Women in World War II is the topic in a dual program presented by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington on Sunday, April 17.

The program is in two parts at Beth El Hebrew Congregation, 3830 Seminary Road, Alexandria, Virgina.

From 11am-1pm, the first part is an intermediate workshop on "Women's World War II Resistance," presented by Patti Maslinoff. It is open only to JGSGW members and is free.

Following a short business meeting, the second part begins at 1.30pm. Davi Walders will read from her book and tell the stories of women throughout Europe whose heroic acts fighting fascism during the Holocaust saved thousands of lives. This part is free to JGSGW members and first-time attendees ($5 for others).

See below for more details on both programs.

Maslinoff's program - My Journey in Genealogy: Tips, How-To's & Rewards - is a two-hour multimedia presentation packed with resources, helpful hints and motivation for genealogists primarily at the intermediate level, although she says even beginners will find much information useful.

She will share some insights, joys and frustrations from 15 years of researching family history.

Included will be techniques she developed for improving research, data collection, organization and presentation, with valuable tips that only come from experience. Also in the presentation is a focus on digital technology and its tools, such as scanners and new software that can help make unreadable documents more legible.

Maslinoff will demonstrate video and audio clips during her own genealogical journey, and will discuss preparation for and conducting video-recorded oral history interviews. Attendees will learn about common mistakes made by beginners intermediate and even advanced researchers.

Ms. Maslinoff’s effusive enthusiasm and involvement with Jewish genealogy will be a motivation to all attendees. She teaches detective skills that will enable us to uncover the records, facts and other information about our families that generate those thrilling “Aha” moments that we treasure. Registration: Pre-registration required. Class is limited to 40 students. Register here

The main program -Women’s World War II Resistance - with writer and educator Davi Walders, will discuss what led her to research and write a moving collection of stories about woman throughout Europe whose heroic acts fighting fascism during the Holocaust saved thousands of lives.

She will read from her newly-published book ("Woman Against Tyranny: Poems of Resistance During the Holocaust;" Clemson University Digital Press).

The book tells the stories of Jewish, Christian and Muslim women who resisted in many ways, from helping others escape, to parachuting into hostile territory, to providing translation support and many other actions.

She will share stories of those who survived and those who perished - known as well as unknown. Included are Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, Emilie Schindler, Baroness Germaine de Rothschild and others.

The session will address the question of why women's stories are so often unknown. Walders spent 15 years researching, traveling, and writing this collection. These women’s stories take place in such countries as Germany, Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Slovakia, Albania, Greece, and elsewhere. The session will include discussion and a book-signing.

Walders' poetry and prose have appeared in more than 200 publications including CCAR Journal, Conservative Judaism, JOFA Journal, Judaism, Lilith and Midstream. She received Hadassah of Greater Washington's Myrtle Wreath Award for her work at NIH and its Children's Inn. For more biographical information, click here.

For more information and directions, click on the JGSGW website.

New York: Dona Gracia Nasi, Nov. 2

The American Sephardi Federation is co-sponsoring the 500th birthday celebration of the famed Dona Gracia Nasi (c1510-2010) on  Tuesday, November 2.

The program begins at 7pm at the JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avent (76th St.); a reception follows.

Andree Aelion Brooks, award-winning author of "The Woman Who Defied Kings," continues the incredible journey of Dona Gracia, a 16th century woman banker whose escape network saved thousands of fellow conversos from the terrors of the Inquisition.

The Dona Gracia Project seeks to bring public recognition and honor to the memory of this famed woman leader of the Jewish world. For more information, contact Harriet Porto.

The event is also co-sponsored by the JCC and Congregation Shearith Israel. Tickets are $15/$10.

Peeling the layers: Onion genealogy

Peeling an onion can make you cry.

This Onion, however, brings tears of laughter.

Back in 2002 - long before many geneablogs existed - the satire site seemed to forecast some of today's genealogy problems.

Dick Eastman's newsletter pointed to this old Onion article, so I went to take a look. I'm glad I did. Thanks, Dick.

I used to read The Onion frequently, but life has just gotten too busy. This post offered some interesting tips to working on one's family history.

Here are some:

-- Avoid this common mistake made by many first-time genealogists: Search for people with the same last name, not first. [Tracing the Tribe might also add that if you are creating an index, it be done by surname, not given name. It seems obvious, doesn't it? But we've seen a foreign cemetery index done by first name. Oy.]

-- Note to women: In this society, it is unimportant to know anything about your lineage on your mother's side. Just skip it altogether. [NOT! There are many genealogists who would like a piece of the article's author.]

-- Go to your oldest living relative and ask him or her about your lineage. Work your way down to the second, third, and fourth oldest until you get to someone who makes some sense. [and make sure to audio and video record each of these people, of course.]

Read the rest of them.

Los Angeles: Galeet Dardashti, May 16

Tracing the Tribe is delighted to announce that our cousin Galeet Dardashti will receive a special award on Sunday, May 16, in Los Angeles.

The event, sponsored by the Iranian Jewish Women's Organization will be held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I wish it were a few weeks later so that I could attend this wonderful event.

The objective of this organization, in addition to its social, cultural and charitable activities has been to protect the dual identity of the Iranian Jewish community in Los Angeles, as well as to recognize the impact and role of Iranian Jewish women in society.

The Shamsi Hekmat Achievement Award will be given to three outstanding Iranian Jewish women: Azadeh Farin, MD, neurosurgeon; Mojgan Rahbar, journalist, editor and anchorwoman; and Galeet Dardashti, PhD, vocalist and composer.

Galeet Dardashti is the first woman to continue her family’s tradition of distinguished Persian and Jewish musicianship. She leads Divahn—a renowned all-female power-house ensemble that performs edgy interpretations of Middle Eastern Jewish music internationally. She received a Six Points Fellowship and a Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Fellowship to pursue her independent project “The Naming”, a multi-disciplinary (original music, dance, video art, monologues) work performed in Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, and Aramaic that re-imagines some of the compelling women of the Bible.

Galeet holds a PhD in anthropology and completed her dissertation on the cultural politics of contemporary Middle Eastern music in Israel in 2009. Her work was supported by fellowships from Fulbright-Hays, The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, among others. She has published her academic work widely and offers lectures and artist/scholar-in-residencies throughout the country. She lives in New York with her husband and son.

Azadeh Farin is currently chief resident and clinical instructor of neurosurgery at the Department of Neurosurgery, Keck School of Medicine, LA County-USC Medical Center. She is one of fewer than 200 female neurosurgeons in the US, less than 4% of all US neurosurgeons.

Among her numerous accomplishments are dozens of publications, including first-author publications, several of which have been featured on the covers of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in her field.

Azadeh has served as a consultant for the hit ABC television drama, Grey’s Anatomy.

Mojgan Moghadam Rahbar is a journalist, writer, translator and humanitarian who has worked in the Iranian and American media for the past 20 years. Currently editor-in-chief of Shofar Magazine, the quarterly publication of the Iranian American Jewish Federation's quarterly publication, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

Congratulations to the three honorees.

Vancouver, BC. Jewish Museum, April events

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia has April programs focusing on women's history and Jewish summer camps, and has announced a new book and a new online archive for a local Jewish newspaper.

The Women's History Fair will display more than 20 displays from museums, archives, historical societies, cultural groups, schools and more in cooperation with the Women's History Network of British Columbia. Jewish women pioneers are part of the exhibit.

The exhibit takes place Saturday, April 10, from 1-4pm, at the Central Library, 350 West Georgia St. Admission is free. It is co-sponsored by the VPL Special Collections, Herstory Cafe and the Vancouver Courier.

Michael Schwartz will present a curator's talk on the Home Away From Home exhibit which focuses on British Columbia's Jewish summer camps, on Thursday, April 15, from 7-9pm. Admission is free.

The exhibit runs through October 7, and includes hundreds of photographs from Camp Miriam, Camp Hatikvah and Camp Solomon Schechter. Explore the camp histories and view interactive displays including camp alumni interviews, photographs and songs. Visit Sunday-Thursday, from 10am-5pm.

Since the 1930s, the children of the BC Jewish community have attended Jewish summer camps in BC and elsewhere. They have learned about Jewish history and ethics, the history and politics of Israel, and developed a strong sense of community. When asked about their experiences at camp, alumni often say that their dearest and longest lasting friendships began at the age of seven or eight, in their first days at camp. The exhibit explores such lasting impressions and features an array of photographs, artifacts and interactive displays. Jewish Camps featured in the exhibit include Camp Miriam, Camp Hatikvah, and Camp Solomon Schechter.

Schwartz was a Camp Miriam long-time staff member and served as executive director in 2006 and 2007, and as programming director in 2005. He earned an MA in History (University of Toronto) and worked as a researcher and coordinator at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

The Jewish Western Bulletin which changed its name to the Jewish Independent in 2005, has been the British Columbia Jewish community's newspaper since 1930. Currently, it is published 49 weeks of the year.

Originally labeled "The Organ of the Jewish Community Centre," the Jewish Western Bulletin was first published as a newspaper October 9, 1930. It superseded the Jewish Centre News, a publication that had existed under a series of names since 1923. Issues of the Jewish Western Bulletin and its precursor publications dating from 1923 - 2004 have been digitized using OCR technology and are made available on the Multicultural Canada website.

The project was made possible through the financial support of the Irving K. Barber BC Digitization Program, Multicultural Canada, the National Archival Development Program (NADP), Simon Fraser University and the THEN/HiER History Education Network.

A new book on sale at the Museum is the 50-year history of Camp Solomon Schechter, by David Michael Smith.

Established in 1955 by Rabbi Joshua Stampfer and his colleague Rabbi Joseph Wagner, Camp Solomon Schechter aimed to fill a gap by providing the Jewish families of the Pacific Northwest with the region's first kosher summer camp.

Its 156 glossy pages chronicles the history and life of camp with photos, illustrations and alumni experiences. The price is $10 (softcover), $12 (hardcover) plus S&H.

For more information, send an email, or view the Museum website.

World Jewish Studies: Italian section

An extensive section at the conference focused on the Italian Jewish community, in cooperation with ASSEI (The Israeli Association for the Study of History of Italian Jews)

Here are some of the categories and lectures (E=English, H=Hebrew):

The attitude towards the other in Italy
Silvia Cappelletti (E) The Expulsions of the Jews from Rome under Tiberius and Claudius: A Juridical Study
Yosef A. Cohen (H) The Place of the Apostate Alessandro Franceschi in the Jesuit Mission to Italian Jewry in the First Half of the 16th Century
Francesco Spagnolo (E) Participants-Observers: Christian Presences in Italian Synagogue Life
Itzhak Sergio Minerbi (H) Pope Benedict XVI and the Jews

Jewish Thought and Society in Italy
Pier Gabriele Mancuso (E) Sefer Yetzirah: Early Jewish Mysticism
Lea Naomi Vogelmann Goldfeld (H) Mordechai Shmuel Ghirondi, Rabbi of Padova, Scholar and Kabbalist
Asher Salah (E) From Odessa to Florence: Elena Comparetti Raffalovich and Jewish Russian Intellectuals in Post-Risorgimento Italy
Cristina Michal Bettin (E) Jewish Youth in Italy: Between Integrations and Assimilation, 1861–1938
Anna-Dorothea Ludewig (E) Marranism and Identity Construction in 19th-Century German-Jewish Literature
Paola Ferruta (E) “New Marranism” and the Encounter Between Jews and Universalism
Marina Arbib (H) The Diaries of Gershom Scholem: A Jewish Intellectual Shapes His Identity
Amir Ashur (H) Developments in the Status of Jewish Women in 12th-Century Egypt as Portrayed in Prenuptial Agreements from the Cairo Genizah
Avraham David (H) Culture and Trade Connection Between Egypt and Crete in the Late Middle Ages, as Reflected in Cairo Genizah Documents

There is also another list that didn't seem to be categorized, but included the following very interesting topics:

Joseph Rapaport, “The Leadership of the Jewish Community in the Kingdom of Navarre Before the Expulsion”
Yosef Hacker, “Charles the Eighth, the Conquest of Italy and Hispano-Jewish Aspirations on the Eve of the 16th Century”
Luis Cortese, “Isidore of Seville, Thomas Aquinas, and Alonso de Cartagena on Forced Conversion”
Ahuva Ho, “Alfonso de Zamora: an Apostate in the Service of the Church”
Ricardo Munoz Solla, “Conversos burgaleses: Historia de una silenciosa presencia (siglos XV-XVI)”
Samuela Marconcini, “Tolerance and Anti-Judaism: the Politics of Conversion to Catholicism in Tuscany Between the Seventeenth and the Nineteenth Centuries”
Matteo Al Kalak, “The “House of Catechumens” in Modena between Dukes and Popes (1583-1797)”
Ilaria Pavan, “The “House of Catechumens” in Modena during the Emancipation Age (1804-1941)”
Yosef Kaplan, “The Building of Sephardic Communities in the “Confessionalization Era”: A Comparative Approach”
Anita Waingort Novinsky, “A Critical Approach to Sephardic Historiography: The Forgotten Marranos of America”
Jose Alberto Rodrigues Da-Silva Tavim, “A Troublesome Theme: The Jews and the Intelligence Networks in Portugal’s Asian Empire In the 16th Century”
Schulamith C. Halevy, “Los Trevino: a `Tribe of Sefarditas’ in El Nuevo Reino de Leon District”
Asaf Ashkenazi, “Historia general de las Indias”
Limor Munz-Manor, “The Old World and the New”: The Jewish Discourse on America in 16th-Century Italy”
Claude B. Stuczynski, “Jews and Judaism in the Juridical Debates on Amerindians in 16th-Century Spanish-America”

Women and Widows
Tirtsah Levie-Bernfeld, “Sephardi Widows in Early Modern Amsterdam”
Ruth Lamdan, “Widows, Old and Respected Women in Ottoman Jewish Society”
Michal Ben Ya’akov, “From Marginality to Opportunity: Widows in Nineteenth Century Eretz-Israel”

What a wide panorama of topics addressing women, history, America, pre-Expulsion issues, conversion and much more!

Tracing the Tribe believes that Jewish history and genealogy cannot be separated. Each helps us learn about the other and to understand events on a very personal level as we realize that our own ancestors may have lived through those exact events and in those places.

Online: Jewish Women encyclopedia

The Jewish Women's Archive has announced the launch of the online version of "Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia", the first comprehensive source on Jewish women.

It is now accessible for free here. Previously it was only available on CD-Rom.

Originally published by Alice and Moshe Shalvi (Shalvi Publishing Ltd.), it was edited by Professors Paula Hyman (Yale University) and Dalia Ofer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

According to the press release:

It features over 1,700 biographies, 300 thematic essays, and 1,400 photographs and illustrations on a wide range of Jewish women through the centuries - from Gertrude Berg to Gertrude Stein; Hannah Greenbaum Solomon to Hannah Arendt; the Biblical Ruth to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Never before has so much well-researched and well-written material about Jewish women been available in one place online. Accessible and free to Internet users all over the world, the Encyclopedia appeals to a wide range of readers, including
educators, activists, high school students, researchers, scholars, and the merely curious. Its thematic and visual links make it possible to draw connections across time and space in ways that are impossible in a printed book.

Please help us spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to your colleagues, family, and friends! Let us know how you are using the Encyclopedia.

Send feedback to Jordan Namerow, Online Communications Specialist, Jewish Women's Archive.

The Jewish Women's Archive is located at 138 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA 02446.

New Blog: Women's Lens

I've just discovered Women's Lens, a blog that covers news relating to worldwide Jewry with "a specific slant on those originating from Egypt," as well as women's rights and their status worldwide, regardless of religious affiliations.

Blogger Aimée Dassa Kligman is an Egyptian-born Sephardic Jew who has lived in in New York City since 1962. She's discovering, through the web, a long lost family on her father's side. Though most of her formal schooling was in English, French is still her native language and numerous links on the site are for French language resources, and there are many links for international news sources. The blog began in May 2007.

Her cousin in Montreal is searching for their Dassa (AKA Deza) family roots and reported to Aimee that he found Deza in medieval Spain, along with their family crest. I also need to tell her that I searched Pere Bonnin's book, Sangre Judia, and found both Deza (1480 Toledo) and Daza (1483 Toledo) listed.

Take a look at Women's Lens here.

New York: Jewish mothers revised

Jewish mothers are important to our quests for genealogical data. Where would we be without them?

The Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) does some very interesting things in a variety of fields. I just received notice of this program now, and hope some New York readers may be able to attend.

"Our Mothers, Ourselves: The Jewish Mother Revised and Re-Invented," with Joyce Antler and Lauren Antler, will take place at 6.30pm, Thursday, October 11, at New York City's Jewish Museum, in collaboration with the JWA.

The JWA announcement reads:

The Jewish Mother is one of the best-known figures in popular culture.

Joyce Antler, professor of American Jewish History and Culture at Brandeis University and author of You Never Call! Your Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother, will trace the evolution of the "Yiddishe Mama" as popularized by Sophie Tucker and Gertrude Berg's "Molly Goldberg," to the colossal, oversized "monster" mother mocked by Philip Roth, Woody Allen, and others, through the present day re-interpretation of the Jewish Mother by leading feminist scholars and stand-up comedians.

Lauren Antler, stand-up comic and Senior Program Manager of the Jewish Women's Archive, will offer reflections entitled, What to Wear When You're Fighting the Patriarchy: Lessons from the Daughter of a Jewish Feminist.

For more information about the program, call: 212-423-3240

Seattle: Weaving Women's Words

One of my favorite cities is Seattle, where I have friends and family in the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities.

The Jewish Women's Archive offers many interesting articles. Their "Weaving Women's Words: Seattle Stories" section includes the stories of 30 remarkable women in that community. An additional 30 stories spotlight the women of Baltimore.

”These are women whose lives - in large and small ways - have touched and influenced thousands of people in and beyond their communities. They created families and businesses; textiles and food-laden tables; literature and music; institutions and homes. They came here from places like Turkey and Rhodes, from Germany and Romania; from Mississippi and New York City and Seattle’s own hills. They converse in English and Yiddish, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and German. They have wrestled with fears, and crossed boundaries of faith and cultures and nationalities and professions. They have reflected on lessons handed down to them, and on the lessons of their own well-lived lives."

In addition to the women's stories, there are artifacts and the stories behind them, including a beautiful cross-stitched family tree.

Yad Vashem: Women in the Holocaust

“Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust,” a new multimedia exhibit dedicated to women’s experience during the Holocaust is open at Yad Vashem’s Exhibitions Pavilion.

It voices the unique experiences of millions of women - targeted, pursued, abused and murdered during the Holocaust. Through personal accounts, photos, artwork, artifacts and video displays, it uncovers the human, feminine story behind the historical narrative, bringing us into the world of Jewish women as they experienced the terrible events of the Holocaust. From a uniquely feminine perspective, the exhibit explores such issues as love, motherhood, faith, food, creativity, friendship and more, in a time when civilization was undermined and humanity brought to the abyss.

The exhibit also contains a new work of video art - “To Be a Human Being” - created specifically for the exhibit by renowned artist Michal Rovner. The work is based on a group interview conducted with 10 Holocaust survivors at Yad Vashem. This is Rovner’s second work displayed at Yad Vashem: “Living Landscape,” portraying pre-war Jewish life in Europe, is the first display in the Holocaust History Museum.

For more, check Yad Vashem.

Finding elusive women

Tracking down female ancestors can be much harder than finding records of their male counterparts.

Some factors may help in tracing female members of a family: In some ethnic communities (such as Iranian and Spanish), women keep their maiden names after marriage, and in other European Jewish communities at specific times in history, restrictive marriage laws meant that children were given the mother's maiden name. Sometimes researchers have the ketubot (Jewish wedding contracts) of family members.

However, in the U.S., where the tradition is for the wife to adopt the husband's name after marriage, it can be much more difficult.

Genealogist/author Sharon DeBartolo Carmack's book, "A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Female Ancestors" is a great help. She advocates searching traditional as well as non-traditional sources in the great hunt.

"Family heirlooms and artifacts such as quilts, needlework or paintings may yield valuable clues about the female relative who created them. Careful examination of letters, diaries and journals may reveal hidden, 'written between the lines' details about either the female ancestors who wrote them or those mentioned within them."

To read more, click here.

19th century Jewish businesswomen

I received the spring issue of American Jewish Legacy and was pleased to see some interesting information on important businesswomen in our history:

--Rebecca Moses (1792-1872), a businesswoman and wife of successful Charleston planter, Isaiah Moses.

--Jenny Baruh, daughter of Jewish Gold Rush Pioneer Aaron Baruh and wife of Isadore Zellerbach (Crown Zellerbach paper company), who established a charitable foundation that has disbursed more than $50 million

--Blanche Colman, South Dakota's first female lawyer (1911), daughter of a Yiddish-speaking pioneer who came to Deadwood in 1877, where he was lay rabbi and a longtime justice of the peace

--Bella Marks, wife of Moses Garfunkel, a partner in Marks Moses of Georgetown, SC

--Nannette (Yettel) Conrad (born 1830, Bavaria), had a San Francisco millinery store, married Emanuel Blochman.

This issue also contains information on Ava F. Kahn, PhD of San Francisco, whose book Jewish Voices of the California Gold Rush: A Documentary History 1849-1880, will be followed by a co-authored volume, Jews of the Pacific West: The Growth of a Regional Community, 1849-1990 to be published by the University of Washington Press in 2008.

To read more or sign up to receive future issues, click here.

Louisiana's first female physician

The Jewish Women's Archive has a good feature highlighting prominent women. This week, Elisabeth D. A. Cohen is in the spotlight.

The daughter of Phoebe and Magnus Cohen was born in New York City on February 22, 1820, and married a doctor named Aaron Cohen. One of their sons died very young of measles and she believed that she should become a doctor to help mothers.

Her husband studied surgery in New Orleans in 1853, and Elizabeth moved to Philadelphia to enroll in the nation's first medical school for women, the Philadelphia College of Medicine. She graduated in 1857 and joined her husband in New Orleans to serve patients during a yellow fever outbreak.

At the ages of 93 and 100, two stories were written about her in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

"It was hard for Cohen to gain recognition as a doctor. The city directory of 1867 listed her as a midwife. In 1869, she was included as a "doctress." Only in 1876 did the directory finally describe her as a physician. When she was admitted to an old age home, she asked the registrar to "insert M.D. after her name."

In 1920, on her 100th birthday interview, she noted ("in anticipation of the ratification of the 19th amendment that year); 'things will be better when women can vote and can protect their own property and their own children. Even if I am a hundred, I'm for votes for women.'"

She died in New Orleans on May 28, 1921.

Elizabeth's entry is from "Jewish Women in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia," sponsored by the Jewish Women's Archive and available on CD for $200.
The electronic encyclopedia offers biographies, essays, photos and illustrations.

For more entries, click here, or sign up to receive them via e-mail or RSS.