Those readers living in and around Eugene, Oregon, will be interested in a program about searching Yad Vashem's online resources by Renee Gottesman, writes Reeva Kimble, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Willamette Valley.
Gottesman will explain the Yad Vashem Web site and contents, how to navigate the site and how to locate family.
Meetings are open to all, and participants are welcome to bring genealogy research questions, success stories, old photos, reference books and family heirlooms. Society members may borrow books, newsletters, CDs and other materials from the library, and list their names and towns of interest on the society's Web site.
The meeting is set for April 11. For location, directions, information and an upcoming event calendar through August, click here.
08 April 2007
France: Congress of Genealogy, May 18-20
Micheline Gutmann of GenAmi in Paris has announced that the society, France's association for Jewish genealogy, will be present at the upcoming Congress of Genealogy organized by the French Federation of Genealogy.
GenAmi will have a booth during the May 18-20 conference, and Gutmann will speak at 10 a.m. on May 20, about the difficulties of Jewish genealogical research.
Gutmann points out that the majority of individuals attending general genealogical conferences are not aware of Jewish genealogy, although many wish to know more.
For more information on GenAmi, click here.
GenAmi will have a booth during the May 18-20 conference, and Gutmann will speak at 10 a.m. on May 20, about the difficulties of Jewish genealogical research.
Gutmann points out that the majority of individuals attending general genealogical conferences are not aware of Jewish genealogy, although many wish to know more.
For more information on GenAmi, click here.
Israel: Author Neil Rosenstein on April 11
JFRA Israel's Ra'anana branch invites all family history researchers to a session with guest speaker Dr. Neil Rosenstein of New Jersey.
A prolific author/speaker/researcher, Rosenstein will discuss his new book, The Grandees of New Jersey, which focuses on a Sephardic family that includes a mayor.
The book is a family saga and continuous history from pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal to Holland, the Caribbean and the United States, where descendants of Joshua Naar played a major role in the history of New Jersey and New York.
Rosenstein will explain how he did the research for this fascinating family.
The meeting begins at 7.30 p.m. on April 11.
For more information, go to JFRA Israel's Web site, www.genealogy.org.il, or contact president Ingrid Rockberger, ingrid@genealogy.org.il.
A prolific author/speaker/researcher, Rosenstein will discuss his new book, The Grandees of New Jersey, which focuses on a Sephardic family that includes a mayor.
The book is a family saga and continuous history from pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal to Holland, the Caribbean and the United States, where descendants of Joshua Naar played a major role in the history of New Jersey and New York.
Rosenstein will explain how he did the research for this fascinating family.
The meeting begins at 7.30 p.m. on April 11.
For more information, go to JFRA Israel's Web site, www.genealogy.org.il, or contact president Ingrid Rockberger, ingrid@genealogy.org.il.
Happy Passover to readers!
As always, the days leading up to and including Passover tend to be more than chaotic.
Whether we are preparing for our own seders or visiting others (which means baking special Passover treats to take along), welcoming guests from abroad or going away ourselves for a few days - it is a busy time.
We were in Netanya at a cousin's home for the one seder celebrated in Israel - complete with obligatory scallion-lashings and a matza-eating dog - and were happy to see an old friend (and cousin) from New York at the table as well. Some of the cousins drove down to Eilat for a few days - I stayed home and relaxed in the quiet house. Our New York cousin stayed with us for a few days and we invited still other cousins for Shabbat dinner.
Always a good time visiting and being visited, welcoming and being welcomed, seeing old friends and family.
In Israel, the entire country basically shuts down for the holiday, and because so many people travel out of the city, traffic is light - a nice change. The weather has been great for the most part, warm enough to go swimming, sunny, light breezes. Some of our friends have spent the entire holiday at the Dead Sea, while others went north to the Galilee.
As the holiday ends, I hope that all blog readers have had a good time while sharing family history around the table.
Whether we are preparing for our own seders or visiting others (which means baking special Passover treats to take along), welcoming guests from abroad or going away ourselves for a few days - it is a busy time.
We were in Netanya at a cousin's home for the one seder celebrated in Israel - complete with obligatory scallion-lashings and a matza-eating dog - and were happy to see an old friend (and cousin) from New York at the table as well. Some of the cousins drove down to Eilat for a few days - I stayed home and relaxed in the quiet house. Our New York cousin stayed with us for a few days and we invited still other cousins for Shabbat dinner.
Always a good time visiting and being visited, welcoming and being welcomed, seeing old friends and family.
In Israel, the entire country basically shuts down for the holiday, and because so many people travel out of the city, traffic is light - a nice change. The weather has been great for the most part, warm enough to go swimming, sunny, light breezes. Some of our friends have spent the entire holiday at the Dead Sea, while others went north to the Galilee.
As the holiday ends, I hope that all blog readers have had a good time while sharing family history around the table.
02 April 2007
DNA Age: Stalking strangers' DNA
New York Times writer Amy Harmon has released another article in her DNA Age series. This one is a bit darker and recounts what people will do to get unwilling relatives' DNA to test for genetic genealogy.
As family history researchers know, paper records may contain errors, but a DNA match is a DNA match, no matter what the paper documents may say or not say.
However, not all relatives are interested in participating. I have tested several branches of our family, but my own branch remains untested because of reluctance on the part of the few remaining male relatives.
Why are they reluctant? It may be the price, it may be family secrets, it could be fear of the unknown or suspicions.
While I have not resorted to guerilla DNA tactics, it appears that others have, according to Harmon, and turned our hobby into an extreme reality show.
You'll enjoy retired banker Georgia Bopp's story about grabbing a relative's glass in a restaurant.
Adoptees are searching for biological families, proof of Native American heritage, and links to the famous.
Although testing companies prefer cheek cells, DNA can be extracted from other genetic material, including toothbrushes, hearing aids, nail clippings and postage stamps.
Family Tree DNA's Bennett Greenspan is quoted, referring to a bioethicist who spoke at the November 2006 conference in Houston. I attended both sessions that the bioethicist presented and listened to some of the cases attendees presented. It was an eye-opener, although the woman said "Don't do anything you wouldn't do in broad daylight."
"They swab the cheeks of strangers and pluck hairs from corpses. They travel hundreds of miles to entice their suspects with an old photograph, or sometimes a free drink. Cooperation is preferred, but not necessarily required to achieve their ends.
If the amateur genealogists of the DNA era bear a certain resemblance to members of a “CSI” team, they make no apologies. Prompted by the advent of inexpensive genetic testing, they are tracing their family trees with a vengeance heretofore unknown."
As family history researchers know, paper records may contain errors, but a DNA match is a DNA match, no matter what the paper documents may say or not say.
However, not all relatives are interested in participating. I have tested several branches of our family, but my own branch remains untested because of reluctance on the part of the few remaining male relatives.
Why are they reluctant? It may be the price, it may be family secrets, it could be fear of the unknown or suspicions.
While I have not resorted to guerilla DNA tactics, it appears that others have, according to Harmon, and turned our hobby into an extreme reality show.
"Seeking to expand their family trees, thousands of amateur family historians have begun asking people with the same last names to compare genes, even though most are total strangers. That is where the free drinks come in."
You'll enjoy retired banker Georgia Bopp's story about grabbing a relative's glass in a restaurant.
Adoptees are searching for biological families, proof of Native American heritage, and links to the famous.
Although testing companies prefer cheek cells, DNA can be extracted from other genetic material, including toothbrushes, hearing aids, nail clippings and postage stamps.
Family Tree DNA's Bennett Greenspan is quoted, referring to a bioethicist who spoke at the November 2006 conference in Houston. I attended both sessions that the bioethicist presented and listened to some of the cases attendees presented. It was an eye-opener, although the woman said "Don't do anything you wouldn't do in broad daylight."
Uncovering hidden Jewish roots
This Passover, Leah Diaz-Oben, 54, of Jacksonville, Florida, recalls her family's flight from Cuba in 1962, and her recent discovery of her Jewish heritage. She plans to help others do the same.
I'm always looking for stories like this because it means there are so many people out there searching for roots. Fortunately, there are some rabbis who are welcoming.
Diaz-Oben attends Levin Cohn's synagogue and is converting. She plans to launch a Web site and blog aimed at helping others to re-discover their roots.
To read more, click here
"As we were preparing to go, my grandmother said, 'Just remember the Jewish people, how they had to go from place to place at a moment's notice,' " Diaz-Oben said.
But she was unaware of her family's Jewish roots at the time "and I wasn't even sure who the Jewish people were," she said.
That changed in 2004, when Diaz-Oben's genealogy research uncovered Jewish roots on both sides of her family. She learned they had stopped practicing Judaism, and in some cases converted to Catholicism, because of persecution in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition and later in the Caribbean."
I'm always looking for stories like this because it means there are so many people out there searching for roots. Fortunately, there are some rabbis who are welcoming.
"Experts say more and more Jews are having epiphanies like Diaz-Oben's.
"A lot of people are discovering they had Jewish roots but never knew it before," said Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn at Congregation Ahavath Chesed in Mandarin.
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the New York-based National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a think tank on Jewish issues, estimates up to 25 percent of the world's 12 million to 15 million Jews are Sephardic, meaning they descend from ancestors who fled Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition ... .
Because many Jews converted to Catholicism or went underground, often their modern descendants are unaware of their own Jewish identity, Hirschfield said."
Diaz-Oben attends Levin Cohn's synagogue and is converting. She plans to launch a Web site and blog aimed at helping others to re-discover their roots.
To read more, click here
01 April 2007
Sephardic Passover traditions
It's great to be Sephardic at Passover!
We have rice in a million forms. Persian cooks are masters at rice, even if it is only chelo, plain parboiled and then steamed rice with crunchy tahdiq, or mixed with various vegetables, nuts and fruits. My first Pesach in Tehran was a strange one, with all that rice. After a few days, I was converted from my Ashkenazi upbringing and my mantra was, "When in Persia, do as the Persian Jews."
However, it was rather frustrating to attempt to make my childhood Ashkenazi Passover treats in my mother-in-law's kitchen, which was minus measuring cups, spoons or proper baking tins. Trying to make carrot ingberlach on the rainiest day of the year (it never sets in humid weather) was especially challenging. Once our belongings arrived a few months later, I had everything needed to start turning out cakes and goodies for the holidays.
During our eight years in Tehran, I frequently baked like crazy to provide Passover cakes to the extended family, because cake was eaten in the morning instead of matza. I made apple cakes, brownies, mocha cakes and almond cakes. Persian Jews rarely did Passover baking except for rudimentary flat cakes ("sawdust-like" was the predominant texture and flavor), and the treats we bought were "poufak" -- meringues in pink, tan and white.
Perhaps the most amazing dish of the holiday was the Persian version of charoset, called halek, incorporating myriad varieties of nuts, fruits (fresh and dried), cinnamon, pepper, wine … literally the entire koshered kitchen sink! The insipid Ashkenazi version of simple walnuts, cinnamon, apple and wine never appeared in my kitchen after that first year.
This delicious paste is eaten throughout the holiday on matza sandwiches for the kids (it beats the soggy tuna-on-matzoh or cream-cheese-on-matzoh that I remember taking to school). Halek can also be made into Pesach baklava; it is used as a filling between layers of wine-soaked matzoh and baked. Yummy!
The New York Times has a great story on Sephardic treats - three great parve ones from the Spanish kitchen. The pictures are mouth-watering as are the simple-to-follow recipes.
The story, by cookbook author Joan Nathan, is about Ana Benarroch de Bensadón of Madrid, whose family moved from Tangiers, Morocco in 1963. De Bensadón discusses the great interest in Jewish food, as well as her popular book of Sephardic dessert recipes called Dulce lo vivas: La Repostería Sefardí (May Your Life Be Sweet: The Sephardic Pastry Kitchen).
The article touches on culinary history and the Conversos of Spain who used kitchen tricks to make favorites usable with meat meals, such as making an orange-almond flan with orange juice instead of cream or milk.
And for answers by Nathan to Passover food questions, click here.
We have rice in a million forms. Persian cooks are masters at rice, even if it is only chelo, plain parboiled and then steamed rice with crunchy tahdiq, or mixed with various vegetables, nuts and fruits. My first Pesach in Tehran was a strange one, with all that rice. After a few days, I was converted from my Ashkenazi upbringing and my mantra was, "When in Persia, do as the Persian Jews."
However, it was rather frustrating to attempt to make my childhood Ashkenazi Passover treats in my mother-in-law's kitchen, which was minus measuring cups, spoons or proper baking tins. Trying to make carrot ingberlach on the rainiest day of the year (it never sets in humid weather) was especially challenging. Once our belongings arrived a few months later, I had everything needed to start turning out cakes and goodies for the holidays.
During our eight years in Tehran, I frequently baked like crazy to provide Passover cakes to the extended family, because cake was eaten in the morning instead of matza. I made apple cakes, brownies, mocha cakes and almond cakes. Persian Jews rarely did Passover baking except for rudimentary flat cakes ("sawdust-like" was the predominant texture and flavor), and the treats we bought were "poufak" -- meringues in pink, tan and white.
Perhaps the most amazing dish of the holiday was the Persian version of charoset, called halek, incorporating myriad varieties of nuts, fruits (fresh and dried), cinnamon, pepper, wine … literally the entire koshered kitchen sink! The insipid Ashkenazi version of simple walnuts, cinnamon, apple and wine never appeared in my kitchen after that first year.
This delicious paste is eaten throughout the holiday on matza sandwiches for the kids (it beats the soggy tuna-on-matzoh or cream-cheese-on-matzoh that I remember taking to school). Halek can also be made into Pesach baklava; it is used as a filling between layers of wine-soaked matzoh and baked. Yummy!
The New York Times has a great story on Sephardic treats - three great parve ones from the Spanish kitchen. The pictures are mouth-watering as are the simple-to-follow recipes.
The story, by cookbook author Joan Nathan, is about Ana Benarroch de Bensadón of Madrid, whose family moved from Tangiers, Morocco in 1963. De Bensadón discusses the great interest in Jewish food, as well as her popular book of Sephardic dessert recipes called Dulce lo vivas: La Repostería Sefardí (May Your Life Be Sweet: The Sephardic Pastry Kitchen).
"She shifted into Spanish, French and Haketía (sometimes spelled Haquetía), a Sephardic dialect, as she searched for words to describe sweets like hojuelas (fijuelas) en almíbar, a flowerlike fritter dipped in honey, and tortitas cribadas, a savory lacelike cracker that I tasted recently at the home of one of Mrs. Bensadón’s friends in Tangiers.
These are recipes of home and of exile with deep roots in Jewish, Spanish and North African culture, some hundreds of years old and some contemporary."
The article touches on culinary history and the Conversos of Spain who used kitchen tricks to make favorites usable with meat meals, such as making an orange-almond flan with orange juice instead of cream or milk.
And for answers by Nathan to Passover food questions, click here.
A modern pioneer's Passover
At Passover, we should retell the stories of our family's experiences. In some cases, these stories involve real pioneers, those who went west in wagon trains long ago.
But sometimes, the western pioneers are very contemporary. Here's one of those stories which will likely become part of the author's life-long traditions.
Preparing Passover in rural America isn't easy.
The author had never realized that it might include consuming meat that came from animals she had known personally.
"Last year in the Wild West, this year in civilization, next year in Jerusalem."
But sometimes, the western pioneers are very contemporary. Here's one of those stories which will likely become part of the author's life-long traditions.
Preparing Passover in rural America isn't easy.
"But in Alamosa (population 8,000), which serves as the metropolitan center for the entire valley in which it sits, flanked by three mountain ranges of 14,000-foot peaks and the New Mexican border, any form of a traditional Passover seemed hopeless."
The author had never realized that it might include consuming meat that came from animals she had known personally.
"The cooking felt familiar, with the usual aromas of matzo ball soup and roast chicken. But the food all came from within spitting distance: The chickens had been bartered for steaks from the ranch where I was staying; the tomatoes came from a nearby greenhouse; the eggs were from a farm just to the south; the potatoes from practically under my feet and the wine from just over the mountains, and the beef was the product of a herd of cattle all named George that I had seen roaming the pasture a few months earlier."
"Last year in the Wild West, this year in civilization, next year in Jerusalem."
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