While searching for descendants of Zacarias Katz, born in Ostrowiec Swietikrzyski, Poland, Paul Baranik in South Florida found a different sort of relative.
Although searching successfully for the right Katz among so many with this common surname is difficult, miracles may still happen.
About a year ago, Baranik sent a letter to every Zachary or Zac Katz he could find in the U.S. online white pages.
"I doubt that my Zac Katz is a member of your family tree, as my Katz is a feline cat," replied one woman, who had listed her number under her cat's nom de plume.
Baranik asked for and obtained permission to include the story and Zac's photo in his family's history book.
But he's still looking for descendants of Zacharias Katz, born in Ostrowiec Swietikrzyski who, in 1935 in Opatow, Poland, married Sura Chana Sznajder of Opatow. Zacharias' mother was Chana Cyrla Rozensztajn Katz.
He'd prefer that these relatives be two-footed and less furry. Contact Paul at PaulNMNB@aol.com.
08 May 2007
Bring the kids! A family-friendly gen conference
The 2007 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference, one of the largest annual gen events, is an exciting gathering for genealogists to learn, share and network.
It takes place August 15-18, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
One new feature will be the Youth Fair on August 18.
Young people interested in genealogy and local history will be able to learn the basics of researching family trees, along with scrapbooking demonstrations, historical displays, musical performances and historical re-enactors.
What a great idea! Click here for more.
It takes place August 15-18, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
One new feature will be the Youth Fair on August 18.
Young people interested in genealogy and local history will be able to learn the basics of researching family trees, along with scrapbooking demonstrations, historical displays, musical performances and historical re-enactors.
What a great idea! Click here for more.
Eastman in London
Dick Eastman went to London for the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE event (initially covered in my blog here.)
He has two postings about the event. The first is available to all viewers.
The second posting is only available to his newsletter subscribers and, in my opinion, he hits the nail on the head with that one in many ways. Here's the first paragraph, you'll have to subscribe to read the rest:
Among his photos:
Here's a picture of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain booth.
House History seems very popular.
Check this out for one way to find your relatives in the crowd!
He has two postings about the event. The first is available to all viewers.
The second posting is only available to his newsletter subscribers and, in my opinion, he hits the nail on the head with that one in many ways. Here's the first paragraph, you'll have to subscribe to read the rest:
I'd like to compare this weekend's London event with other genealogy conferences and events in the United States. First of all, the show in London was a fair, not a conference. There is a huge difference. Genealogy conferences as held in the U.S. and in many other countries tend to be aimed at the intermediate to advanced genealogists. To be sure, many conferences also have topics for beginners but if you go down the list of presentations, define each as introductory, intermediate or advanced and then tally the results, you will find that most conferences are heavy in the intermediate to advanced categories. ...
Among his photos:
Here's a picture of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain booth.
House History seems very popular.
Check this out for one way to find your relatives in the crowd!
07 May 2007
France: New president 's Sephardic ties
An excellent source for European Jewish information is the European Jewish Press
Here we learn that Sarkozy's mother is a member of one of the oldest Jewish families of Salonika, the MALLAH (Hebrew: messenger or angel) family. The family escaped the Spanish Inquisition, settled in Provence, France and moved a century later to Salonika, where family members became prominent Zionist leaders and were active in all facets of life.
Sarkozy's great-grandfather was a jeweler in Salonika, had seven children and died in 1913. His eldest child, Sarkozy's grandfather Aron "Beniko" Mallah, was born in 1890.
The family included Uncle Moshe, a rabbi and Zionist who published and edited, in 1898, El Avenir, the leading Greek paper for the Zionist movement. Cousin Asher was a Greek Senator who, in 1912, helped establish the Technion and served as the Greek Zionist Federation's first president. In the 1930s, he helped Jews immigrate to Israel, where he himself went in 1934.
A Jewish philanthropist, cousin Peppo Mallah also served in the Greek Parliament. In 1920, he was offered the post of Greek Minister of Finance, but he refused. According to the article, he was Israel's first ambassador to Greece.
A fire destroyed much of Salonika in 1917. Many Jewish properties, including those of the Mallah family, were confiscated by the government. Many Jews left Greece, and many relatives went to France, America and Israel.
When Beniko was 14, he and his mother moved to France where he studied medicine and served as a WWI French Army doctor, where he met his future wife, Adele Bouvieux or Bouvier, depending on the source. To marry her, he converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Benedict.
According to reports, Benedict remained very close to his Jewish family, and during World War II, he and his family (including daughters Susanne and Andree) hid, knowing he was still considered Jewish.
Of the Mallahs who stayed in Salonika or moved to France, 57 perished. According to the article, several revolted against the Nazis and Buena Malla underwent medical experiments in Birkenau.
His daughter Andree married Pal (later Paul) Nagy Bosca y Sarkozy, descendent of a Hungarian artistocratic family in 1950 and had three sons, including Nicolas. After a divorce, Andree raised the three children close to their grandfather. Nicolas was especially close to his grandfather and records this in his biography, according to the EJP story. Benedict died in 1972.
On a visit to Greece in July 2006, Sarkozy was honored with a plaque at the French Embassy in Athens by the Jewish Community of Salonika. It is inscribed "In memory of Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to Greece from the Thessaloniki Jewish Community, the town of your ancestors, mother and city of Israel and Jerusalem of the Balkans.”"
The community also gifted Sarkozy with his genealogical family tree back to his great-great-grandfather and pictures of his ancestors. Present at the event was community president David Saltiel's wife Lucy, who is also a Mallah descendent.
Sarkozy's wife Cecilia is identified in an EJP article as being of Jewish-Spanish ancestry.
Here we learn that Sarkozy's mother is a member of one of the oldest Jewish families of Salonika, the MALLAH (Hebrew: messenger or angel) family. The family escaped the Spanish Inquisition, settled in Provence, France and moved a century later to Salonika, where family members became prominent Zionist leaders and were active in all facets of life.
Sarkozy's great-grandfather was a jeweler in Salonika, had seven children and died in 1913. His eldest child, Sarkozy's grandfather Aron "Beniko" Mallah, was born in 1890.
The family included Uncle Moshe, a rabbi and Zionist who published and edited, in 1898, El Avenir, the leading Greek paper for the Zionist movement. Cousin Asher was a Greek Senator who, in 1912, helped establish the Technion and served as the Greek Zionist Federation's first president. In the 1930s, he helped Jews immigrate to Israel, where he himself went in 1934.
A Jewish philanthropist, cousin Peppo Mallah also served in the Greek Parliament. In 1920, he was offered the post of Greek Minister of Finance, but he refused. According to the article, he was Israel's first ambassador to Greece.
A fire destroyed much of Salonika in 1917. Many Jewish properties, including those of the Mallah family, were confiscated by the government. Many Jews left Greece, and many relatives went to France, America and Israel.
When Beniko was 14, he and his mother moved to France where he studied medicine and served as a WWI French Army doctor, where he met his future wife, Adele Bouvieux or Bouvier, depending on the source. To marry her, he converted to Catholicism and changed his name to Benedict.
According to reports, Benedict remained very close to his Jewish family, and during World War II, he and his family (including daughters Susanne and Andree) hid, knowing he was still considered Jewish.
Of the Mallahs who stayed in Salonika or moved to France, 57 perished. According to the article, several revolted against the Nazis and Buena Malla underwent medical experiments in Birkenau.
His daughter Andree married Pal (later Paul) Nagy Bosca y Sarkozy, descendent of a Hungarian artistocratic family in 1950 and had three sons, including Nicolas. After a divorce, Andree raised the three children close to their grandfather. Nicolas was especially close to his grandfather and records this in his biography, according to the EJP story. Benedict died in 1972.
On a visit to Greece in July 2006, Sarkozy was honored with a plaque at the French Embassy in Athens by the Jewish Community of Salonika. It is inscribed "In memory of Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to Greece from the Thessaloniki Jewish Community, the town of your ancestors, mother and city of Israel and Jerusalem of the Balkans.”"
The community also gifted Sarkozy with his genealogical family tree back to his great-great-grandfather and pictures of his ancestors. Present at the event was community president David Saltiel's wife Lucy, who is also a Mallah descendent.
Sarkozy's wife Cecilia is identified in an EJP article as being of Jewish-Spanish ancestry.
Litvak Heritage: Volume II available now
"Preserving Our Litvak Heritage, Volume II" by Josef Rosin is now available through JewishGen.
While Volume I included 31 communities, this second volume includes an additional 21 (Alsedziai, Antaliepte, Balbieriskis, Darbenai, Gruzdziai, Kelme, Kavarskas, Mazeikiai, Pajuris, Plunge, Raguva, Salakas, Salociai, Sirvintos, Saukenai, Uzpaliai, Vyzuonos, Varniai, Zarasai, Zagare, and Ziezmariai).
According to Carol Skydell, JewishGen's vice president of special projects:
Both volumes are available now at a special discount at JewishGenMall.
While Volume I included 31 communities, this second volume includes an additional 21 (Alsedziai, Antaliepte, Balbieriskis, Darbenai, Gruzdziai, Kelme, Kavarskas, Mazeikiai, Pajuris, Plunge, Raguva, Salakas, Salociai, Sirvintos, Saukenai, Uzpaliai, Vyzuonos, Varniai, Zarasai, Zagare, and Ziezmariai).
According to Carol Skydell, JewishGen's vice president of special projects:
a wide range of material in Lithuanian, Hebrew and Yiddish, including newspapers and Yad Vashem archives, and has painstakingly investigated every detail of life. Every possible name, photograph and date has been included.
Both volumes are available now at a special discount at JewishGenMall.
Malka updates Sephardic FAQ
Award-winning author and Sephardic resercher Dr. Jeffrey Malka has updated the Sephardic genealogy FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on his comprehensive Sephardic Genealogy website.
This should be the first stop for new researchers of Sephardic families and will also help more experienced researchers with its wealth of resources.
Access it here, or from the main site above.
"Comments, additions, or suggestions are very welcome," says Malka, author of Sephardic Genealogy: Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors (Avotaynu, 2002).
This should be the first stop for new researchers of Sephardic families and will also help more experienced researchers with its wealth of resources.
Access it here, or from the main site above.
"Comments, additions, or suggestions are very welcome," says Malka, author of Sephardic Genealogy: Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors (Avotaynu, 2002).
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.
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.
05 May 2007
Finding a home for history
The Jewish Standard's story about the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey describes one man's quest to preserve the history of a town.
Jerry Nathans is the last guardian of Paterson, New Jersey's Jewish past. President of the JHSNJ, he's spent three decades collecting artifacts and information about the city 's (and environs) history.
Although the society was once a thriving group of 70 and sponsored lectures, exhibits and other events, Nathans is now alone as the caretaker of 150 years packed into 300 boxes.
It all began in 1978 when a woman came looking for information about her husband's grandfather, a Paterson rabbi in the 1800s. She went for help to the North Jersey Y, but the librarian realized nothing had been preserved. She put out a call for information on the history. Nathans and Reeva Isaacs began interviewing people and, in 1979, they transcribed nearly 100 interviews and the society was formed.
The story is very detailed and describes the experiences of Nathans in being just a few minutes late to rescue items that should be preserved, such as a photographer's collection of negatives which were thrown out because they were moldy; Nathans said they could have been washed and preserved. Another photographer closed his business, put everything on the curb, and it was gone before Nathans got there.
One hundred years of the Jewish Publication Society's American Jewish Yearbooks was found by Nathans in a dumpster outside the Paterson Museum.
One treasure is a 15,000-page autobiography of Rabbi Abraham Shindling who spent 10 years in Paterson, and which has a wealth of information about families in the city's early 1900s..
Can you help?
Jerry Nathans is the last guardian of Paterson, New Jersey's Jewish past. President of the JHSNJ, he's spent three decades collecting artifacts and information about the city 's (and environs) history.
Although the society was once a thriving group of 70 and sponsored lectures, exhibits and other events, Nathans is now alone as the caretaker of 150 years packed into 300 boxes.
It all began in 1978 when a woman came looking for information about her husband's grandfather, a Paterson rabbi in the 1800s. She went for help to the North Jersey Y, but the librarian realized nothing had been preserved. She put out a call for information on the history. Nathans and Reeva Isaacs began interviewing people and, in 1979, they transcribed nearly 100 interviews and the society was formed.
The story is very detailed and describes the experiences of Nathans in being just a few minutes late to rescue items that should be preserved, such as a photographer's collection of negatives which were thrown out because they were moldy; Nathans said they could have been washed and preserved. Another photographer closed his business, put everything on the curb, and it was gone before Nathans got there.
He’s written many letters asking for contributions to the collection, with few responses. When the newsletter was published, it ran a section listing new acquisitions, and Nathans always sent a thank-you note to donors, but, he lamented, people no longer see the society as a resource for preservation.
"I’ve questioned people and usually I am two minutes too late," he said. "I spoke to somebody in Bayonne and, unfortunately, before I contacted them they cleaned out their attic and threw everything out."
One hundred years of the Jewish Publication Society's American Jewish Yearbooks was found by Nathans in a dumpster outside the Paterson Museum.
One treasure is a 15,000-page autobiography of Rabbi Abraham Shindling who spent 10 years in Paterson, and which has a wealth of information about families in the city's early 1900s..
Paterson’s past depends on the society’s future.
"At least we’re preserving it," Nathans said of the collection. "That’s the important thing."
Can you help?
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