IAJGS 2015 Schedule

Session Title: New Attendees

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: New Attendees
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Marlis Humphrey

Marlis Glaser Humphrey is the industry’s foremost expert on next generation family history publishing. Marlis has approached genealogy with a unique perspective on how technology advances in multimedia applications can enrich our sharing of family history. Find her latest technology and family history publishing tips at www.myAncestories.com.

Session Title: Jews in The Trenches: Historical and Genealogical Material at The National Library of Israel

At the outbreak of the First World War, European Jewry felt the need to prove their loyalty to their homelands and fight anti-Semitic accusations. Many joined the army and their numbers reached a million and a half. There are several recordings of these soldiers` names, published in various countries after the war. Other lists include the names of the fallen and recipients of medals and military citations. Some of the soldiers left diaries, letters and descriptions of the battlefield. Further information about the lives of Jewish soldiers can be found in reports written by Jewish chaplains in the various armies. Many soldiers were supplied with prayer books and religious texts. Special prayers were composed and recited by the communities back home.
Over the years, many items related to this Great War made their way to the collections of the National Library of Israel. In this lecture we will try to use these items to understand the involvement and the numbers of Jews fighting in the trenches.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniel Lipson

Reference and Digital Resource librarian at the National Library of Israel

Session Title: Numbers Tell - Genealogy Research Is Not Only Dates

In genealogical resources we may also find numbers other than dates. Sometimes those numbers even consist of a fraction. Since the fraction's meaning was unknown, distinctive hypotheses were raised. I was a partner to a research where the significance of those numbers revealed. For example, one of them consists of a fraction that represents the number of a quarter in the settlement. This brought to an insight that those numbers can be used as an important auxiliary research tool in genealogy. The numbers were added to a large database, which was organized in a spreadsheet, containing all the investigated family data. The spreadsheet enables cross reference, sorting, filtering or grouping of data by the same number. Family ties were confirmed and aspects of their daily life - was lighted, such as the wandering of the family's residence around in the settlement. My lecture will demonstrate the use of those numbers in the study of a family from L`viv/Lwow and in my personal research. The lecture will be in Hebrew with presentation with English subtitles too.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Irit Shem-Tov

Irit Shem-Tov, born in Kfar-Saba, Israel and is living there till today. Tel-Aviv University graduate in Geography. Has researched her family for over 20 years. As a result became a professional genealogist. She teaches Genealogy to various groups at all levels. Was IGS secretary and an IGS branch chair. She is also a genealogy advisor at 2 free public genealogy advisory services and is a private researcher.

Session Title: What's New in JRI-Poland?

Since its founding in 1995, there have been two phases in the activity of Jewish Records Indexing - Poland starting with Phase 1, the initial mission of creating basic indices of records microfilmed by the LDS and then Phase 2, the indexing of later years of records in Polish Archives not filmed by the LDS.

Recent changes in Polish archival policies and privacy laws will generate dramatic new opportunities for researchers tracing Jewish roots in Poland. This presentation will introduce Phase 3 of the JRI-Poland project.

Phase 3 has two components made possible by 1) the availability of digital images of records – facilitating the full extraction of five million+ vital records currently in our data base as well as those to be added in future, and 2) new Polish privacy law (as of March 1, 2015) allowing JRI-Poland to access/scan/extract marriage and death records up to 1934 in Civil Records Offices (USCs) of more than 600 towns in Poland.

The session will discuss the implications of the changes, how they will impact the JRI-Poland organization, its volunteers, supporters and the research community as well as propose new areas of collaboration with groups and individual researchers to maximize the potential benefits from the opportunities presented by Phase 3.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Stanley Diamond

Stanley Diamond, winner of 2002 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award, Executive Director of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and founding president of the Montreal Jewish Genealogical Society. His interest in genealogical research related to his family’s unique mutation of the beta thalassemia genetic trait led to founding of JRI-Poland. Diamond’s journey in family history research and the many paths on which it has taken him were featured in an episode of a documentary series “Past Lives” on Canadian television.

Session Title: Genealogical Data From The Archives of The Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam

This lecture aims to provide an introduction into the unbelievably rich archives of the Portuguese Jewish Community. These archives give insight into the lives of the members of this community, whether rich or poor. It will also yield information about the activities, relative wealth and religious activity of these members. It will be possible to track every functionary and employee, with date of nomination and tenure. It will be possible to reconstruct families where other sources fail. The archives also offer data on the whole of the Sephardic Diaspora: emissaries from various places but primarily from Jerusalem came and went, thousands of Sephardim from all over Europe came to Amsterdam for a bed, food, information. No one was turned away without at least some support.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Ton Tielen

Ton Tielen, born Venlo, 1953, The Netherlands, Archivist, 20 years of experience in researching the Archives of Jewish Communities in The Netherlands, especially the Portuguese Israelite Community of Amsterdam

Session Title: This Child is Me - Journey to Find the Biological Identity and Family of Elias and Yolik, Mengele Twins A7734, A7733

A presentation of expertise and challenges in genealogical search during the Holocaust, via my journey toward discovering the true identity and family of a child, Auschwitz survivor no. A7733.

When prisoner A7733 was liberated, he was a case of lost identity. He was only 4.5 at liberation. For the next 68 years of his life he lived under an adopted name and adopted date of birth. In 2012 we set out together on a journey toward fascinating discoveries of his true identity and his family relatives.

How do I interview a Holocaust survivor whose memory was erased? How do I interview demented people? Where did I find information about the child and his family? How were they located?

A brief review will be given about methods in collecting and analyzing data through this investigation that led to discoveries against all odds. The lecture will refer to gathering clues from documents that seem genealogically useless and coping with the challenges of memory, forgetfulness and repression.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Ayana Kimron

Ayana Kimron uses Forensic Genealogy together with her skills and experience into resolving family puzzles that were caused by WWII. Ayana helps end that war by searching for answers - hunting for evidence, tracing paths of victims, locating and profiling unknown relatives. Donated documentation about Bessarabia to JewishGen. Kehila pages in Romania and Bessarabia.

Session Title: JCR-UK – Project Outline and A Possible Blueprint for Other Regions of The World

The presenter is webmaster of JCR-UK, a website project jointly sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain and JewishGen and hosted by JewishGen. The lecture will explain the background, objects and contents of JCR-UK, the principal aim of which is to record genealogical and historical details of all Jewish communities and congregations that have ever existed in the United Kingdom (as well as the Republic of Ireland and Gibraltar), in order to preserve the information for posterity. The lecture will also discuss how other JCR projects, similar to JCR-UK, could be implemented in other regions of the World (for example, independent countries or US States) as an additional and useful tool on JewishGen. JCR-UK has over 6,000 Internet pages of communal and congregational information and images in addition to some 300,000 records (tens of thousands or pages and images) in the All-UK and JCR-UK Databases.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: UK-SIG
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): David Shulman

Born in London in 1947 and married with three children. A practicing lawyer in England until 1979, and in Israel from 1979 until 2014. Webmaster of JCR-UK (Jewish Communities and Records – United Kingdom) from 2005 and an editor of the IAJGS Cemetery Project.

Session Title: Sensitive Subjects in Genealogy: What to Reveal, What to Conceal

A genealogically sensitive subject is anything about an individual or family that might have been kept secret, or if mentioned, hushed up. How do you walk the fine line between accuracy and sensitivity when writing or talking about sensitive subjects like divorce, out-of-wedlock births, spousal abuse, homosexuality, or suicide? Ms. Rollins will discuss how she has handled each with examples from her own family research. David Laskin, best-selling author of the book, The Family, called this presentation “spellbinding,” in this article in The Forward: http://forward.com/articles/204417/a-report-from-the-jewish-genealogists-summer-ca/?p=all.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Jane Neff Rollins

Jane Neff Rollins is a professional genealogist who has researched throughout the US and in Israel. She has transliterated Russian documents into English for several Jewishgen databases. Jane has spoken professionally about genealogy at local societies and at the Paris, Boston, and Salt Lake IAJGS conferences.

Session Title: Gesher Galicia SIG meeting

Gesher Galicia is the special interest group for those researching their Jewish roots in the former Austrian province of Galicia. We'll present a short tour of the Gesher Galicia website, including the All Galicia Database and the Cadastral Map Room, followed by updates on the Galician Archival Records Project. We'll display some new and unusual records, maps and documents recently discovered in Austrian, Polish and Ukrainian archives that hold fascinating genealogical information on our ancestors' lives. On hand to answer questions will also be our leading overseas researchers, Alex and Natalie Dunai, our digital cartography specialist, Jay Osborn, indexing specialist and V.P., Tony Kahane, and GG president, Pamela Weisberger. www.geshergalicia.org

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Gesher Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Pamela Weisberger

Session Title: Jewish Names, Red Herrings, and Name Changes

A broad look at Jewish names, and how knowing about Jewish naming patterns can help you in your genealogy research. Also a look at how focusing too specifically on a name can lead you in the wrong research direction, and how name changes can affect your research.Will show how to use knowledge of names changes to track back from a modernized name to an older name. Some examples that will be shown include how names were changed due to many Jews in Galicia not getting civilly married, how names were NOT changed at Ellis Island, and how names changed when Jews left Europe for other locations such as the US and Israel, and the reasons behind those changes.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Philip Trauring

Philip Trauring writes about Jewish genealogy on his site Blood & Frogs: Jewish Genealogy and More and has also written for the JewishGen Blog. Philip founded the Modi`in branch of the Israel Genealogical Society (IGS), and was a founder of the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA), where he built the genealogy.org.il website.

Session Title: The Soul of Heritage: The Ancient Jewish Cemetery On Montjuïc, Barcelona

The ancient Jewish cemetery of Montjuïc (Jewish Mount) dates back to the 9th c. The site is looted after the community does not recover from an attack in 1391. Division and transmission of properties during centuries, disconfigured the original site, though place names in documents refer to its existance. One record from 1395 establishes the boundaries in a precise way, when the king assigns the site to the church, though there is no map to locate it on the site. In 2009 this cemetery was designated a Historic Site of National Interest (Catalan Cultural Landmarks Heritage Law 9/1993) at the petition of local Jewish and Civil institutions organized by my team. To define its actual limits, Center of Studies Zakhor with Center of Studies of Montjuïc, thanks to a grant from a prestigious Foundation, conducted archival research that exceeded all expectations. In this presentation I will explain this process, show fragments of matsevot (some in building walls) and refer to names pulled out from the inscriptions.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Spain
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dominique Tomasov Blinder

Architect (Argentina, 1977). Worked in Argentina, USA and Spain. Since 1999 specializes in Jewish Heritage advocacy and research in Barcelona. Co-founder Center of Studies Zakhor (2008-12) Co-editor Funerary Tradition in Judaism (Lleonard Muntaner Editor, 2010) Co-director research Boundaries of ancient Jewish cemetery, Barcelona Member The Society for Sefardic Studies, HUJ, Israel

Session Title: Death Certificates, Obits, Headstones and Probate Records - What our Ancestors have been Dying to Tell Us

Although we would all appreciate the opportunity to personally interview our deceased ancestors, we have to learn to settle for what’s available. When our ancestors died, others created a host of records, which those of us in subsequent generations can use to further our research. This program is designed to assist in that process by suggesting where to find and how to use them. Learn to locate records of your deceased ancestors and follow the leads contained in those records.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Kenneth Bravo

Ken is Vice President of the IAJGS, Past President of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland and a member of APG and the Ohio Genealogical Society. A retired attorney, Ken has 40+ years of researching his family and is a frequent speaker on Jewish genealogy.

Session Title: Lodz – Tel Aviv – Seattle: First Steps in Roots Research of a Family from Poland

After continued searches at the Yad Vashem databases plus a visit to the archives of Lodz, Poland; Rachel Vered gave up on the chance of discovering something about the past of her mother's family in Lodz. However, a genealogical journey I conducted from my home computer led to a reconstruction of the family tree and a surprising climax. Through this single case study, we shall examine the numerous possibilities available for anyone researching family roots in Poland .We shall track down genealogical treasures on the internet and pursue what any amateur can discover with just a click.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Zack Oryan-Oracz

Journalist, content advisor and genealogist. Zack hold a master’s degree in law from Bar Ilan University.
Wrote in several local magazines including Hot News, and a weekly cultural section, held Saturday cultural meetings in Yiddish. Active in Genealogical societies and heads the Tel Aviv branch of IGS.

Session Title: Getting the Most out of Family Tree Maker

This workshop will provide an overview of Family Tree Maker and teach concepts such as tree building, adding and organizing media (photos, documents, etc.), documenting source information, creating printed output (charts, reports, books, narratives, etc.), and using Ancestry and other Internet resources to find more information to grow your family tree. It will also cover the process of working with and syncing with an online tree at Ancestry. This is not a beginner course. You should be familiar with computers and have used genealogy software (preferably Family Tree Maker).

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Duff Wilson

Duff Wilson has been with Ancestry since 2004, working with Family Tree Maker and the AncestryDNA product. He has over twenty years of software design and development experience and has earned national awards for his work. He holds a master's degree from Utah State University in instructional technology with an emphasis in computer-based instruction. Duff is an avid genealogist and works closely with countless genealogists, ranging from novice to expert.

Session Title: Footnotes, Side notes and Remarks in European Vital Records

Many vital records contain footnotes, sidenotes or remarks. Some of the notes contain invaluable information. In most cases these notes are not indexed and often are neglected by researchers. The panel will focus on Eastern European records and will discuss the importance of the notes, their value and what can be learned from them. We will also discuss the nature of the notes in various countries. Genealogical researchers Orit Lavi & Rony Golan together with Dr. Yochai Ben-Gedalia, the mangager of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People teamed to discuss this unplowed field.

Type of Session: Panel
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: Advanced

Speaker(s): Rony Golan, Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia and Orit Lavi

Rony Golan is an Israeli lawyer and a professional genealogist.

He teaches law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and lectures frequently on legal and genealogical issues. Rony is a member and legal advisor of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center (IIJG) in Jerusalem.

Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia serves as the director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, since 2012, and from 2015 also serves as the Head of the Archives and Special Collections Division at the National Library of Israel. Yochai received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he wrote his dissertation on European Jewish Philanthropy in the 19th Century and its relations with Jerusalem.

Orit Lavi is a professional genealogist, specializing in probate research. Occasionally, Orit is nominated as a court expert by the Israeli Family or District Court. In the past, after she graduated Mathematics Cum Laude and excelled in her MBA studies, Orit worked as a strategic and research consultant.

Session Title: Archival Sources for Sephardic Jewish Onomastics and Genealogy Research in The Middle Ages: Inquisition Trials and Tax Records

Research on Sephardic Jewish onomastics before the 1492 Expulsion period has been considered a secondary task for a long time and remains quite a neglected topic. This paper aims to explore the possibilities of archival research for the study of Jewish names in Castile at the end of the Middle Ages through the description of different historical sources regarding local Jewish communities. Inquisition trials against judaizers and tax population records material provide a a lot of anthroponymic data that can enhance a better understanding of the onomasticon system of Castilian Jews and their social background.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Ricardo Muñoz Solla

PhD. in Hebrew Philology works as Associate Professor in the Hebrew and Aramaic Studies Area at the University of Salamanca (Spain). His main areas of research are the history and onomasticon of Jews in late medieval Spain, the study of converso identities in the Iberian world and the material legacy of Sephardic Jewry. Editor in-chief of the Series The Religious Iberian World (Brill-Leiden).

Session Title: Suwalki BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Suwalki BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Rabbinical Genealogy - Doubts and Errors

Presentation of recent research which has revealed previously unknown or unavailable sources and led to a reassessment of rabbinic genealogies.Such reassessment has been facilitated by access to archives in countries such as the former Soviet Union and its associated Eastern Block countries.Rabbinical genealogical research should take into account critical research that has been conducted by scholars, both close to the time of writing of some of the early classical sources and often printed as appendices to those works, as well as modern critical analyses. Of particular note is the work of Rabbi Shlomo Englard of Bnei Brak, Israel who has devoted his scholarly research to the task of verifying traditional lines of descent of the famous rabbinical families. To this purpose he has reanalyzed the sources quoted by the authors of rabbinical genealogies as the bases for the lines of descent presented by them. Englard has checked these claims by independent research of additional sources. Painstaking comparison and analysis of rare texts, rabbinical compositions, recorded tombstone inscriptions has led Englard and other researchers to conclude that the some of classical “authorities” erred in confusing the identities of rabbis of the same name, used invalid dates of birth and death which are incompatible with calculated time spheres, and presented material which is in conflict with facts presented in other verifiable sources.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Chaim Freedman

Born in Australia and settled in Israel in 1977. Published articles in Avotaynu, Search, Genealogy blogs. Authored "Eliyahu`s Branches, the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family" Avotaynu 1997. "Beit Rabanan, Sources for Rabbinic Genealogy", Family History books. Edited Shmuel Gorr`s book on Jewish Diminutive Personal Names, collated his genealogy archive. Research of Jewish Agriculural Colonisation in the Ukraine, JewishGen site.

Session Title: Why did our Ancestors Leave a Nice Place Like the Pale?

This talk will provide background about the 120 years of the Pale from its formation in the late 18th century to its dissolution during WWI

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Hal Bookbinder

Hal speaks on a wide variety of topics including Jewish History, Border changes, Migrations, Naturalization, Research Techniques and Safe Computing. He is a former president of the IAJGS, a Lifetime Achievement Award winner and lead co-chair for the 2014 IAJGS Conference. Professionally, Hal is an IT director and college professor.

Session Title: How IGRA Has Gone Global and Changed Genealogy Research in Israel

When IGRA came on the genealogy scene in Israel in 2012 there were very few digitization projects at any of the archives. The plan was established to petition the archives to allow us to scan, digitize and index materials. Our website hosts now more than 400 databases representing the Ottoman, British and Israeli periods along with additional unique databases and is accessible with a bi-lingual search engine.

Join me to learn about our collection, tips for better searching, how IGRA maintains global interest and what is ahead.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Garri Regev

Garri is President of IGRA. She (yes, she) has been active in genealogy for over 20 years and has lectured at IAJGS conferences, EVA/MINERVA, Hadassah, AACI, adult and student lectures and courses and more. Garri volunteers at the Genealogy Center at the National Library of Israel, at the Central Zionist Archives and with the BillionGraves/MyHeritage project.

Session Title: Documenting The Vilna Ghetto Library

Vilna – known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania – had a strong cultural tradition that endured and flourished after the Vilna Ghetto was established in 1941. Many historians believe the most important cultural institution in the Ghetto was the Vilna Ghetto Library, which became the center for Jewish secular cultural life. In the two years in which the Vilna Ghetto Library functioned, it had 6,800 readers. Documentation from the Vilna Ghetto Library includes lists of readers in the Library, lists of workers in the Library and even a list of readers who did not return books to the Library. Most of these lists are from the Lithuanian State Central Archive in Vilnius and are also available in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. The presentation will offer an overview of the significance of the Vilna Ghetto Library and will detail the various Vilna Ghetto Library lists that have survived.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Judy Baston

Judy Baston, LitvakSIG Vice President, and Board member of LitvakSIG and JRI-Poland, moderates the Discussion Groups of LitvakSIG, JRI-Poland, BialyGen, and Lodz, and coordinates LitvakSIG’s Lida District Research Group. She has been involved with the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco for 23 years and coordinates their genealogy clinic.

Session Title: ILZA BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: ILZA BOF
Language:
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: The World War Ii Destruction of Latvian Jewry: Rebuilding, Reconnecting and Remembering.

From the destruction of the Jewish Community in Latvia nearly 75 years ago the presentation reviews the re-establishment of Latvian community and genealogical connections. It examines the material from archives visited in Latvia and also outside Latvia such as ITS at Paderborn, Yad Vashem, The Washington Holocaust Museum, Family History Library at Salt Lake City as well as the many internet resources and social networks. This presentation, in Power Point, traces the methodology and tenacity employed in Latvian genealogical research and traces the migration of my family from 1796 in Grobina, (Latvia), to New York, Mississippi, South Africa, Israel and Canada.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Henry Blumberg

He is a Barrister in Toronto and his firm`s Managing Partner. He is presently on the Board of Governors of JewishGen, Past President of Latvia SIG for three terms and founder of Latvia Jewish Connections. He has presented genealogy papers at the last ten IAJGS conferences and was a speaker in Riga at the Names and Fates Project in June 2008, the 8th International Conference on Jews in a Changing World in 2011 and in 2014. He is particularly interested in Latvian, Lithuanian and South African genealogy. and has visited Latvia and Lithuania many times.

Session Title: SIG Luncheon Gesher Galicia - The Rabbinate in Galicia and its Encounter with Modernity, 1815-1867

Dr. Haim Gertner, the director of the Yad Vashem Archives, will present his new book "The Rabbi and the City: The Rabbinate in Galicia and its Encounter with Modernity, 1815-1867.” Gertner will show an examination of the history of the institution of the community rabbinate in Galicia in the first half of the nineteenth century, including rabbis and dayanim (rabbinical judges) in the communities of the four large district capitals of Galicia: Lvov, Tarnopol, Brody, and Cracow and he will also discuss the rabbinate as a social institution. More than a thousand rabbis were active in Galicia during the nineteenth century and this book presents a surprisingly deep and novel examination of the traditional institution of the rabbinate.

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Haim Gertner

Dr. Haim Gertner holds a Ph.D. in Modern Jewish History and has been the Director of the Yad Vashem Archives Division since 2008. He leads an extensive project to collect all historical and personal Holocaust-related documentation and to make it openly accessible to the public through an innovative amalgamation of content and technology.

Session Title: MyHeritage BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: MyHeritage BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Bukovina BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Bukovina BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Latvia Jewish Connections Luncheon: Researching Latvian Jews – Sources in Israel

Researching Latvian Jews – Sources in Israel

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Latvia
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Ella Barkan

Session Title: Family Trees From Books

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Avishai Elboim

Chief Librarian-Rambam Library, Tel Aviv.

Session Title: Sources of Jewish Genealogy (18th - 20th Centuries) in the Fonds of the Lviv Archives

A significant amount of documents kept in the CENTRAL STATE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE OF UKRAINE IN LVIV contains information on social, political, cultural, educational, legal and religious aspects of Jewish life in Galicia from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This presentation focuses on the records and documents of Jewish interest in the in Lviv, moving beyond the well known vital records, to property, business, notary and school records, tax and voter registration lists, wills and census records. Alex will also elaborate on the little known sources of genealogical information such as Tabula Registers, records of Polish magnates and court records and Natalie will cover landowner records and cadastral maps. Special attention will be paid to Lwow Jewish Community 20th century documents of the interwar period and the time of the Nazi occupation and the "Evidence Books" which chart the entire Lwow community from the 1790s - 20th century.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Alex & Natalie Dunai

Alex and Natalie Dunai from Lviv are gifted professional genealogy researchers who cover archives and repositories throughout Poland and Ukraine. They have particular expertise in property and tabular records, school, voter, tax and consular records and acquiring and analyzing cadadtral maps.

Session Title: Sub-Carpathia SIG

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Sub-Carpathia
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Marshall Katz

Session Title: Sources for Research of Dutch Jewish Families

Development Dutch Civil Administration in the last 200 years. Introduction and use of surnames in begin 19th Century. Internet sources of Dutch Archives and other general organizations. Jewish sources in the Netherlands on internet. Sources for research of Dutch Jewish families outside the Netherlands. Challenges for genealogists by searching information in the Netherlands. Law of the privacy in the Netherlands.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Netherlands
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Max van Dam

Born 1939 in Amsterdam. Survived the Shoa as an orphan and raised by Jewish foster-parents. Married in 1964 and has two sons. In 2008, his wife passed away. Held senior management positions in the publishing industry and was active in Dutch Jewish community. Conducts research in Dutch-Jewish families since 1998

Session Title: Digital Staszów: Combining Information Technology With Second-Generation Initiative to Memorize A Vanished Jewish Community

Since 1997, I have indexed civil records for Staszów, a town once with 5,000 Jews half-way between Krakow and Lublin. As the generation of the Holocaust survivors disappears and long after their Landsmanschaft stopped its activity, their children gathered to perpetuate the memory of this Jewish community.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Jean-Pierre Stroweis

Jean-Pierre Stroweis is a software engineer. Past president of the Israel Genealogical Society; Co-chair of 2004 IAJGS conference; Member of IIJG and IGRA; Staszów town leader for JRI-Poland. He regularly lectures in Israel and at IAJGS conferences and wrote articles for Avotaynu, Sharsheret Hadorot and Et-Mol.

Session Title: Jewish Genealogy - How to Start, Where to Look and the Breadth of What's Available

A comprehensive overview of genealogy resources available for the Jewish genealogist. Includes online sources, documents not yet online, and basic information critical to researching one`s Jewish roots.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Beginners
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Emily Garber

An archaeologist by training, Emily Garber has been researching her ancestry since 2007 and holds a certificate from Boston University`s Genealogical Research program. In 2013 she visited Ukrainian archives and family villages. Emily blogs at http://www.extrayad.blogspot.com, chairs the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and owns Extra Yad Genealogical Services.

Session Title: Who Were The European Jewish Refugees in Casablanca During World War II and How Did They Get There?

In June 1940, after the fall of France to the German army, Morocco became a crucial "fire escape" for Jews fleeing Nazi Europe. With coasts on both the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean, Morocco offered opportunities for travel to North and South America, even during the war years. Tens of thousands of refugees arrived on Moroccan shores, primarily via Vichy France, individually and in groups sponsored by Jewish and other emigration and welfare organizations. Upon hearing of the dire needs of these refugees, Helene Cazes Benatar, a Jewish attorney in Casablanca, began assisting them, subsequently initiating a country-wide network of committees. She kept meticulous lists of thousands of refugees, often including personal details as name, age, profession, country of origin and relatives in North America. Benatar`s activities and the records she kept and transferred to the CAHJP, Jerusalem, will be the focus of this lecture.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Michal Ben Ya'akov

Assistant professor, Efrata College of Education, Jerusalem.

Session Title: Making Discoveries with MyHeritage

This session will explain how to effectively search more than 6 billion historical and family tree records at MyHeritage for ancestors and living family members. The record types covered will include birth, marriage and death, census, military, passenger lists, electoral rolls, naturalizations and newspapers. Most examples will relate to tracing Jewish individuals from different geographic areas and time periods. Tips for both beginner and advance researchers will be provided. The session will also cover the new MyHeritage “Discovery Hub”.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Laurence Harris

Head of Genealogy (UK) at MyHeritage. Has marketing and content acquisition activities and leads pro bono genealogical research projects such as tracing and reuniting families separated by the Holocaust. A professional researcher has researched a number of personalities with Jewish ancestry for the “Who Do You Think You Are?” TV series. Laurence is a former Chairman of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain and former member of the National Archives (UK) User Advisory Group.

Session Title: Project "Jews of Latvia: Names and Fates 1941-1945" as genealogical source.

The totality and speed with which mass murder in Latvia was achieved meant that many families were completely destroyed with no one left to mourn or even inquire about the dead. As a result, disturbingly few of those killed have been identified. The purpose of the Latvia Holocaust Jewish Names Project is to recover the names and identities of these members of the Latvian Jewish Community who perished and to ensure that their memory is preserved. The project givs a possibilitynot only discover perished family members but find relationship, exact dates and places of birth which are essential to make genealogical research.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Latvia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rita Bogdanova

Rita Bogdanova is the leading researcher at the Latvian National Archives. She works also at the Project of the of the Center for Judaic Studies of the Latvian University "Jews of Latvia: Names and Fates 1941-1945" in discovering names of the Holocaust victims.

Session Title: Introduction to JewishGen: Computer Lab

An introduction to the use of the JewishGen website for those who are beginners, including familiarization with search functions, databases (including All-Country Databases), use of the Family Finder and introduction to KehilaLinks.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Debra Kay-Blatt

Debra Kay-Blatt has lectured at the IAJGS Conferences internationally. She is a founding member and board member of the JGS of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County. She has published in the Kielce-Radom Special Interest Journal and is a volunteer for JewishGen, JRI-Poland, and the Lodz Area Research Group.

Session Title: These are the Names - Identifying the Names of Victims of Death Marches Out of Auschwitz - Birkenau, Buried in Mass Graves in Poland

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Na'ama Galil

Director of Training Department and in the Commemoration and Public Relations Division at Yad Vashem. Was part of a team of historians responsible for the establishment of the new museum at Yad Vashem and in charge of its text writing. Na’ama wrote the audio guide produced in seven languages. She is currently engaged in academic research about the escape from Treblinka.

Session Title: Researching Your Galitzianer Family: Working With Vital Records

Over the years, many items related to this Great War made their way to the collections of the National Library of Israel. In this lecture we will try to use these items to understand the involvement and the numbers of Jews fighting in the trenches.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Mark Halpern

Mark Halpern has been researching his Galitzianer roots since 1996. Mark is a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of Jewish Records Indexing – Poland and serves on the Gesher Galicia Advisory Board. Mark served as Program Chair for the 2009 and 2013 Conferences on Jewish Genealogy.

Session Title: East Prussia BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: East Prussia BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Prenumeranten - A Goldmine of Genealogy!

Prenumeranten - A goldmine of genealogy!

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yehuda Aharon Horovitz

Researcher of Genealogy and Rabbinic biography for more than three decades. Graduate of the Be`er Yakov and Chevron Yeshiva, Ordained Rabbi and Cantor. BA from Bar Ilan University - MA from the Hebrew University. Author and publisher. Based on his phenomenal knowledge he has contributed to hundreds of books, articles and research projects, including manuscript deciphering.

Session Title: From The Banks of The Dnieper to The Banks of The Seine Via The Yishouv

My father was born in Ukraine in 1896, migrated to Palestine in 1910 and then to France where he died in 1993. Through his stories, patiently extorded and recorded over several weekends, and with the help of old photographs and documents saved from the storm, I could reconstruct the extraordinary (or very ordinary?) adventure that was the lives of my father and his parents. By comparing this story to a variety of archival documents and to many books, I tried to insert this special adventure in the great adventure of the world and of the Jews from the late 19th century to the late 20th: life of the Jews in the Russian Empire at the time of the Tsars, the Yishuv in Palestine before and during WWI, Paris between the 2 wars, the Jewish Resistance in France, etc. A life as exciting as the novels that Israel Zangwill the "Jewish Dickens`wrote.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: French
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Anne Lifshitz-Krams

Retired sociologist and demographer. I fell in the genealogy pot when I found in my grandmother`s papers the forms that she, and my mother, had filled at the request of the Vichy government with an embryo of family tree. Now I am trying to solve my father’s family tree mysteries in Eastern Europe. I published "La naturalisation des Juifs en France au XIXe siècle " (Paris, CNRS, 2002) and "Les mariages Juifs à Paris – 1848-1872" (Paris CGJ).

Session Title: The DNA of The Jewish People

Over the past few decades, some people have attempted to discredit Ashkenazi Jews by saying they are not from the Fertile Crescent. For example, in “The Thirteenth Tribe” from 1976, Arthur Koestler attempted to show that Ashkenazim descend not from the historical Israelites, but from Khazars who converted to Judaism prior to their migration into Eastern Europe. Other books and papers have been published since then, all with the same slant.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: DNA
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Max Blankfeld

Max Blankfeld is Family Tree DNA's Vice-President and Managing Partner. Among other initiatives, he spearheaded the Adoptees DNA Project at Family Tree DNA. The son of Holocaust survivors, in his free time he is actively involved in Jewish and Israel causes, serving on AIPAC's National Council and the Boards of MASA, Houston Hillel, Honest Reporting and Rice University's Jewish Studies Program.

Session Title: Cemetery Research and Necrology of the Jews of Izmir (17th–20th Century)

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Dov HaCohen

Lecturer at Bar-Ian University center for Ladino Studies. Worked at the Central Archive of the Jewish People and for many years was librarian at Yad Ben-Zvi. His book "Ladino Treasure Book" will be published by Yad Ben-Zvi. Dov is known for his genealogical research of Izmir Jews and other communities in the Othman empire.

Session Title: Searching for Relatives in The JDC Names Database

The JDC Archives Names Database includes more than 500,000 names of individuals who have received assistance from “the Joint.” This resource is drawn from JDC client lists and index cards from JDC operations worldwide. The Names Index includes numerous lists from the World War II era from as far and wide as British Mandate Palestine, Spain, China, Australia, Germany, and South America, among others. The database contains primary source documents as well as an index and covers activities ranging from 1915-1973.

The presentation will focus on World War II lists of refugees assisted during and after the Shoah, with a particular focus on children, orphans and students.

Since 1914, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has borne witness to the pivotal events of twentieth-century Jewish history. The JDC Archives documents JDC operations overseas, serves as a record of life in Jewish communities throughout the world.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Naomi Barth

Naomi Barth is the Archives Project Specialist in the Global Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), where she manages the Names Database of archival documents for online publication. She holds a B.A. in History with a concentration in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University. She has published articles in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy and Dorot.

Session Title: Milestones for Knowledge of the Daily Lives of Families in Galicia - as Reflected in Lviv

While researching my family that lived for generations in Lemberg/ Lwow- the Schrenzel family, I developed my perception that family research is not a sum up of names and dates.

Gathering of records concerning birth, marriage and death is not enough. The researcher needs knowledge of the day to day lives of his family.

During the lecture the sources I used for my research will be revealed. The aggregated data extracted from these sources form a picture of the family daily life. These include: Lvov house portfolios managed by the municipal authority, Tabula records and Cadaster maps, business directories, registration of voters, taxpayer records, student records, military service records and more.

There are also modern sources and a prime source is the Nazi authority documents from the occupation period of Lwow.

Extracting and using these kind of data sources will build a comprehensive picture about the daily life of the family under study. The family tree chart becomes vivid and colorful.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Eli Brauner

Born in Germany, I immigrated to Israel in 1950.

My Ph.D. thesis was about deviation by NGOs.

Ten years of intensive research produced two wide family trees. Not only names and dates, but details about day to day life of the family individuals. My main focus is on my Lemberg/Lwow family. I head a nonprofit organization dedicated to commemorate Lwow Jewish heritage –ACLS. I am on the Gesher Galicia board.

Session Title: Different Traditions Even in Death: Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi Tombstones

Did you know that not all Jewish tombstones display the same "formulaic layout" or content? I have spent more than 11 years looking at Ashkenazi tombstones, expanding rashe tevot (acronyms), and deciphering the hidden clues. In the process I learned what to expect as norms. In early 2014 I accidentally came across a cemetery with both traditions and realized that Sephardi tombstones were different in several ways, changing my expectations.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Madeleine Isenberg

Madeleine Isenberg presented at IAJGS2010 and IAJGS2014 on findings on European tombstones. Self-styled “stelaeglyphologist,” deciphered 1000s of tombstones, collecting BMD data primarily for Slovakian Jews. A devoted supporter of JewishGen, she contributes to JOWBR, translates pages for Yizkor Books, and created three KehilaLinks sites. She enjoys writing about genealogy research.

Session Title: Jewish Surnames From North Africa: Civil Records As Clues for The Etymology

For a large majority of Jewish surnames from North Africa, their initial development took place centuries before the introduction of civil records in that area. Despite that fact, the analysis of civil records from the 19th century can shed light to the etymology of surnames. These documents often allow identifying phonetic and spelling variants of various surnames whose linguistic analysis yields the sounds originally present in the surname. Some surnames can be found as belonging to migrants, while the knowledge of their country of origin can be particularly helpful. The consideration of given names present in civil records is also quite useful. Finally, for some (rare) family names we find direct testimonies about their rather recent adoption.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Alexander Beider

Alexander Beider is a linguist born in Moscow and living in Paris. He is the author of several etymological dictionaries of Jewish names. His book “Origins of Yiddish Dialects” (Oxford) is in press. He is also the designer of the linguistic part of the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching method.

Session Title: Gathering The Fragments: Yad Vashems National Campaign to Rescue Personal Items From The Holocaust Period

The Yad Vashem Archives contain the largest collection of Holocaust materials in the world. In recent years Yad Vashem is running the "Gathering the Fragments" national campaign appealing to survivors and their families, to bring as many additional documents and artifacts as possible to Yad Vashem, where they can be properly looked after in perpetuity and integrated within our repositories. During the last four years we met 7,000 people who donated more than 140,000 items to Yad Vashem. It is a unique new resource for genealogical research. These items include materials from the pre-war period, from the rise of the Nazi regime until the liberation, the DP camps, the ‘illegal’ immigration to the Land of Israel and Aliya. It provides us with the opportunity to hear the personal stories behind them and learn more from the survivors and their families about the experience of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Haim Gertner

Dr. Haim Gertner holds a Ph.D. in Modern Jewish History and has been the Director of the Yad Vashem Archives Division since 2008. He leads an extensive project to collect all historical and personal Holocaust-related documentation and to make it openly accessible to the public through an innovative amalgamation of content and technology.

Session Title: Jewish Immigrants in Belgium (1918-1940) : How Can We Follow Them ?

Between 1918 and 1940, 75 000 Jewish emigrants arrived in Belgium. The available archives make it possible to reconstitute their lives, to find their photos, to trace back their ancestors in Eastern Europe and to know their fate after 1940. How can a digitized copy of these archives be easily obtained ? How can they be used ? How can we know what these people have become ? The answers to these questions will contain many examples and a user guide.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Belgium
Language: French
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Vincent Vagman

Vincent Vagman is a freelance historian (Belgium) : history and archives of Jewish families (ancestors in Belgium) and of Jewish organizations/communities.

Session Title: A Frankenstein by any Other Name

This is not a one-name study, but rather an account of the trials and tribulations of a surname within one family, over the course of two centuries. Starting out in Poland in the early 19th Century, the men of the family move in search of better living conditions, or just to save their skins. They travel to the next shtetl, or to another country, or another continent. Sometimes they take the name with them, sometimes they leave it behind; some of them seem never to have picked it up in the first place. Eventually, however, they have to explain themselves. Can we believe what they say? And if everyone in this family is not necessarily called by the same name, can we assume that everyone in the shtetl with this name is a member of the same family? Using the traditional combination of genealogical techniques and guesswork, we try to resolve these questions.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Michael Shade

My grandparents all emigrated from Eastern Europe to London, my parents were born there and I was too. In my working life I was a teacher of Spanish language and culture, and was also involved in developing the use of computers and online learning in language education. Now I am trying to find my ancestors.

Session Title: Kupiskis and Rokiskis BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Kupiskis BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Damascus Jews (1583-1909) as Reflected in the Muslim Sharia Courts.

A book in Arabic published in Syria in 2011 contains 270 documents from the Muslim Sharia courts of Damascus between 1583-1909

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jacob Rosen

Born in Poland in 1948.Career Diplomat Israeli Foreign Service. Served in Holland, UK, USA, Egypt, India, Qatar, Jordan.

Session Title: World War I: Photos, Field Post, Forces' Mail, War Diaries, Military Records in Archives

Before und during WWI more people than before went to photo studios to get their pictures taken: young men in their uniforms, or families so the son would have their photo in the field. Many of those pictures were sent as postcards giving therefore various information. Men, who usually didn’t write letters or postcards sent messages by forces’ mail to their relatives and friends. Although the text might not say much, such field post cards are very personal documents of an ancestor showing his handwriting and signature, telling where and in which unit he had to serve. By an example from Nuremberg dated Novomber 1915 the lecture explains how such a photo postcard can be the starting point for a fruitful genealogical research. War diaries as well belong to the most important sources for ones family history. Military archives keeping personal records will be mentioned as well.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Ekkehard Huebschmann

Dr. Ekkehard Hübschmann has been conducting research on Jewish history in South Germany for more than two decades. Among his main occupations are emigration, deportation, restitution & compensation and family history. Since 2007, he has been a self-employed genealogist, genealogical tour guide, and transcriber and translator of handwritten documents.

Session Title: Evacuatzia-searching for documentation on those evacuated to the depths of the USSR during WWII

Starting from 1941 hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were evacuated from territories about to be occupied by the Nazis to the hinterlands of the USSR. A significant portion of those evacuated was Jews. Most of the evacuated population survived the war. This episode is usually referred to by the Russian term for evacuation: "Evacuatzia." This lecture will address the historical background, statistics, and how to search for data in the Yad Vashem databases regarding this period. It will also highlight other pertinent online databases, and off line sources of information.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Russia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Serafima Velkovich

I have worked for Yad Vashem for ten years. I have my MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I was closely involved in the indexing and digitization of names material from Eastern Europe in Yad Vashem`s databases. I am a researcher in the Reference and Information Department of Yad Vashem Archives division.

Session Title: Presidents Reception

Type of Session: Leadership
Topic: Leadership
Language: English, Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Keynote Session - Connecting to Jewish Heritage through Jewish Genealogy

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who was one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust, was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp at the age of eight in 1945. Throughout his life, he has continually championed the preservation of the memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust, gaining prominence as an outstanding orator and activist. Rabbi Lau has participated in every March of the Living commemoration held in Poland, bringing together thousands of students and adults from around the world. He brings an important message to focus on the individuals who comprise the millions murdered.

Israel Meir Lau was born in the Polish town of Piotrków Trybunalski, and is the 38th generation in an unbroken family chain of rabbis. On Independence Day 2005 Rabbi Lau received the Israel Prize generally regarded as the State of Israel’s highest honor, for lifetime achievement and special contributions to society and the State. In 2011 he was awarded "Legion of Honor" (France’s highest accolade) by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In announcing Rabbi Lau as the keynote speaker, Conference Chairman Michael Goldstein put forth that the message that Rabbi Lau brings to us at the conference and in all his related talks a message that reinforces how vital our research is so that we learn of those members of our family who were displaced and murdered and how important our research is in bringing together families which were torn apart.

Type of Session: Keynote
Topic: Opening & Keynote
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Rabbi Israel Meir Lau

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau was born on 1 June 1937, in the Polish town of Piotrków Trybunalski. His father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau (Polish: Mojżesz Chaim Lau), was the last Chief Rabbi of the town; he died in the Treblinka extermination camp. Yisrael Meir is the 38th generation in an unbroken family chain of rabbis.

Lau was freed from the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, after Rabbi Herschel Schacter detected him hiding under a heap of corpses when the camp was liberated. Lau has credited a teen prisoner with protecting him in the camp (later determined by historian Kenneth Waltzer to be Fyodor Michajlitschenko). His entire family was murdered, with the exception of his older brother, Naphtali Lau-Lavie, his half-brother, Yehoshua Lau-Hager, and his uncle already living in Mandate Palestine.

Lau immigrated to Mandate Palestine with his brother Naphtali in July 1945, where he studied in the famous yeshiva Kol Torah under Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach as well as in Ponevezh and Knesses Chizkiyahu. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1961. He married the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchok Yedidya Frankel, the Rabbi of South Tel Aviv. He served as Chief Rabbi in Netanya (1978–1988), and at that time developed his reputation as a popular orator.

Lau is the father of three sons and five daughters. His eldest son, Moshe Chaim, took his place as Rabbi in Netanya in 1989; his son David became the Chief Rabbi of Modi'in, and later Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel; and his youngest, Tzvi Yehuda, is the Rabbi of North Tel Aviv. Lau is the uncle of Rabbi Binyamin (Benny) Lau, an educator and activist in the Religious Zionist movement, and Amichai Lau-Lavie, the founder and artistic director of the Jewish ritual theater company Storahtelling.

In 2008, Lau was appointed Chairman of Yad Vashem, succeeding Tommy Lapid.

Session Title: Reception

Type of Session: Reception
Topic: Reception
Language:
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Poland

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Poland
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Orit Lavi

Orit Lavi is a professional genealogist, specializing in probate research. Occasionally, Orit is nominated as a court expert by the Israeli Family or District Court. In the past, after she graduated Mathematics Cum Laude and excelled in her MBA studies, Orit worked as a strategic and research consultant.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Names

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Onomastics
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Alexander Beider

Alexander Beider is a linguist born in Moscow and living in Paris. He is the author of several etymological dictionaries of Jewish names. His book “Origins of Yiddish Dialects” (Oxford) is in press. He is also the designer of the linguistic part of the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching method.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Slovakia

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Slovakia
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Irit Shem-Tov

Irit Shem-Tov, born in Kfar-Saba, Israel and is living there till today. Tel-Aviv University graduate in Geography. Has researched her family for over 20 years. As a result became a professional genealogist. She teaches Genealogy to various groups at all levels. Was IGS secretary and an IGS branch chair. She is also a genealogy advisor at 2 free public genealogy advisory services and is a private researcher.

Session Title: Processes Evolved Since the Spanish Law of Nationality - June 11, 2015

The Law was born with very pure motives “to mend the injury caused by the expulsion of 1492 and to bring back into the fold the descendants of the Sephardim expelled in 1492, Spaniards that never stopped being Spanish even after they had been expelled”.

In Israel and abroad this Law was mostly received positively, although there were some cynical reactions doubting the true motives of the Spanish Government.

At a certain stage the Spanish Government got cold feet concerning the possible high numbers that would flood Spanish Embassies and Consulates. It was decided to exclude the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the process and to rely on the certificates of “Communities, Rabbis and Authorized Entities” to certify Sephardim descended from relatives expelled in 1492, opening the way for many who saw in this situation an economic opportunity.

Another important issue is that of the Conversos, or Crypto-Jews who theoretically may apply for Spanish citizenship according to this Law. The problem will be proving their ascendance.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Jose Benarroch

Born in Lisbon, Portugal. Studied law in Madrid and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Made Aliyah to Israel in 1963 and was a Foreign Diplomat. Today is President of the Union Sefaradi Mundial.

Session Title: What I learned from my family’s shtetl Yizkor book

This presentation will focus on one Yizkor book; the one from the Trembowla area of Tarnapol of my Galitzianer family, as a microcosm of the larger genre. This one volume includes personal vignettes of the occupation and devastation commencing with World War One, the inter-war years, and then the destruction of the Shoah. Research in this Yizkor book introduced me to members of my extended family and the realities of their lives. I discovered pictures and explanations of their youth groups, Yeshivas and famous Rabbis, businesses, list of individuals according to profession, community and family histories, maps and illustrations, along with stories of heroism and martyrdom The necrology revealed names and location of those murdered during WWII. I will show the methodology for reading a Yizkor book and how participants can use similar works in their own genealogy investigations to deepen the quality of their family knowledge

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Yizkor Books
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Gary Gans

Gary Gans was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and has been the rabbi of Congregation Beth Tikvah, Marlton, NJ since 1981.He earned his Doctorate from Eastern Baptist Theological seminary in Family Counseling, a rare honor for a Jew! Gans is also a licensed therapist in NJ, specializing in family relationships, grief, and the impact of life-cycle events.He is on the Board of Directors of the Crescent Cemetery, Pennsauken, NJ and past president of the Tri-County Board of Rabbis. Gary has presented at previous IAJGS conferences, as well as in the Southern New Jersey Jewish and interfaith communities.

Session Title: How to Design and Construct a Family History Book Entirely by Yourself

I discuss how to design and construct a book for self-publishing. I demonstrate using specific examples to illustrate techniques and options.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Writing
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Stephen Denker

Writer Stephen Denker and his wife have been collaboratively researching their family histories since 2002. Together they self-published five hard-cover family history and genealogy books (exceeding 2000 pages) entirely by themselves and also three commercial books.

Session Title: Tracing Over Litvak Ancestry back to Today's Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon 2000 Years Ago

My family knew little of its origins before America. But painstaking research for almost 45 years has enabled us to trace our ancestry back to Eretz Yisrael 2000 years ago. In our presentation, we will combine family lore, documentary evidence, interviews with Maronite Christians from today`s southern Lebanon and Syria who have traditions in their families that they are of ancient Jewish origin, along with Y-DNA results to make a very plausible case that though we have wondered the world over for the past 2000 years, our ancient origins are here in our ancient homeland.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Lithuania
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Harold Rhode

I have been tracing my ancestral origins since 1970. I`ve been active in the Greater Washington JGS since 1982, been president twice, and lectured at numerous IAJGS conferences, including the last one in Jerusalem.

Session Title: Families Reunited: The Jewish Immigrants` Guide to Locate Lost Relatives in Hungary"

Around the turn of the XIX. and XX. centuries, three to five million Hungarians left what was then Greater Hungary. A good proportion of these immigrants were Jewish. Another wave of emigration was after the second World War when many Shoah survivors decided to leave for North America and Israel. The last but also very important period is 1956-1957, when more than half a million Hungarians fled the country after one of the bloodiest revolutions in the history of the country.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Karoly Vandor

Karoly (Karesz) Vandor, a Hungarian Jewish genealogist and military researcher with more than a decade of exeprience in doing Hungarian Jewish genealogy. Does not only do archival research, but has expertise in reuniting family branches, taking pictures of cemeteries. Speaks several languages including English, Hungarian, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew.

Session Title: Finding Your Immigrant Ancestors on Ancestry.com

Still looking for that elusive ancestor who "crossed the pond?" Join Crista Cowan for a look at the millions of immigration records available through Ancestry. She will also share some of her best tips and tricks for successfully searching these records.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ancestry.com
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Crista Cowan

Crista Cowan has been with Ancestry.com since 2004; her involvement in family history, however, reaches all the way back to childhood. She frequently speaks at local, national, and international genealogy events. Watch her live show, The Barefoot Genealogist, every Tuesday at 1:00 pm (Eastern) on http://livestream.com/ancestry.

Session Title: Jewish Records Indexing-Poland Computer Workshop

This hands-on beginner workshop will explore the JRI-Poland website and allow the participant to practice initiating basic searches in the database. The goal of the session will be to familiarize the researcher with the JRI-Poland search screens and help them understand the search results. The workshop will explore narrowing techniques for managing large results and provide hints for effectively using the two stage results screen. Experience using the Internet is recommended, but no experience with the JRI-Poland database is necessary

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Hadassah Lipsius and Roni Seibel Liebowitz

Hadassah is a JRI-Poland board member as well as Archive Coordinator for Warszawa and Tomaszow Mazowiecki. She is the Warszawa Research Group database manager, serves on the Board of Governor of Jewishgen and is an executive council member of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc (New York).

Roni Seibel Liebowitz is JRI-Poland Board member, Lodz Archive Coordinator and Belchatow Town Leader. She is KehilaLinks coordinator for Lodz, LARG, and Belchatow. Consultant in a documentary about WW II liberator and survivors, she traveled US, Poland and Israel interviewing survivors. Served as President of JGS, Inc. (NY) and VP Programming.

Session Title: Two New Matrimonial Registries of The Portuguese Jewish Community of Tunis in The 19 Th Century

After the publication of three matrimonial registries of the Portuguese (Livornese) Jewish community in Tunis in 1989 and 2000 by Robert Attal and Joseph Avivi of Ben-Zvi Institute, the authors (Gilles Boulu and Alain Nedjar), members of the research group « Tunisia » of the Jewish Genealogy Circle, France, are part of the discovery of two additional registers containing marriage contracts of this community of Italian-Iberian Jews called " Grana ". These two registers complement fortunately this series which originally included 10 records ranging from 1754 to 1917. These volumes number 3 (1812-1844) and 6 (1872-1881) containing respectively 429 and 234 different Ketûbbot, now allow access, with previous records, to an exceptional Ketûbbot corpus, continuously between 1788 and 1881. The authors present the contents of these two registers, collect statistics on this community and give some examples of genealogy now made possible in combination with other sources.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tunisia
Language: French
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Gilles Boulu and Alain Nedjar

Gilles Boulu is radiologist and Alain Nedjar an industrial. Members of the French Jewish Genealogy Circle, they work on tunisian families which they are connected. Gilles Boulu published several articles in journals "Etsi" and “Revue du Cercle de Généalogie Juive” and gave lectures. Alain Nedjar lectured at the genealogical circle.

Session Title: Little Halinka’s Bracelet Found Near Auschwitz Returned to Family and Other Anecdotes Related On Meliza’s Genealogy Site

Halinka received a bracelet from her great-grandmother on her third birthday in the Lodz ghetto. People who found it near Auschwitz looked for Halinka’s living relatives in order to return the bracelet to them. They eventually found her relatives on Meliza’s Genealogy site of Finnish Jews and were able to return the bracelet to Halinka’s relatives. The relatives intend to give the bracelet and its story to a museum. Meliza’s Genealogy site has been used successfully by distant cousins and people who want to learn more about their ancestors, researchers, lawyers and TV investigators, who have produced programs such as “Who do you think you are?”. Using the site, one can learn how couples needed to keep their marriage secret in order not to be expelled from Finland, how youngsters emigrated to avoid being drafted and how European refugee families left Finland during WWII.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Meliza Amity

Meliza was born in Finland, studied at the Hebrew University, worked in IT at IBM Israel and owns the online family tree for Finnish Jews and their families. In 2006, the site was displayed at the Finnish National-Archives and in 2009-2010, at the Diaspora Museum exhibitions on Finnish Jewry.

Session Title: Reconstructing Small-Town Jewish Communities in America

While the history of the American Jewish community remains largely an urban one, most of us have at least one branch from a small town. Though these places may seem harder to research for being relatively unknown, they actually pose a unique opportunity for family historians to understand our ancestors in the context of their communities. This talk will review research approaches for understanding your ancestral small town, as well as concrete steps descendants can take to ensure these communities aren`t lost to history. Along the way you`ll hear lots of memorable and surprising stories of what life was like for the minority of Jewish immigrants who became Americans far from the safety of the urban cultural centers.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Tammy Hepps

Tammy A. Hepps is the creator of Treelines.com, a family story sharing website. Winner of the RootsTech Developer Challenge, she writes and speaks about the convergence between family history, technology, and storytelling. She serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Jewish Archive Center, the Rauh Jewish Archives, and JewishGen.

Session Title: Exposure of a Document File from the Internal Security Archives in Ukraine: The Soviet Union Following the Zionist Movement

During my Position at President Peres' Bureau, I was given for inspection and review, a box of documents which was awarded to President Peres in November 2007, by the President of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, during his official visit in Israel.

All of the documents originally had secret and confidential status and were created by Soviet security agencies for the purpose of surveillance and pursuit of Zionist subjects. The material was declared non secret by the Ukrainian authorities, and made open to the public in archives.

The Box contained 25 scanned documents from the years 1920-1939. They are typewritten in Russian and every document has attached (now) a cover in Ukrainian.

Many of the pages have handwritten notes in red or blue pencil and some are very difficult to read because of their physical condition. Names mentioned by the authorities, some of them known to be perpetrators and assassinators during Stalin era. They include surveillance reports on people and organizations and notes to continue doing so. They also include documents caught on route from one person to another.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ukraine
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Chana Kochavi

Born in Kibbutz Yagur and lives in Tel Aviv. In a second Career studies Archival studies. Creator and manager of Peres' private archive for 13 years. Today, retired and learning History. For many years searching family roots as a hobby especially since the formation of TAPUZ forum.

Session Title: Hungarian SIG

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Hungary SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: The History of Yiddish As A Clue to The History of Ashkenazic People

The conference addresses the question of origins of Ashkenazic Jews as it can seen from the analysis of the history of Yiddish. The Romance elements present in Yiddish reveal the origin of a part of ancestors from medieval northern France. The Old Czech elements in Yiddish allow making emphasis on the role the communities of medieval Bohemia and Moravia played in the development of the Ashkenazim. The study of the German and Hebrew components provides additional evidence about the fusion of Jewish groups from Western Germany and the Czech lands and the relatively marginal role of Jewish communities from medieval Eastern Europe.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Alexander Beider

Alexander Beider is a linguist born in Moscow and living in Paris. He is the author of several etymological dictionaries of Jewish names. His book “Origins of Yiddish Dialects” (Oxford) is in press. He is also the designer of the linguistic part of the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching method.

Session Title: Kremenets BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Kremenets BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Resources of The Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry

An exploration of a hidden gem for Hungarian research opportunities and cultural life. Much of the catalogue is only available on site is Safed, Israel, off the beaten track, but potentially worth the trip for it`s myriad unique resources, if one can identify the relevant holdings. Research strategies will be discussed ans well as the future of the institution and plans to expand its collection and accessibility.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: Advanced

Speaker(s): Jordan Auslander

New York based forensic genealogist, title & real estate historian; pursued cases across the United States, Europe and Israel; published, an index to Jewish records in Slovakia, a genealogical gazetteer of Greater Hungary; former board of Jewish Genealogical Society, NY. The ‘reliably inappropriate’ host of IAJGS conference Gameshow Nights.

Session Title: Israeli Sources for Researching Sephardic Jewry in The Holocaust ""

Yad Vashem is the main source with its archives, interviews, Mauthausen card files, ITS files, Spielberg interviews, and parts of the Russian Military Archives on Greece and Yugoslavia; microfilms of the Bulgarian National Archives on the Jews in WWII. The Central Zionist Archives contains files on Balkan immigrants, lists of Zionist movement members, and search files for lost friends and relatives. The Ben Zvi Institute library and archives on Sephardic communities contains books on the Sephardim in the Holocaust and collections of articles and community magazines and periodicals. The National Library has many Jewish community memorial books from Greece, Yugoslavia, and Vienna.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yitzchak Kerem

Historian on Sephardic and Eastern Jewry and the Holocaust. Editor of Sefarad vehaMizrach (formerly Sefarad, the Sephardic Newsletter) since 1992 and researcher at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Historian in modern Greek history, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. Sephardic genealogist. Chairman of the Heritage Center for Sephardic and Eastern Jewish Communities, Jerusalem, and the Foundation of Jewish Diversity, Los Angeles, California. Historical documentary filmmaker, former moderator of Israeli radio broadcast “Diaspora Jewry” (2003-2006), founder & former director of Institute of Judeo-Hellenic Studies, Univ. of Denver, Balkan section editor of The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, & Greek section editor, New Encyclopedia Judaica.

Session Title: Portal to Connections and Discoveries: Case Studies From The Central Database of Shoah Victims` Names

Yad Vashem`s Central Database of Shoah Victims` Names is a one-of-a-kind Holocaust memorial that has revolutionized Jewish Genealogical research. Highlighting 2-3 remarkable stories of discovery, we will re-enact the searches and learn how the trails of biographical information on Pages of Testimony enabled survivors and their families to re-connect with their lost loved ones.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Cynthia Wroclawski

Cynthia Wroclawski holds a BA in Jewish Studies and Journalism from New York University, an MA in Communications from Hebrew University and a certificate in Marketing from Tel Aviv University`s Business School. Wroclawski has held managerial positions in marketing communications as well as Jewish communal outreach programming.

Session Title: Hypotheses On Jewish Population Growth On The Lands of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Between 15th and 19th Century

Since the late medieval times Jewish population in Poland, Lithuannia and Western Ukraine grew with speed far exceeding the speed of non-Jewish population growth. The nature of this phenomenon is still being discussed among the scholars. The paper is based on lecturer`s academic, historical study on demography of the Jewish population in Poland and Ukraine. It will examine three main hypotheses proposed by Calvin Goldscheider for the research on religious minorities in light of empirical data from the region:

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: Advanced

Speaker(s): Tomasz Jankowski

Tomasz Jankowski, Ph.D., historian, Jewish genealogist active in Ukraine and Poland, founder of jewishfamilysearch.com.

Session Title: Historic Cadastral Maps as Resource for Genealogists: Rohatyn 1846 Map As Example

Beginning in 1824, 700,000 square kilometers and 50 million properties were surveyed in Galicia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire for making property taxation more equitable. By the outbreak of WW1, 40,000 map sheets existed for Galicia. While only a fraction of these maps survive today, the 1846 map for Rohatyn exists. The lecture will demonstrate, using Rohatyn as example, how and why these maps can be valuable to genealogists, not only on the family level (relationships between family members, proximity to work, school, and synagogue), but also on the broader town level (economic class, stability of neighborhoods). Focus will be on interpreting records which accompany maps, the mechanics of reuniting map sheets to form a single image useful to genealogists and historians, layering of historic and contemporary maps, and the potential for interactive analysis to better understand town development, migration, war and destruction, and identifying sites of Jewish heritage and memory.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Marla Raucher Osborn

Marla Raucher Osborn is an advisor to the Boards of Gesher Galicia and Remembrance & Reconcilation and project lead for Jewish heritage preservation projects in Poland and Ukraine. She works at the Foundation for the Preservation for Jewish Heritage in Poland and has written and lectured about Galicia, Rohatyn, and her family research.

Session Title: Canada BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Canada BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: An introduction to MyHeritage.com (Hebrew)

An introduction to MyHeritage.com, the biggest family network on the web. Learn how to build an online family tree for free, enter detailed information with sources and citations, navigate across the tree, generate charts and posters, create full reports, invite and share information with family members in 43 languages and get calendar alerts on family events.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniel Horowitz

Born in Venezuela, (1971). BS.c. in computer engineering (2002), Specialization in education (1994). MyHeritage Chief Genealogist (since 2005), provides key contributions in the product development, customer support and public affairs areas. Board member of the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).

Session Title: Gathering, Preserving and Interpreting the Voices and Memories of People and Communities

Oral history is defined as a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.

Type of Session: Panel
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen, Dr. Judith Reifen-Ronen, Dr. Moshe Mossek, Prof. Henry Green and Dr. Marg

Dr. Margalit Bejarano the ex-director of the Oral History Division in the Harman Institute of Contemporary History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr Moshe Mossek Active Israel Society of Archivists for 25 years, as a member of the Executive, Secretary-General, and Chairman of the Society for two terms.

Dr. Judith Reifen-Ronen, ex-director of The Golda Meir Memorial Assoc, an independent historian on German Jewry during the 20th century.

Dr Moshe Mossek Active Israel Society of Archivists for 25 years, as a member of the Executive, Secretary-General, and Chairman of the Society for two terms.

Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen: Professional genealogist, probate, provenance researcher. Pursues cases in Eastern, Western Europe, Israel, South Africa, the US

Dr. Henry Green, Professor Religious Studies, is the former Director of Judaic and Sephardic Studies at the University of Miami, Florida, USA. He is the Founding Director of MOSAIC: the Jewish Museum of Florida and has published extensively on the Sephardim, Israel and American Jewry and is active in pioneering Sephardi educational programs.

Session Title: Hungarian Records at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a broad array of records from Hungary, including information on confiscated farms, information about bank accounts, requests for exemptions from deportation, lists of people who received protective passes, and reports of what happened in individual Jewish communities. Our archivists recently updated the finding aids/inventories for these collections, making the information more findable. However, using these collections can be challenging because of language and organization. This presentation will provide an overview of the Hungarian materials in our archives, as well as discuss how to search and access the material.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Megan Lewis

Megan Lewis has worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since 1998. She spent 12 years tracing the fates of individuals and now provides reference in the Library and Archives. She has presented to many groups about the Museum`s genealogical holdings and did research on genealogists` use of testimonies.

Session Title: The JDC Archives: Who We Are and What We Have to Offer Jewish Genealogists

Since 1914, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (popularly known as JDC or "the Joint") has borne witness to the pivotal events of twentieth-century Jewish history. The JDC Archives documents JDC operations overseas, serves as a record of life in Jewish communities throughout the world, and testifies to JDC’s mission of rescue, relief, and rehabilitation services to Jewish communities and individuals in need worldwide.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Linda Levi

Linda Levi is Director of Global Archives at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She is a graduate of New York University and received her MA in Contemporary Jewish Studies from Brandeis University. She has lectured extensively about the JDC Archives, including at previous IAJGS conferences.

Session Title: The Next 30 Years; Predictions of Trends in Jewish Genealogy

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the editors of Avotaynu will describe the exciting new initiatives it is launching to expand interest among the public in all facets of Jewish Genealogy. They will also draw from the articles contained in Avotaynu’s extensive archives to trace the future of DNA, the Internet, digitization and other new technologies that will change the way genealogists practice their craft. Audience participation will be encouraged.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus

Past president of IAJGS, recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award, editor and co-owner of AVOTAYNU, founding Chair of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy, founding president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington, author or co-author of seven Jewish genealogy books, chair or co-chair of seven Jewish genealogy conferences, presented at numerous conferences, served on many advisory boards.

Session Title: Finding Family in Vojvodina, Serbia and Beyond.

My timely presentation will explain stepwise how I used basic genealogical resources successfully to trace my husband’s ancestors and some living relations knowing only the name of the family’s town of Sombor. My father-in-law, who never discussed his past, was the sole survivor of thirty family members taken to Auschwitz in the waning days of WWII. My talk will include the use of online resources, social media and old-fashioned relationship development and investigation.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Serbia
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Loren Greenberg Schonbrun

When I’m not running my family’s medical products business, I visit Jewish heritage sites, the Himalayas of Bhutan and Mongolian Gobi Desert.

Session Title: UkraineSIG: What Is It and What Does It Include?

This session will explore the resources of UkraineSIG, talk about current projects, and provide insights for the system(s) in place for discovering your ancestors’ background. Participants will learn how to discover if their ancestors came from the area covered by UkraineSIG and how to locate the kind of information being worked on by UkraineSIG. UkraineSIG Coordinator, joined by other members of the UkraineSIG Board will guide you on navigating the UkraineSIG website and understanding the resources and processes of UkraineSIG.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ukraine
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Janette Silverman

Dr. Janette Silverman, Lead Co-Chair of the 2016 IAJGS Conference in Seattle, WA is Ukraine SIG Coordinator, Moderator of the JewishGen Discussion Group, on the IAJGS Membership Development Committee, former president of the Phoenix JGS. Her doctoral dissertation, "In Living Memory" was inspired by her father about Jewish genealogical research.

Session Title: Virtual Yizkor / Memorials Books - Creating Webpages Dedicated To Jewish Communities (Kehilot)

Memorializing the Jewish communities and learning about their lives and place where they lived is the key to understanding our past. A webpage dedicated to a Kehila /Jewish community becomes a repository of all the information we can gather about it. It is accessible throughout the world, provides a link from the past to the future and serves as a valuable resource for their descendants. This presentation applies to any place where there was a Jewish community, including Europe, Africa, Asia, Sephardic communities and New Immigrant neighbourhoods, Moshavim and Kibbutzim. Potential resources and content will be discussed, including: Geography, History, Family Biographies, Holocaust, Landsmanshaftn and Outreach. Advantages for personal research will be described. The PowerPoint presentation gives detailed examples of the design; lay out, suitable material, sources of information. Examples of webpages will be shown.The presentation ends with Power Point images and music designed to “inspire” attendees to create webpages. Several Handouts will be available.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Webpages
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Susana Leistner Bloch

Susana Leistner Bloch, a Canadian born in Brazil, has lived in Israel, England and South Africa. She is a JewishGen VP, KehilaLinks and International Desk Manager.She coordinates two groups with over 1100 members: Kolbuszowa Region Research Group and Suchostaw Region Research Group, producing two extensive websites of 280 webpages.

Session Title: LitvakSIG Luncheon

Being the son of Litvaks: I was born into and grew up in a household of Yiddish and Hebrew language, culture, customs and history. I learned about the two gymnasium, Hebrew Riali and Shwabe in Kovno. I knew respect for the Ponevesz, Slobodka and Telsiai yeshivas. I knew the difference between the Opposed to the Hasidim in Poland. I knew that on Shabat we would eat tzimmes or plum tzimmes, blintzes or latkes and kreplach. I invite you to enter my world of being the son of Litvaks.

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Lithuania
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Ephraim Lapid

Ephraim Lapid is a Brigadier General (reserve). A leading authority on military, intelligence, media and education. Was IDF Spokesperson and headed Israel Army radio. Holds a BA in Middle-East Studies and Arabic from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a teacher's degree, a MA in Political Science and is in the process of concluding his Ph. D. studies.

Session Title: Beit Theresienstadt – Commemorating Activity Alongside a Modern Archive and Museum

This lecture will explain about Beit Terezin, the reasons for its establishment, the activities it carries out and a description of the progress of modernization of the Archives that has been going on over the last four years.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Oded Breda

Second generation of the ghetto victims, resident of Ra’anana, married and father of three. Has held management positions in high-tech in the fields of technology, sales and marketing. Has a BA in History. Has been at Beit Terezin since February 2009.

Session Title: Austria-Czech SIG luncheon

Beit Theresienstadt – Commemorating Activity Alongside a Modern Archive and Museum

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Austria-Czech
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Oded Breda

Second generation to the ghetto Martyrs.
Born in Israel, lives in Raanana, Has a BA in history, Open University of Israel
Until 2009 Oded spent 25 years in the High-Tech industry as manager of technical and sales teams in American corporations such as CA and HP.

Session Title: Tunisia BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Tunisia BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Thierry Samama

Session Title: Lodz (LARG) BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Lodz (LARG) BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: SIG Luncheon Ukraine

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Ukraine
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Ask the Experts: Adventures in Archival Research in Poland, Ukraine & Austria

Experienced, professional genealogical researchers will give a short overview on the best approaches to working in Polish, Ukrainian and Austrian archives, libraries and repositories. Each archive has their own unique way of doing business. Being prepared means being successful! We'll cover what is online (saving you time and cost,) what can be researched via email, and what can only be researched in person. Is it best to hire a professional? What can be expected if you go yourself to the archives (with or without a professional.) How should one prepare ahead of time for an archival visit? How do you discover what each archive holds? Is there an advantage to crowd-sourcing research, forming town groups, and using SIGs to help organize town-centric projects? We`ll provide the overview, but the audience will lead the way with questions that are the most important to them. Moderated by Pamela Weisberger.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Alex & Natalie Dunai

Alex and Natalie Dunai from Lviv are gifted professional genealogy researchers who cover archives and repositories throughout Poland and Ukraine. They have particular expertise in property and tabular records, school, voter, tax and consular records and acquiring and analyzing cadadtral maps.

Session Title: LitvakSIG meeting

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Lithuania
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Structure of Marriages Registered in the Vienna Jewish Community 1826-1938

The Vienna Jews got the right to register Jewish marriages in 1826. In 1938 when the Germans took over the country, they changed the law - from August 1938 onwards an accepted marriage was a civil.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Austria
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Wolf-Erich Eckstein

Wolf-Erich Eckstein was managing the Records Office of the Vienna Jewish Community starting in 2005, retired 2014. Before he made Social Research in different fields. Around 1990 he started research of Jewish families in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire by exploring records, cemeteries and other sources.

Session Title: Itzchak Rosenthal-Danziger, Builder and Leader in 19th Century Jerusalem

While researching my family's history I read books on the founding of the Batei Machaseh neighborhood in Jerusalem's Old City, studied documents in the city archives, investigated the Montefiore census, Graevski's writings, as well as family recollections. These led me to a fascinating correspondence between Itzchak Rosenthal and Rabbi Makelenberg from Koenigsberg. I learned about Rosenthal's forebears, including the Kabbalist Rabbi Naftali Hacohen Katz who was related to the Maharal of Prague and to exiles from Spain. Recent research claims that Naftali Hacohen Katz was invited by the Jews of Safed to serve as their rabbi, and that explains why he set out for Israel. I also discovered interesting material on the remarkable journey of Rosenthal's wife Reizel to the Holy Land. I intend to present their stories, as well as those of their descendants in Israel.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Zehava Ben Dov

I was born in Petach Tikva to the Stampfer family, ten generations in Israel. My forebears include the Rivlin family, Chabad Hassidim who immigrated to Hebron in 1717, the Hoenig-Cohen families among the first settlers of Yemin Moshe in Jerusalem, and a founder of Petach Tikva, Yehoshua Stampfer. Also Itzchak Rosenthal-Danziger, the first Jewish immigrant to the Land of Israel from Prussia (in 1825), who joined the Hod Kolel and was one of the founders of the Batei Machaseh neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Session Title: Use of International Tracing Service Material

The ITS collection is one of the most important collections in the world regarding personal information of individuals during the World War II era, including the Holocaust. Contrary to popular conception, the ITS collection is not comprehensive, and has little information on many categories of Holocaust victims.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Zvi Bernhardt

I am Deputy Director of two related departments in Yad Vashem: The Hall of Names and Reference and Information Services, which gives service to the public, both in Yad Vashem’s on-site reading room and online, on Yad Vashem`s resources. I am also Yad Vashem`s liaison to JewishGen.

Session Title: Hebrew Epitaphs as a Unique Source for The Study of Jewish History and Genealogy

The scholarly study of Hebrew epitaphs has emerged in the 19th century in Western Europe. The oldest Hebrew epitaphs have been extensively studied throughout the whole 19th century and first decades of the 20th century. Much less research was conducted in the relatively younger Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe, where Jewish secular scholarship has not reached similar levels of development. However, in the recent decades there has been a new interest in Eastern European Jewish cemeteries, ranging from historical studies to utilitarian collections of extracted genealogical information. With most of sources for the study of Jewish genealogy in Eastern Europe at least partially damaged, incomplete or irreversibly lost, Hebrew epitaphs appear as a unique source of otherwise unobtainable information. I will present the history of the study of Hebrew epitaphs, discuss current developments and give examples of interesting cases.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Witold Wrzosinski

Witold Wrzosinski was born in 1980 in Warsaw and graduated in Hebrew Studies. He runs Avanim, a genealogy research center, as well as Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries, which has indexed almost 100,000 inscriptions. Recently he created the Hebrew transcription system for the Core Exhibition at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Session Title: How to Document A National Jewry - The Jews of Scotland

This session will deal with the IIJG sponsored project "A Demographic and Genealogical Survey of Scottish Jewry".Some background will be given detailing the procedures employed to identify and gather the available data. The presentation will continue to cover the founding and development of Scottish Jewry from the late 18th century up to the turn of the 20th century and beyond. The origins of the Jewish immigrants to Scotland will be analysed as will their settlement patterns and development over time. Newly discovered documents and newspaper articles will shed light on the history of the Jews of Scotland.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Scotland
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Michael Tobias

Michael Tobias has a BSc Honours in Mathematics and Physics and qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1986. In 2012 he completed a Masters Degree in Genealogical Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies at Strathclyde University. He is a co-founder of Jewish Records Indexing–Poland and Vice Presiden tProgramming of JewishGen Inc. He was Database Matching Consultant to the International Commissionon Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC). Michael assisted SteveMorse with Ellis Island developments. He has contributed to various Journals Radio and TV Programmes including “Who Do You Think You Are” both in the UK and USA. He was awarded the IAJGS “Lifetime Achievement” award in Washington in 2011.

Session Title: World Memory Project, Bringing Holocaust Records Online

Discover how you can help bring the truth to light and create a chance for family connections that transcend war and time. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry came together four years ago to create the World Memory Project. The Project allows anyone, anywhere to help index records of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution - making them more accessible for survivors and descendants of victims and survivors. Increase your knowledge of what records are available, using these records in your research and how you can give back to the genealogy community.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Anna Fechter

Anna Fechter is the Project Manager for the Ancestry World Archives Project. She is in her 11th year at Ancestry.com, during that time she has enjoyed working with the RootsWeb, message boards and World Archives Project communities. Anna has been an avid family historian for many years and is still not done.

Session Title: UkraineSIG

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Ukraine
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: An introduction to MyHeritage.com (English)

An introduction to MyHeritage.com Learn how to build an online family tree for free, enter detailed information with sources and citations, navigate across the tree, generate charts and posters, create full reports, invite and share information with family members in 43 languages and get calendar alerts on family events.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniel Horowitz

Born in Venezuela, (1971). BS.c. in computer engineering (2002), Specialization in education (1994). MyHeritage Chief Genealogist (since 2005), provides key contributions in the product development, customer support and public affairs areas. Board member of the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).

Session Title: La Base Becane : Registres D`État Civil Consulaire Et Indigène En Tunisie (1809-1912)

Les registres de l`état civil indigène en Tunisie, institué par le Protectorat français dès 1886, sont accessibles au Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de La Courneuve, mais difficilement exploitables compte tenu de l`absence de tables décennales. Une équipe d`adhérents du Cercle de Généalogie Juive a entrepris d`indexer et de photographier ces registres, qui sont maintenant consultables en ligne par les adhérents du Cercle. La base de données ainsi constituée, appelée BECANE, comprend également l`état civil consulaire, et compte plus de 21.000 actes. Il s`agit d`un outil essentiel pour les généalogistes recherchant leurs ancêtres juifs tunisiens.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tunisia
Language: French
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Thierry Samama

Thierry Samama est responsable d`une petite équipe d`adhérents du Cercle de Généalogie Juive qui s`attache à développer des outils innovants pour la généalogie des Juifs de Tunisie. Il a commencé à étudier l`histoire de ses ancêtres en 2010, et est administrateur du Cercle de Généalogie Juive depuis 2012.

Session Title: Researching Your Litvak Heritage With LitvakSIG -- and Beyond

There are numerous sources online and in various repositories for researching your Litvak heritage. This presentation will offer an overview of these sources, and will detail the best ways to use key Litvak databases and websites to enhance your knowledge and expand your Litvak family tree. The presentation will include how to find out what records are available, how to read and understand search results, where the records are, and how best to access the information in them. The presentation will cover LitvakSIG and its All Lithuania Database, as well as numerous other resources from JewishGen, Yad Vashem and other sources.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Lithuania
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Judy Baston

Judy Baston, LitvakSIG Vice President, and Board member of LitvakSIG and JRI-Poland, moderates the Discussion Groups of LitvakSIG, JRI-Poland, BialyGen, and Lodz, and coordinates LitvakSIG’s Lida District Research Group. She has been involved with the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco for 23 years and coordinates their genealogy clinic.

Session Title: How to Use Field-Work to Find Family Information: A Czech Case-Study

This workshop will look at how to find family information when visiting those places where families lived generations ago. Online resources can often only help create a partial picture when compiling a family history. But to get a sense of `place`, there is no substitute for seeing first-hand where, and how, our families lived. In this presentation, musicologist Dr. David Fligg will talk about how he discovered an abundance of information, previously unknown and unresearched, in preparation for a new biography on the composer and pianist Gideon Klein. Klein was one of a number of musicians interned in Terezín (Theresienstadt) and later murdered in Auschwitz. Much of the Klein family records were thought lost or destroyed. But David will explain how we can all apply the types of sleuthing he engaged with in order to reveal the remarkable stories of our, and other, families.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): David Fligg

UK-based musicologist and lecturer Dr. David Fligg is Project Consultant for the international research project `Performing the Jewish Archive` (University of Leeds), which has recently received a £1.8M grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. His forthcoming book will be a biography of the Moravian-born Jewish composer/pianist Gideon Klein.

Session Title: New Developments at Beit Hatfutsot

The Douglas E. Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center at Beit Hatfutsot is the main repository of Jewish Family History in Israel, currently holding many millions of records. The information is available on an advanced multimedia database that allows for numerous search options including genealogical records, data on the meaning of family names, history of Jewish communities, relevant photographs, movies and music, biographies and family histories. The presentation will focus on the last developments at Beit Hatfutsot emphasizing both valuable new genealogical data and other relevant collections that have been added recently to the museum`s database, as well as the new technologies that are currently being developed towards the opening a web-based access to the genealogy databases.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Haim Ghiuzeli

Horia Haim Ghiuzeli, a historian, is the Director of the Databases of Beth Hatefutsoth - The Museum of the Jewish People. His historical interests encompass Jewish history and genealogy. His expertise covers several fields, including development of multimedia databases and implementation of computer technologies in the field of cultural heritage.

Session Title: What’s New For You at Ancestry.com

You may be a long time Ancestry subscriber or brand new to the site. You may have been engaged in genealogy research for years or just be starting your family history journey. Regardless of where you are at, Ancestry can help. In this session we will showcase the NEW LifeStory, Historical Insights, and Facts View. These new features shed new light on your research and help you weave together a richer, more complete family story. We will also highlight some of the more than 16 billion historical records available to help you continue climbing your family tree.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Crista Cowan

Crista Cowan has been with Ancestry.com since 2004; her involvement in family history, however, reaches all the way back to childhood. She frequently speaks at local, national, and international genealogy events. Watch her live show, The Barefoot Genealogist, every Tuesday at 1:00 pm (Eastern) on http://livestream.com/ancestry.

Session Title: Hidden Family Ties in Rabbinical Families: Sh"B and Other Abbreviations

My lecture will touch on the following topics: About my research; Why Rabbinic Genealogy?; The elevator effect – or is it?; Doing it right!; Common abbreviations to indicate family relations in rabbinic genealogy.

I will talk about several case studies:
Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Halberstadt, the Madura Batra and MaHaRSHa
The three musketeers: The Apter Rov, Rabbi Levi Yitachak of Berdichev, Meir Netivim
Who is the “Gur Arie”?
Can we tell who is “Mendel” in “R’ Beinush R’ Mendel’sh”?

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Yaron Pedhazur

Yaron engages in strategic management for organizations. He holds an LLB and MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is certified as group moderator and mediator. Married with two, they live in Tel Aviv. His passion for genealogy started when he was young. Yaron’s main research is in rabbinical lineage and Ashkenazi families from Eastern Europe and Eretz Israel.

Session Title: Jewish Refugees to Sweden in Late 1930s and in May-June 1945 - A Jewish Genealogical Perspective

In the lecture I will show how the refugee dossiers from late 1930s in the National Archives of Sweden is a very valuable source for Jewish genealogical research. I will combine this source with other more known sources as vital records from Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic and with ship manifests as well as other US records. I use my own family history research as case studies. In the spring of 1945 an operation undertaken by the Swedish Red Cross to rescue concentration camps inmates in areas under Nazi control and transport them to Sweden - the White Buses. In 2015 lists of all the inmates coming to Sweden with the White Buses and police interrogation with the inmates will be digitalized for family history research use. In the lecture I will also present this source with different case studies. At the same I will in the lecture show how the Swedish refugee policy changed from a very restrictive to an open refugee policy.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Thomas Fuerth

Thomas Fürth has been researching his family for more than 20 years. He is president of the Swedish Jewish GenealogySociety and an AVOTAYNU Contributing Editor. He is an associate professor of history at the University of Stockholm and research director at Kairos Future AB.

Session Title: Understanding the family, understanding Jewish Poland. The Jewish Genealogy and Family Heritage Center at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw

For 20 years families have been enriching our experience by sharing with us at the Jewish Genealogy and Family Heritage Center their stories and tales. Thus, giving us the opportunity to challenge our understanding of the tapestry of family stories. With each visitor's personal connection we get a chance to promote and understand the Polish-Jewish connection, culture and history. Join us for some interesting family stories that build a fuller Jewish history and a broader Polish history.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Aleksandra Dybkowska & Matan Shefi

Aleksandra Dybkowska graduated from the City College of New York. Works at the Jewish Historical Institute, the Jewish Genealogy and Family Heritage Center in Warsaw. Also interested with various aspects of inter-cultural communication and organizes initiatives with adults with autism.

Matan Shefi grew up in Israel, studied University and Humanities in Hebrew University. He is living in Poland the last couple of years, working in the Jewish Historical Institute, and involved in projects in the Jewish community that show the diversity and complexity in Polish-Jewish history.

Session Title: Hungarian Jewish Genealogy: How to Research Your Hungarian Roots in Former Hungarian Areas"

In this lecture You will learn more about how you can get to know more about your ancestors who once lived in Hungary. First, I will better explain how and when the borders changed after 1920 and what happened to Hungarian Jewry during the XX. century.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Hungary
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Karoly Vandor

Karoly (Karesz) Vandor, a Hungarian Jewish genealogist and military researcher with more than a decade of exeprience in doing Hungarian Jewish genealogy. Does not only do archival research, but has expertise in reuniting family branches, taking pictures of cemeteries. Speaks several languages including English, Hungarian, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew.

Session Title: Tiberias, Kehila History according to Hevra Kadisha Books [Pinkasim]

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Benjamin Pantelat

Benjamin is a native of Jerusalem. He is married and has 2 children, they reside in Petach Tikva. He has been engaged in Genealogy over 10 years, in particular, rabbinical genealogy. Benjamin has published many articles in his blog "Toladot Ve' Shorashim".

Session Title: Insider’s Guide to The Family History Library

Every genealogist eventually learns about the Family History Library, the world`s largest genealogical library, and can`t wait to visit for themselves. But the thought of so many resources available in one place can seem overwhelming. Even someone who has been to the FHL previously has to contend with content shifting and policy changes.

As a professional genealogist and resident of Salt Lake City, Banai visits the FHL regularly and has to keep up with changes at the Library. She will discuss how to use the FamilySearch web site to search the catalog and their online records, point out where materials are kept at the Library, how to find them, how to use them, and other tips to using the facility.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Banai Lynn Feldstein

Banai is a professional genealogist specializing in Jewish and Eastern European research. She lives in Salt Lake City where she is the President of the Utah Jewish Genealogical Society and was Co-chair of the 2014 IAJGS conference in SLC.

Session Title: Differences in Autosomal DNA Characteristics Between Jewish and Non-Jewish Populations

Autosomal DNA testing is immensely popular, with tremendous potential to move the practice of genealogy forward. Unfortunately, much of that potential has yet to be realized, as many people have had difficulty interpreting their DNA results, and relatively few have made genealogical connections with their predicted genetic matches.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Jeffrey Mark Paull

Jeffrey Mark Paull holds a Doctor of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. A noted genetic genealogy researcher, he has authored many pioneering autosomal and Y-DNA studies of rabbinical lineages. His book, A Noble Heritage, traces his family’s ancestry over a millennium of history, to the famed biblical commentator, Rashi.

Session Title: Life Under The Restrictive Laws for Jews in 19th Century Germany

With the “emancipation edicts” in the early 19th century, German Jews gained their first civil rights. However, certain restrictions accompanied these rights. Probably the most restrictive was the Bavarian Jew Edict enacted in 1813, which limited the number of Jewish families per place. Only when a vacancy occurred was a young Jew given permission for residency, marriage, and children. This situation caused hardship and spurred emigration. This lecture will discribe records in the state archives that detail family struggles and offer a glimpse into Jewish life. For example, real estate and tax files report, in one instance, how four families shared one house. Thousands of individual emigration files are stored in the archives.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Ekkehard Huebschmann

Dr. Ekkehard Hübschmann has been conducting research on Jewish history in South Germany for more than two decades. Among his main occupations are emigration, deportation, restitution & compensation and family history. Since 2007, he has been a self-employed genealogist, genealogical tour guide, and transcriber and translator of handwritten documents.

Session Title: Landsmanshaften Research in Israel

Landsmanshaften, or hometown societies were founded by and for immigrants who uprooted themselves from their native environments. The two defining national events of the twentieth century, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, gave landsmanshaften the world over an urgent mandate to care not only for their own but the welfare of all their brethren. With the advent of Zionism and Aliya, Israel landsmanshaften took on a particular importance. This session will focus on the involvement and contribution of landsmanschaften in Israel and the Diaspora who came to the fore at times of need, rebuilding from ashes and memorializing those individuals and communities who were destroyed. Repositories and resources available in Israel and online will be surveyed.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Avrohom Krauss

Avrohom Krauss is a veteran educator and genealogist specializing in uniquely Jewish resources. His contributions to AVOTAYNU addressed social services (XX,2), landsmanshaften records (XXVIII,1), immigration research (XXVII,2) and date discrepancies (XXVI,2). Krauss has presented at IGRA in Jerusalem and at IAJGS conferences in L.A., Paris, Boston and Salt Lake City.

Session Title: Kaunas BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Kaunas BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Gesher Galicia Magical Map Room Mystery Tour!

Discover the cartographic wonders of Gesher Galicia's Cadastral Map Room from three experts and learn how genealogy intersects with cartography to benefit researchers. You'll learn how to navigate the myriad province and town-level maps on the website, which include the Austro-Hungarian Empires property descriptions of the houses, businesses and estates in shtetls and cities. Covered will be railway, telegraph, population and census maps along with hand-drawn "memory maps" created by Holocaust survivors and former town residents, and delve into how you can explore and annotate your own town maps, integrating metrical data (tax, census, school and magnate records) with cartographic visuals. You'll view the "legend" to the map symbols, created in Vienna and be able to (virtually) walk the streets of Lwow (Lemberg, Lviv), the capital of Galicia, to analyze and interpret the historical information revealed in this important, but underutilized resource. Mapping can expand the horizons of what you know about the places your ancestors lived. Presented by Jay Osborn, Digital Cartography Specialist, Pamela Weisberger, President of Gesher Galicia, and Eli Brauner, Lwow Historical Expert and Gesher Galicia Board Member.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Pamela Weisberger, Jay Osborn, Eli Brauner

Eli Brauner: Born in Germany, I immigrated to Israel in 1950.

My Ph.D. thesis was about deviation by NGOs.

Ten years of intensive research produced two wide family trees. Not only names and dates, but details about day to day life of the family individuals. My main focus is on my Lemberg/Lwow family. I head a nonprofit organization dedicated to commemorate Lwow Jewish heritage –ACLS. I am on the Gesher Galicia board.

Session Title: Jewish Surnames Consisting of Acronyms

What are the historical and cultural reasons for the emergence of the Acronymic technique?

Hand Writers and Copyists served as the specialists who knew how to write in ancient times.Acronyms were, therefore, created in order to save space on the precious writing surfaces as well as reduce the time and costs of the expensive writers.

Acronyms in Hebrew and Arabic could have become new and independent words = 'Notaricons', more easily than in any other alphabetic language.

We have identified three routes for the creation of surnames via associated Notaricons: The first route uses the acronym-Notaricon of the name of an ancestor, especially of those representing lineages of well-known rabbis and scholars. The second, uses Notaricons which represent respected occupations of early ancestors. The third, and most common among such surnames, serves the strong hope, wish and desire of many families to provide meaning, respect and honour to their family surnames. All three routes are accompanied by numerous demonstrations of well-known surnames.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Chanan Rapaport

Chanan Rapaport served as a commander in the Haganah, and subsequently in the IDF. He holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and completed his post-doctoral studies in psychotherapy and research in the US.

He served as general and scientific director of the Szold Institute and also served two Prime Ministers, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, as advisor for societal problems.

He is the Director General of the Rapaport Family Research Center and member of the Executive Board of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and the Paul Jacobi Center.

Session Title: The Immigration and Spreading of One Jewish Family from SE Hungary – a DNA Research

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: DNA
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Yehuda Heimlich

Department of Physical Chemistry and the Farkas Center for Light-Induced Processes, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Director of Business Development and the Environment with the Ashdod Port Co. As a hobby he has searched his paternal family for four years using standard genealogical tools such as documents and also genetic research which will be demonstrated here.

Session Title: Using Pre-1826 Polish Parish Records in Genealogical Research

Pre-1826 parish records are a window into the daily lives of Jews in the Pale of settlement, as well as way of tracing the immigration patterns of Jews from small villages, then to towns, industrial centers in the Pale, and later out of Europe.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: Advanced

Speaker(s): Warren Blatt and Debra Kay-Blatt

Debra-Kay Blatt has lectured at IAJGS Conferences Internationally. She is a founding member and board member of the JGS of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County. She has published in the Kielce-Radom Special INterest Journal and is a volunteer for JewishGen, JRI-Poland, and the Lodz Area Research Group.

Session Title: International Institute for Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem (IIJG): 10 Year Review - Achievements and Challenges

This presentation will illustrate the search after Sachs’s roots and the construction of his family tree, using historic periodicals, The Montefiore Censuses, mémoires and other pieces of information collected with the help of diversified archives in Israel and abroad.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Neville Lamdan

He is currently member of the Israel Public Council for the commemoration of Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl’s heritage and member of the Supreme Archives’ Council of the State of Israel.

Session Title: The Kollels in Jerusalem at the End of the19th Century and Early 20th Century

During the second half of the 19th century, many of Jerusalem`s residents were supported by charity funds. These funds were collected by Shadarim (emissaries of the Rabbis) who traveled worldwide raising donations among Jewish communities. The Jews of Jerusalem belonged to communities called `kolelim` based on their ethnic heritage. Among the most prominent in the city was the Ashkenazi community (immigrated to Jerusalem in the 18th century) they included HoD (Netherlands-Doitchland) Jewry, Lithuanian, Volhynian, Mugrabi, Sephardic, and Yemenite Jews.

Names of donors and members of these communities were published in annual pamphlets, wall calendars, posters and various other publications. They also named the members of the “Seven Good Councilmen of the City” (the leaders of the Kolel).

Among these is the archive of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shaul Aliyeshar, active in Jerusalem in the second half of the 19th century. His archives are kept in the National Library of Israel. I will show various examples providing genealogical information about the residents of Jerusalem during this period.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Aviad Rosenberg

MA in the History of Israel from Touro College and MA in Library Sciences from David Yellin Institute. Librarian at the National Library of Israel in the cataloging and reference departments and specializes in genealogy research. Has lectured at the genealogy seminars hosted by the National Library of Israel.

Session Title: Mac Users BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Mac Users BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Doris Nabel

Session Title: Films of The Jewish Diaspora

Collecting films of the Jewish Diaspora

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Deborah Steinmetz

Deborah Steinmetz, Director and Client Services Librarian. Joined the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive in 1994. She holds a BA in Communications Sciences from Queens College, City University of New York and a degree in Library Sciences from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Made Aliyah in 1981

Session Title: A Taste of Jerusalem

Type of Session: Evening Program
Topic: A Taste of Jerusalem
Language:
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Morocco

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew & French
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Sidney Corcos

Was born in Agadir, Morocco. Now a resident of Jerusalem and director of the Natural History Museum. He has been involved in historical and genealogical research of the Jews in Morocco since 1975. He has researched the history of Jewish families and the interrelations between them and Jewish names in Morocco, especially those from Mogador/Essaouira. Sidney has published several articles. He has participated in the important colloquium "Migrations, Identity and Modernity in the Maghreb" held in Mogador/Essaouia, Morocco in 2010.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Romania & Hungary

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Maramaros
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Rony Golan

Rony Golan is an Israeli lawyer and a professional genealogist.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Internet searches

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Arnon Hershkovitz

Started doing genealogy in 1999. Since then, I`ve been taking leading roles in the Israeli JG community, including foundation of the "Family Roots" forum; foundation of "Wikigenia". I`ve organized numerous JG-related events, including academic ones. APG and IIJG member. Faculty member at Tel Aviv University`s School of Education.

Session Title: A Rare Glimpse Into the World of a Jew from Belarus, his Family and his Community from the 19th Century until the Beginning of the 20th Century

Lara’s relatives, who came to Israel with the Second Aliyah, preserved family documents of historical value, especially her grandfather’s diary, written in Hebrew. They were digitized by Lara and handed to historians for scientific publication.

From 2002 Lara has volunteered to translate Mogilev vital records for JewishGen. Her knowledge of Russian and Hebrew contributed to better transliteration of the records. During this task Lara was surprised to encounter the records that belonged to her family. This was valuable and exciting information.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Belarus
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Lara Tsinman

Lara was born in 1948 in Leningrad and immigrated to Israel in 1971. Her family lived in Mogilev in Belarus until the 1920’s.

Session Title: American Jewish WWI Service

How the Jews in the American Melting Pot responded and participated. Stories of individual heroism. How to document an ancestor`s participation.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jordan Auslander

New York based forensic genealogist, title & real estate historian; pursued cases across the United States, Europe and Israel; published, an index to Jewish records in Slovakia, a genealogical gazetteer of Greater Hungary; former board of Jewish Genealogical Society, NY. The ‘reliably inappropriate’ host of IAJGS conference Gameshow Nights.

Session Title: Jewish Social Services Agencies

Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe exploded between the years 1881-1924 with the Great Wave of Immigration. Poor and disadvantaged, the “greener” turned to their own for advocacy, assistance and support. Free loan and burial societies, immigration aid and banks, orphanages, old age homes and other Jewish social service organizations addressed their pressing needs. This presentation will survey key organizations of late- nineteenth to mid- twentieth century and highlight genealogical relevant material using case studies.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Avrohom Krauss

Avrohom Krauss is a veteran educator and genealogist specializing in uniquely Jewish resources. His contributions to AVOTAYNU addressed social services (XX,2), landsmanshaften records (XXVIII,1), immigration research (XXVII,2) and date discrepancies (XXVI,2). Krauss has presented at IGRA in Jerusalem and at IAJGS conferences in L.A., Paris, Boston and Salt Lake City.

Session Title: The DNA Connection - Modern Jews and the Ancient Hebrews

The DNA Connection -

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: DNA
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yaakov Kleiman

With the discovery of the so-called Cohen-Gene, Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman began researching the new science of genetic genealogy.

Session Title: Botosani County Records, Accomplishments and Analysis

In the second half of the 19th century Botosani County area had one of the largest Jewish populations in Romania the kingdom of Romania. The “Botosani research group” was founded in 2008, by genealogical researchers, with roots in the area. Starting 2009, we’ve began acquiring and indexing the civil state records of Botosani city. Latter we’ve added to the collection records from other cities and towns in the county. Currently (as of Nov. 2014) we hold about 100,000 civil state records and a few thousands additional records. This is the largest existing collection of Romanian civil state records that was indexed up to day. The lecture will present the collection and demonstrate the challenges of genealogical research using those records. We are dealing with an area where many didn’t use surnames, records were not always accurate, and the population hasn’t always cooperated with the authorities.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Romania
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Sorin Goldenberg

Rabbi Kleiman is director of The Center for Kohanim and www.Cohen-Levi.org

Session Title: Asser Levy - His Extended Family and their Descendants from the 1600's to the Present

As everyone knows Asser Levy, was the first Jewish resident of NYC. According to some historians he arrived with the 23 Jews who escaped from Recife, Brazil. Others claim that he arrived in New Amsterdam shortly before their arrival. But who was this Asser Levy? Where did he come from and who were his family?

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): David Framowitz

I have been researching Asser Levy and his extended family and their descendants for over a decade. Using documents that I have found in varous archives around the world I have built an extensive family tree from the early 1600`s through the present with family members living throughout the world.

Session Title: The Jewish Community in 19th Century Eretz Israel: New Available Resources

During the 19th century the Jewish community in Eretz Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire but not all residents had citizen “status”. As the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) visits various archives with collections dealing with the period of the 19th century, various documents pertaining to the Jewish community are being discovered. These are in addition to the five Montefiore Censuses. With great patience IGRA has been striving to build a number of databases from these documents. Samples of these will be discussed, such as the Nefus (Turkish census) of the Jewish communities, lists from various foreign consulates and the archives of the first Jewish settlements outside of existing towns. One of IGRA’s “finds” has been a copy of the 1890 Nefus for the heads of households of the Jewish community of Bagdad, which was at that time part of the Ottoman Empire.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rose Feldman

Rose Feldman on twitter as jewdatagengirl, operates twitter and facebook for IGRA, and in charge of developing new databases for Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). Lectured at 9 IAJGS conferences, IGRA and IGS events, genealogy workshops at Central Zionist Archives, and one of three coordinators of the Montefiore Censuses Project

Session Title: Meet my Singers, a success example of genealogy research.

During more than 30 years Daniel Horowitz has being building his family tree. One of his most successful branches has being the Singer family. Here Daniel have archived many goals: Finding the correct documents, interviewing relatives, connecting with long lost relatives, visiting archives and cemeteries, and many more technics apply during all these years.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniel Horowitz

Born in Venezuela, (1971). BS.c. in computer engineering (2002), Specialization in education (1994). MyHeritage Chief Genealogist (since 2005), provides key contributions in the product development, customer support and public affairs areas. Board member of the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).

Session Title: Privacy Issues With Online Trees

Privacy remains a huge issue for many genealogists and their family members. Personal genealogy websites, as well as Online Collaborative Trees available at Geni, MyHeritage, Ancestry, WikiTree, WeRelate, FamilySearch and OneGreatFamily, each offer different levels of privacy protections. The lecture will discuss the varied approaches to the question of privacy, focusing especially on ethical considerations. For example, how should a genealogist respond if someone says she does not want to be on your online tree? Should minors be allowed to use online genealogy platforms? Can the right to privacy ever be reconciled with online collaborative genealogy? As genealogists increasingly utilize public, or semi-public online collaborative genealogy platforms, these questions are becoming more common. The lecture will use numerous real-world examples to analyze the problems and proposed solutions.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): E. Randol Schoenberg

I am a board member of JewishGen, the Co-Founder of JewishGen`s Austria-Czech Special Interest Group, a volunteer curator on Geni, administrator of the Schoenberg FamilyTree DNA Project, author of the Beginner`s Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy and Getting Started with Czech-Jewish Genealogy, and President of Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.

Session Title: Is a Rabbi Hiding in your Family Tree? Lessons from Genetic Genealogy for Traditional Genealogists

Both Autosomal and Y-DNA are showing us how closely related we all are as Jews, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi. We know that during the Crusades and Black Plague our numbers became very small resulting in few marriage partners. Yet most genealogists are not trained to look at our own genealogy in a historical perspective because the focus is on documenting each link or each tree in the forest. The genetic genealogy looks at the forest, and there is a lot we can learn from this approach. I will delve into the mistakes we make by citing examples in my Jews of Frankfurt Y-DNA project. I have many members who are descendants of famous rabbinical lines . Most of their genetic cousins have no knowledge of noble heritage. In fact, the majority of matches for a rabbinical line are from this group who have no matching surname or illustrious lineage.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: DNA
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Janet Akaha and Rachel Unkefer

Janet began her genealogy research 20 years ago, gradually transitioning to genetic genealogy about 5 years ago. She administers The Jews of Frankfurt DNA Project, the German-Jewish Gersig DNA Project, as well as several surname projects. She has lived in Monterey, California for 25 years and has two children.

Rachel Unkefer

Session Title: RomSIG meeting

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Romania
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: The Genealogy of Tunisian Jews: Pushing The Boundaries

The genealogy of Tunisian Jews has long suffered from a dire lack of useful sources. A small team of dedicated researchers at CGJ in France has identified many new sources in multiple countries, and has recently started publishing online and offline tools for their exploitation. This talk will give an overview of the latest tools for the genealogy of Tunisian Jews, including BECANE (a BMD database for Tunisia, 1809-1913), as well as a research guide for thousands of Tunisian protected subjects in French consular archives (1830-1913), and others. This talk will also present perspectives on future sources whose exploitation will yield further advances for the research of Tunisian ancestors.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tunisia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Thierry Samama

Thierry Samama leads a small team focusing on new sources and tools for the genealogy of Tunisian Jews. He started researching his ancestors in 2010, and serves as a Member of the Board of Cercle de Généalogie Juive, the leading Jewish genealogy society in France, since 2012.

Session Title: Lida BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Lida BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Indian Jewry: Bney Yisrael, Cochinis , Baghdadis – Three Communities With Different Backgrounds, Histories, Languages and Customs

Outlining the history of the Indian subcontinent

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: India
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Moshe Felber

Jerusalem born, 1935; after Army service studied Economics & International Relations at the Hebrew University.

Session Title: Immigration of Jews From Morocco to England in the 19 Century

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Sidney Corcos

Was born in Agadir, Morocco. Now a resident of Jerusalem and director of the Natural History Museum. He has been involved in historical and genealogical research of the Jews in Morocco since 1975. He has researched the history of Jewish families and the interrelations between them and Jewish names in Morocco, especially those from Mogador/Essaouira. Sidney has published several articles. He has participated in the important colloquium "Migrations, Identity and Modernity in the Maghreb" held in Mogador/Essaouia, Morocco in 2010.

Session Title: Reading Between The Lines: Mining Jewish History Through Extraction of Polish Archive Data

Polish archive records from the 19th century can provide invaluable information on the micro level to individual genealogical researchers exploring their ancestry. On the macro level, they can provide statistics that document societal patterns and underscore broad historical realities.

Działoszyce and Opatów were both municipalities (gmina) in Congress Poland. Both had a remarkably comparable Jewish population in 1856, numbering 2,514 and 2,517 respectively. Both had large merchant classes. Yet, analysis of their archive record extracts brings to light both subtle and striking differences in the representation of the archive town in its town archive and the representation and distances to the archive town of “other towns.”

This presentation analyzes statistics of birth and marriage extracts comprising the years 1835-1865 from the Opatów Archive benchmarked against those from Działoszyce. Exploration of observed contrasts is discussed in historical context.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Judy Golan

Judy Golan devotes extensive volunteer time to extracting archive records from Kielce/Radom regions for JRI–Poland and is the town leader for Opatów and Pińczów. She has worked as a marketing executive and consults on market segmentation and branding. Judy and her family made Aliya from Palo Alto in 1990.

Session Title: Raducaneni, Romania - Civil Records and Jewish Tombstones: Identifying and Matching Data

The presenter will speak about his own work in the matching of civil records with the gravestones in the local cemetery, in Raducaneni, Romania. This work was required as most of the inscriptions on the gravestones are in Hebrew with Hebrew dates; many without a family name whereas the civil records of deaths are all in Romanian and list both first and family names. Until 1919, the dates given were listed according to the Julian calendar which increases the difficulty of the task.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Romania
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Marcel Glaskie

Marcel Glaskie born in Manchester settled in Israel in 1988. His research into the Jewish community of Raducaneni, Romania, of which he is now an honorary citizen, resulted in the restoration of the Jewish school and cemetery and copying civil records between the years 1850 - 1915

Session Title: The Wishing Tree - Exciting research stories

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Gidi Poraz

Gidi is a professional genealogy detective. You can visit his site "Kav Hadorot". http://www.kavhadorot.com

Session Title: Jewish Polesie BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Jewish Polesie BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: JewishGen 2015

Update of what`s new at JewishGen.org, and previews of future developments and projects. We`ll review where we`ve been and where we`re going, and outline exciting new directions. There will be demonstrations of our ever-expanding databases, resources, and search tools. Speakers: Avraham Groll, Warren Blatt, Michael Tobias.

Type of Session: Panel
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Warren Blatt, Avram Groll, Michael Tobias

Warren Blatt is the Managing Director of JewishGen (www.jewishgen.org). He is the author of Resources for Jewish Genealogy in the Boston Area, and co-author of Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy. He was Chair of the 15th International Seminar on Jewish Genealogy. He was awarded the IAJGS’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

Session Title: Non-Classified and Unidentified Sources for Genealogy

During my 20 years of work in various European archives I have found a number of sources for genealogical research that were not properly classified or attributed to a particular community, or kept at unusual places. Reasons for the above phenomena: Partial/fragmented preservation, i.e. missing title or other indication of the place that a document originates from. (Brody census books, Tarnopol, Wieliczka, Czortkow, kehilla records; Preservation of only a part of previously consistent collection due to its dispersion among several archives. (Lwow alphabetical books are in Prszemysl, while full books are in Lwow); Presence of genealogical facts in the documents that are generally of different contents. (migration, kehillah records, high holiday assistance records, lists of persons who suffered during wars); Non-typical location of documents, that should logically be kept in the state archives; Soviet ЖЕК (house maintenance bureau) households books, early Soviet real estate inventory (nationalization) books. Medical death registers. I will illustrate these copies of the documents and tell how they were identified and what other dormant resources could developed in the future.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Alex Denysenko

Since 1991 works as researcher and tour leader in research/teaching/touring programs, that are connected with Central European history, to find documentation and evidence of the Jewish residents and their heritage, applied research projects about Jewish-Polish-Ukrainian-Russian-German relations in Central Europe, connected with events of wars, Shoah and pogroms, border changes/resettlements/genocide.

Session Title: Bessarabia SIG meeting - About World Federation of Bessarabia Jews

We deal with the commemoration of the Trasnistria Holocaust campaigning to ensure that Yad Vashem will exhibit in its museum more content in a wider space relating to this tragedy. We have succeeded in that Holocaust studies about Transnistria got their saliency.

We negotiate with the small Jewish community in Kishinev, the embassy of Moldova in Israel and directly with the Moldova government in order to create a Jewish section in their historic museum.

In Israel we cultivate the 20 Bessarabia communities around the country which regard themselves branches of the center – Beit Bessarabia in Tel-Aviv. In each community we have a leaders who run local activity which includes keeping Bessarabia tradition (holidays) and heritage as well as evolving into Israel's major stream society. People from former communities in Moldova Balti, Ribnita, Dubassari Orhei, Bender etc. meet at least once a year.

We have groups of writers, painters and Yiddish theatre. We publish books and booklets relevant to our people and have two to three major national events every year.

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Bessarabia SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Dan Korn

An officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since 1963, Instructor at the Army Officer's Cadet School; PhD, Government; Member of the 16th Knesset; President of the World Federation of Bessarabian Jews 1995-2015; University Lecturer, TV and radio analyst/commentator.

Session Title: Southern African Jewish Genealogy Research

The history of Jewish Settlement in South Africa, Zimbabwe (previously Southern Rhodesia) and Zambia (previosuly Northern Rhodesia) will be briefly outlined. the earliest Jewish settlement of a few Dutch Jews was around 1652. There was a further influx from the early 1800 period of German Jews, followed by some English settlers. the largest migration was of Jews from Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus around 1890-1914, and again around 1935-1939. The Jewish population of South africa probably peaked aroud the 1970`s at about 130,000. Zimbabwe and Zambia had smaller but nevertheless significant populations.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: South Africa
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Saul Issroff

Saul Issroff and late Herbert Huebscher co-founded the WIRTH group. He is Deputy-Chair of International Institute of Jewish Genealogy, President of JGS Great Britain, a Board Governor of Jewishgen Inc., Project Director of Centre for Study of Jewish Migration and Genealogy, Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Cape Town.

Session Title: The Genealogy Research in the Jewish Religious Sector

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Rabbi Meir Wunder

Rabbi Meir Wunder was born in Haifa to a family which originated in Jaroslaw, Galicia. His rabbinic education was obtained at Poneveiz Yeshiva in B’nei Brak. He is also a rabbinical lawyer. After he attained a B.A., Rabbi Wunder taught at various schools. He holds a certificate from the School of Librarianship, Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The principal part of his career was as a senior librarian at the National Library at the Hebrew University. There he had access to sources for his rabbinical genealogical research.

Session Title: The Jewish Communities of the Caribbean

Beginning with the Expulsion from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews found a new home in the Caribbean Islands. These Jewish Communities would have a great influence on the early communities of the United States. In addition to the history of Jewish settlement in the Caribbean, this lecture will also discuss the major Jewish communities, their records, and the influence they had on early Jews in America.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Caribbean
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): W. Todd Knowles

Todd is a member of the International Patron Services team at the Family History Library in SLC. His lifelong search for his GGGrandfather, a Polish Jew, has led to the Knowles Collection, 6 databases containing the genealogical records of over 1.2 million people.

Session Title: Reconstructing the Heritage of the Bene Israel Community Through Developing the Community Family Tree

Most persons start developing their family tree for the purpose of tracing their ancestry. This project embarked on a more ambitious plan – to try and develop the true roots and ancestry of the Bene Israel Jewish Community in India. Right at the start it was found to be feasible because the historical legend/story that the whole community consisting of some approximately 120,000 persons are descended from some 14 persons consisting of seven men and seven women. This presentation will present the development of the Family Tree which today consists of some 37,000 name data entries, some 15,000 photographs, several hundreds of bio-Briefs information snippets and tens of detailed Bio-Briefs and single page pictorial lifetime reviews of the contribution of our people to the evolution of Modern India and the society around us, both in India and Israel.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: India
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Nissim Moses

Historian and President Indian Jewish Heritage Center-Israel. Started Developing The Bene Israel Community Family tree and expanded to Researching the Heritage of the Bene Israel and later all the Jewish Communities of India. Active in creating awareness of the Rich Jewish Heritage and their contribution to society.

Session Title: The Vienna Jewish Cemetery in Waehring 1784-1879 as a Genealogical Source

The Vienna Waehring Jewish cemetery was founded in 1784 and was closed in 1879. In nearly 100 years about 29,000 Jews who died in Vienna and around were buried in Vienna. About them we have death records, since 1826 recorded by the Jewish community including information at least the name, age, occupation, gender, marital status, place of death, cause of death and date and place of burial, for children the name of a parent, for married women the name of the husband. It’s good to have these records, but as many researchers know: Often this isn’t enough to identify a person, or the researcher wants to know more about the person. And the hope is: The headstone inscription should have. For this cemetery we have the luck, that a lot of stones are findable and readable, but some are now unreadable or not available. I will present another source which preserved this information with practical examples.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Austria
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Wolf-Erich Eckstein

Wolf-Erich Eckstein was managing the Records Office of the Vienna Jewish Community starting in 2005, retired 2014. Before he made Social Research in different fields. Around 1990 he started research of Jewish families in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire by exploring records, cemeteries and other sources.

Session Title: Disna & Panevezys BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Disna & Panevezys BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Belarus SIG meeting

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Belarus SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Bessarabia SIG Luncheon - Kishinev, my native town: Can we now visit Kishinev and find help in our genealogical research?

Moldovan State Archive – can we get any information from it? How welcoming is the country to people from the U.S. or other nations looking for information? Kishinev Cemeteries where Jews were buried - protection of graves/cemeteries, rules to keep up the conditions of the sites. Overview of experiences (good and bad) of our members hiring others to do research in Kishinev. Issues for visitors (how to overcome language barriers, accessibility/cost of translators, antisemitism, etc. What Jewish Organizations exist in Kishinev? Can they help us?

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Bessarabia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yefim Kogan

Yefim Kogan was born in Kishinev, Moldova. Emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989 he did extensive genealogical and historical research. He received Master of Jewish Liberal Studies from Hebrew College, Boston in Jewish Cultural History. Yefim taught classes on Jewish Genealogy for the Jewish and Russian communities of Brookline and Boston. He developed a website for the towns of Kaushany, Dubossary and Kamenka, Moldova. In 2011 Yefim organized the Bessarabia SIG.

Session Title: SIG Luncheon SA - Jews and apartheid, Israel and apartheid

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: SA-SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Benjamin Pogrund

Session Title: Kolbuszowa BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Kolbuszowa BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Suchostaw BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Suchostaw BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Svencionys & Ukmerge BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Ukmerge BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Ostrow Mazowiecka BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Ostrow BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Novograd Volynsky (Zhvil) BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Novograd BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: SIG Luncheon Belarus - Common Fields of Interest: Developing Belarus Records Datasets at the CAHJP

The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People serves as an alternative home for millions of documents from Eastern Europe, including numerous genealogy-relevant records relating to towns in nowadays Belarus. The talk will present some of those records, and will explain the history – as well as geography - of their acquisition. At the conclusion, I will discuss current cooperation between the CAHJP and the Belarus SIG, as well as possible future enterprises of mutual interest.

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Belarus
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia

Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia serves as the director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, since 2012, and from 2015 also serves as the Head of the Archives and Special Collections Division at the National Library of Israel. Yochai received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he wrote his dissertation on European Jewish Philanthropy in the 19th Century and its relations with Jerusalem.

Session Title: INS Subject Index: Jewish Refugee Files From WWI and WWII

This lecture will discuss the process by which I located a number of index entries regarding Jewish refugees from WWI and WWII. I will discuss the methodology of how I used this subject oriented index to help locate the entries. I will also discuss how I located two large Jewish child refugee lists. This material was located using the file information available from the “U.S. Subject Index to Correspondence and Case Files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 1903-1959.” It is NARA Publication T-458. Examples will be provided as well as links to the scanned child refugee lists. Powerpoint presentation with handout.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): James Gross

B. A. degree in Political Science, Rider University.

Session Title: From Bessarabia to North America -the Kogan-Tulchinsky Family Saga

On the border between Vermont and New Hampshire two relatives meet for the first time. They had discovered each other through Jewishgen and wished to have a more personal contact. Yefim Kogan (Boston) and Ala Tulchinsky Gamulka trace the saga of the Kogan and Tulchinsky families in 19th century Russian Empire, Soviet Union, the Romanian period of Bessarabia, World War II and up to 2015. Their ancestors originated in the shtetls of Bessarabia and Kherson gubernias and their descendants ended up in North America following very different paths through Russia, Romania, Israel, Canada and the United States.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Bessarabia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yefim Kogan and Ala Gamulka

Ala Tulchinsky Gamulka resides in Toronto. Her teaching and educational administration career spanned more than 3 decades in Montreal Jewish Day Schools. An active genealogist, she enjoys maintaining her family tree and making new discoveries. Ala is fluent in English, French, Hebrew, Russian and Yiddish and is an avid translator.

Yefim Kogan was born in Kishinev, Moldova. Emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989 he did extensive genealogical and historical research. He received Master of Jewish Liberal Studies from Hebrew College, Boston in Jewish Cultural History. Yefim taught classes on Jewish Genealogy for the Jewish and Russian communities of Brookline and Boston. He developed a website for the towns of Kaushany, Dubossary and Kamenka, Moldova. In 2011 Yefim organized the Bessarabia SIG.

Session Title: The House of Rothschild in Italy and the Jewish Community of Naples: History Meets Genealogy

In the city of Naples, after a short-lived French domination under Napoleon, the Borbone rulers were restored to power. The king, at the time in the heaviest financial difficulties due to heavy debts contracted with the Austrian army, would find in the Rothschild family of Viennese bankers the necessary financial support. Carl Rothschild in 1827 moved to Naples and opened a branch of the Rothschild bank. In 1861, Southern Italy was fully integrated in the newly formed national state and many Jews from other Italian cities and from abroad were attracted by the possibilities of economic development in Naples. I was raised and grew up in this tiny Jewish Community. But my great-grandfather Philipp Fabian Roesel was Prussian, having come to Naples from the city of Rawitsch near Breslau (today`s Wroclaw). He was an agent for the Wertheim factory from Austria, that built fireproof cabinet safes for the Rothschild Bank.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Italy
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Marco Soria

MD 1969, PhD Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 1975. Retired Professor of Biochemistry. Active in genealogy since decades, manages a database of about 250,000 individuals all connected by marriage links.

Session Title: Personal Files of Rabbis and Assistant Rabbis in The Kingdom of Poland, A Genealogy Source

It is believed that Jewish genealogy research is a difficult subject, for all the documents went missing or were deliberately destroyed during World War II. However, there are a lot of materials that can be a valuable source of information. These include, among others, nineteenth century personal files of rabbis.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Marta Rzepecka - Aleksiejuk

Marta Rzepecka –Aleksiejuk (born 1979) – Master of Arts in History, , since 2007 employee of the State Archive in Warsaw. Research interests: history and culture of Jews in Polish lands with particular emphasis on the history of the Jewish community, rabbinical dynasties and the history of the church archives.

Session Title: Evidence Analysis: Which is the Right Record?

Have you experienced two records that provide conflicting information? Learn which is the "right" record and break through brick walls by understanding your research better through analysis of documents by using standards of primary and secondary information, original and derivative documents, and direct and indirect evidence. Holocaust and other examples will be provided to help resolve discrepancies in genealogical findings and come to logical conclusions. The Genealogical Proof Standard will be utilized.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rhoda Miller

Session Title: Jewish Antwerp - A Shtetl in Belgium

In this presentation Jewish Antwerp will be presented. The goal is to get a clearer idea about Jewish community life in past and present Antwerp.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Belgium
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Gershon Lehrer

Gershon Lehrer from Antwerp has made Genealogy as his hobby. He loves culture, history, traveling which all started with family research. Gershon has accumulated some extensive experience on Antwerp (and Belgian) genealogy.

Session Title: Lublin-Zamosc BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Lublin-Zamosc BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Belarus SIG Q&A

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Belarus SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is the world's largest online family history resource with more than 2 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 15 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 60 million family trees. In this workshop we will learn how to search records and make new discoveries about your family history. We will build a family tree and review the tools that will help you tell life stories. We will also learn how building trees can help Ancestry find new discoveries for you.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Roy Mill

Roy Mill is a Senior Product Manager at Ancestry. He oversees the Context and Narrative services and the new Person Page. Roy has over 10 years of experience in data analytics and software product design. Roy earned his Ph.D. in economics at Stanford University and his B.A. in politics, philosophy, and economics at the Hebrew University.

Session Title: IAJGS Annual Meeting

Type of Session: Leadership
Topic: Leadership
Language: Hebrew, English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Connecting the Jewish Future to its Past: Why and How to Teach Jewish Genealogy

Jewish genealogy can and must be a central vehicle to connect Jewish students with the larger Jewish people. Students from diverse backgrounds grow immeasurably through embarking on a journey of intense genealogical discovery, and become increasingly invested in their Jewish identity. In this session, we will discuss why in-depth research can be so transformative, how to maximize its potential, and how best to teach students advanced genealogical techniques.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Under 30
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jeffrey Schrager

Jeffrey Schrager is the Middle School Judaic Studies Coordinator at the Akiba Academy of Dallas Texas. He has been active in Jewish education for over a decade, and has published multiple articles on Jewish education and incorporating genealogy into Jewish schools` curricula. He is the founder of L`dor Vador Jewish Educational Services, focusing on developing and promoting curricula using extensive genealogical research to inspire the next generation of Jews. L`dor Vador received one of the Dallas Federation`s incubator grants to expand genealogy programming across North Texas.

Session Title: Female Surnames – Difficulties and Challenges in Research

For the genealogical researcher, identifying one's name is a basic goal and ambition. Alas, when research deals with women distinctiveness, we often know about her existence in the family context as "mother of" "sister of" and mostly as "wife of". The problematic of deciphering a woman maiden name is not new to the Jewish family trees and it is as old as the very beginning of our people. Therefore I believe that the topic of Women’s surname is significant to any genealogical research and it deserves tips and tools to assist researcher. Describing those Tips& tools is the objective of my lecture.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Lea Haber-Gedalia

Lea Haber Gedalia has a PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on "Collective Identities Change". She is a member of IGS and has served in the past as IGS secretary, IGS branch chair and IGS president. She is a professional genealogist who also lectures and tutors groups and individuals.

Session Title: Migration From The Yishuv Hayashan (Old Yishuv) Before The First World War

In every family in the Yishuv HaYashan – Old Yishuv before WW1 there were family members who migrated to countries abroad including Eastern Europe, America, Australia, South Africa, South America, Egypt and Germany.

This migration was similar to that from the shtetls of Eastern Europe in that the families were Yiddish speaking and, in most cases, fleeing the poverty of the cities/shtetls of Ottoman Palestine. The families represented included the Rivlin, Slonim, Frankental, Haimson, Fondaminsky, Perlkwart and Lurie families and more. Some family members returned, others did not. Some did not remain Jewish; one even became a nun.

I will tell about these families and their paths in their new countries and of the correspondence and meetings with their descendants.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jules Feldman

Born in South Africa and living in Israel since 1971.

Session Title: Jewish Cultural Property, Ownership, Provenace Research and Restitution: Understanding Concepts

In recent months the film Monuments Men and the extensive press coverage of the art trove discovered in the hands of Cornelius Gurlitt have has focused public attention on issues regarding art and assets that were looted during the Nazi period.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Karen Franklin and Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen

Karen S Franklin: Director of the Family Research Project at the Leo Baeck Institute. Serves on the Judaica and Jewish Cultural Property Working Group of the European Shoah Legacy Institute.

Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen: professional genealogist, probate, provenance researcher persuing cases in Eastern, Western Europe, Israel, South Africa, the U.S.

Session Title: Return to Sighet: Remembrance, Culture and Celebration

The first time I came to Sighet in 1998, I knew I will be back many more times, why? Yes, I found a first cousin of my mother who survived, through her I started to have a better understanding of my mother’s family. I found out how my grandparents lived, how they observed the Sabbath, and celebrate holidays, that my grandmother who I am named after loved to sing – just like me and many more family related details.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Romania
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Peninah Zilberman

Peninah Zilberman was born in Israel to survivor parents from Sighet –Maramorish and Bucharest . Peninah served the Toronto Jewish Community for over 40 years in various capacities as a Hebrew teacher at Day Schools, Principal of Hebrew Schools and the Director of the Holocaust Center.

Session Title: Pinsk & Yanov BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Pinsk & Yanov BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Visual Documentation of Jewish Soldiers in Foreign Armies

A large number of photographs in the collection of The Oster Visual Documentation Center at Beit Hatfutsot depict Jewish soldiers in foreign armies – Austria, Algeria, Britain, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Turkey, USA etc., documenting more than 150 years. The presentation will display selected items from the collection highlighting the Jewish way of life during military service, burial of Jewish military casualties and documentation of burial places, Jewish POWs, meeting between Jewish military personnel and Jewish civil population in various war regions. A special emphasis will be on how these photographs can be interpreted and used to enrich the genealogical research.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Haim Ghiuzeli

Horia Haim Ghiuzeli, a historian, is the Director of the Databases of Beth Hatefutsoth - The Museum of the Jewish People. His historical interests encompass Jewish history and genealogy. His expertise covers several fields, including development of multimedia databases and implementation of computer technologies in the field of cultural heritage.

Session Title: Russian Empire Military Census 1875 As The Unique Jewish Genealogy Resource

The main goal of the presentation is to provide the knowledge of the unique and rare Jewish Genealogy resource - Russian Empire Military Census 1875. Because of the strong difference in between this Census and the others, it gives the opportunity to search deeper in Family history.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Nadia Lipes

From 1994 to 1998 studied Judaica and Sociology at International Jewish Solomon`s University (Ukraine). From 1998 to 2000 - studied Sociology at Tel-Aviv University (Israel). Since 2007 - professional Jewish Historian and Jewish Heritage trips organizator; Jewish educational seminars presenter.- The founder of www.jewua.info (Jewsih Genealogy Research at Ukraine) company.

Session Title: 7 Unique Technologies for Genealogy Discoveries

In the last decade, technology has revitalized genealogy, opening many new frontiers for research, preservation and sharing while maintaining the thrill of the detective hunt. The important intersection of technology and genealogy is the center of this talk.

We will discuss 7 of MyHeritage’s key technologies, including Smart Matches, Record Matches, Record Detective, the new Instant Discoveries and new technologies not yet released. We will share behind-the-scenes anecdotes on how these technologies were invented and improved, describe the challenges they solve, and explain how you can make the most of them for your family history research.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Gilad Japhet

Gilad Japhet is the Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. Combining the skills of a hands-on genealogist with that of a professional software architect, Japhet’s vision for genealogy drives the company’s technological innovations and pro-bono initiatives.

Session Title: Ottoman Palestinian Genealogical Sources at The Central Archives for The History of The Jewish People

Palestine became a part of the Ottoman empire in 1516. It was a remote and unimportant province (at least in the eyes of the Ottomans) and therefore received little attention from the central government in Constantinople. The amount of archival material created, both by the central government in Istanbul/Constantinople and by the local bureaucracy (which was minimal) concerning Palestine and its residents was therefore also minimal.

Birth, marriage and death records for Palestine (an Turkey as well) are non-existent, and other sources of genealogical material are rare, even for the last years of the Ottoman regime, before the British conquest of Palestine in 1917. Jewish sources are not much more plentiful and a good deal of patience and intuition is necessary to uncover them.

Some sources at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People will be presented together with tips on locating relevant material elsewhere in Israel.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Hadassah Assouline

I was born in New York, made aliya in 1965, and hold a B.A. in history, an M.A. in Jewish history and a degree in archivistics. From 1967 I worked at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, which I directed from 1993 until 2012.

Session Title: The Jews of Maramaros: Exploring On-Line and Off-Line Genealogical Sources

Over the past 12 years I have published on the Internet dozens of name lists, as well as other types of information, related to the history and genealogy of the Jews of Maramaros. This workshop will explore the various sources, beginning with the 19th century`s Hungarian censuses and ending with lists of members in the Maramaros survivor`s organization from the late 20th century. The original documents from which the on-line lists were compiled will be publicized as well as many other sources that are not available on-line: such as personal memoirs, Rabbinical genealogical charts and archival documents. Workshop language can be Hebrew or English as per Committee’s decision.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Maramaros
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Menachem Keren-Kratz

Menachem Keren-Kratz holds two PhD titles, in Yiddish literature and in Jewish history and had published dozens of genealogical sources related to Sighet, in Maramures region, that helped thousands to discover their family`s roots. He contributed greatly to Sighet`s memorial book and nowadays acts as co-editor of Sighet’s memorial internet site.

Session Title: Resource Centre of Museum of History of Polish Jews Polin

Sources documenting the history of Poland’s Jewish community are scattered all over the world. They can be found in many countries, including Poland, the United States and Israel. The POLIN Museum Resource Center gathers information on resources available from other institutions, and facilitates access to them. Resource Center also offer access to a library as well as various types of resources for conducting historical, genealogical and local research. Resource Center is not dedicated only for scholars, students, teachers, but also to all those with a passion for Polish Jewish history to take advantage of dedicated tools, professional consultations and workshops. Thanks to our cooperation with a number of organizations and institutions committed to preserving nad promote Jewish heritage in Poland.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Michal Majewski

Michal Majewski, a graduate of the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw. Employee in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, he was gallery curator of the core exhibition. After completion of the work on the exhibition, he became a Resource Center manager.

Session Title: The Mother of All Genealogies (Genesis 10)

Genealogy is a well represented literary genre in the Bible where it reflects the basic relationship and fabric of the tribal society of ancient Israel. The object of this paper is to bring this early form of kinship ties to the attention of the modern Jewish genealogist. These genealogies were necessary for determining the next of kin and their responsibility in matters of marriage, welfare, inheritance and protection with the purpose of stabilizing that tribal society.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Prof. Aaron Demsky

Prof. Aaron Demsky of the Department of Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University directs The Project for the Study of Jewish Names. He edited These Are the Names-Studies in Jewish Onomastics (BIUP, Ramat-Gan) and Pleasant are Their Names –Jewish Names in the Sephardi Diaspora (University Maryland Press).

Session Title: The Jewish Record Collection on Ancestry.com

Ancestry has more than 16 billion total records online and millions more are being added each month. Join Crista Cowan for a look at what record collections specifically will benefit you in your research into your Jewish ancestry.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Crista Cowan

Crista Cowan has been with Ancestry.com since 2004; her involvement in family history, however, reaches all the way back to childhood. She frequently speaks at local, national, and international genealogy events. Watch her live show, The Barefoot Genealogist, every Tuesday at 1:00 pm (Eastern) on http://livestream.com/ancestry.

Session Title: Galician & Polish Research Online! Methods, Techniques and Resources

This lecture will demonstrate Internet resources, websites and search engines for conducting Polish, Galician and Austrian Empire genealogical and historical research. Covered will be Gesher Galicia’s databases, including The All Galicia Database, the Cadastral Map Room and Galician Archival Records Project inventories, along with resources like GenTeam, Mapire and Genealogy Indexer. Techniques for successful database searching, expanding Google’s reach, foreign language searches, document analysis and translation options will be covered. Also learn how to access Austrian and Polish online libraries, cemetery databases and international historical newspaper websites. The use of maps in genealogical research will also be explored. (A working knowledge of how to use a computer and basic computer commands is essential.)

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Pamela Weisberger

Pamela Weisberger is president of Gesher Galicia, 1st vice-president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, and was co-chair of the 2010 IAJGS Conference. A professional genealogist, writer, and international lecturer, she specializes in Eastern European archival and historical newspaper research. She also created the Galician Archival Records Project.

Session Title: Mystery and Enigma in the Genealogical Research of the Antebi Family

During the past 30 years I`ve been trying to trace the trails of my mother’s family – The Antebi family. This 500 year family dynasty is based upon generations of Sephardic Rabbis originated from the town of Ein Tab (Gazi Atnep of today) in southern Turkey, north of ancient Aleppo. During my research I`ve come across many enigmas and paradoxically the more light shed upon this family history the bigger the mystery became. What was the family name before Antebi and what kind of ancient sources can be found? What is the correct answer to the family origin – did they arrive from the Sephardic expulsion in 1492 or from Musta`arabi Jews that never left the area? Do old family manuscripts passed by generations in the family shed more light or cast additional questions? Where was a precious manuscript lost ­ a letter from Rabbi Yaakov Antebi (head of the Damascus Jewish community) Montefiore given to my grandfathers` grandfather in 1841?

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Elioz Hefer

Elioz Hefer is a Ministry of Health physician at the regional Health Bureau of Hasharon, specializing in public health and senior lecturer at the Emek Yizrael College. He is also the winner of the Ministry of Education and Culture prize for ‘‘Creators in the Jewish Culture’’, 1993, for research on the ‘‘Damascus Plot’’ (1840), and the author of articles about the history of Rabbis and public figures from the Antebi family (the family of his mother).

Session Title: Lunna - Impressions of my Visits to my Father's Town of Birth

During the last eight years Ruth Marcus has been researching the life of the Jewish community of Lunna before WWII and its bitter fate in the Holocaust. The town, her father`s birthplace, is located near Grodno, today in Byelorussia. Currently there are about 1,000 residents living in Lunna, none of them is Jewish. In a film (37 minutes) created by Ruth, she describes her impressions from her visits to Lunna in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011. The film shows sights and people of Lunna from the pre war period and also from the present time. It tells about her collaboration with present Lunna residents who are interested in the History of the Jewish Community of Lunna. The film speaks English and Russian with subtitles in English. After the screening, several photos of Jewish findings which were discovered in 2012 in a house in Lunna will be presented.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Belarus
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Ruth Marcus

Dr. Ruth Marcus has researched for eight years the life of the Jewish community of Lunna before WWII and its bitter fate in the Holocaust. The town, her father`s birthplace, is located near Grodno, today in Byelorussia. Currently there are about 1,000 residents living in Lunna, none of them is Jewish.

Session Title: JRI Board

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

JRI-Poland

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Poland
Language: English & French
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Jean-Pierre Stroweis

Jean-Pierre Stroweis is a software engineer. Past president of the Israel Genealogical Society; Co-chair of 2004 IAJGS conference; Member of IIJG and IGRA; Staszów town leader for JRI-Poland. He regularly lectures in Israel and at IAJGS conferences and wrote articles for Avotaynu, Sharsheret Hadorot and Et-Mol.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Sephardic

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Lea Teicher

Born in Israel. I have a Ph.D in Israel Studies from the University of Haifa. I taught High School History, teachers' counselor for History, counselor of principals and teachers who educated youth at risk.

I am researching my family and my husband's: Turkey, Poland Ukraine, Brazil, U.S.A and Canada. Town leader - JewishGen/KehilaLinks for Rivne (Rivne/Rowne), Ukraine and Dzikow Stary Galicia, Poland.

Resource Room coordinator during 2004 Israel Conference. Chief Editor (2011-12) "Sharsheret Hadorot" Journal of the Israel Genealogical Society.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Galicia

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Galicia
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Eli Brauner

Born in Germany, I immigrated to Israel in 1950.

My Ph.D. thesis was about deviation by NGOs.

Ten years of intensive research produced two wide family trees. Not only names and dates, but details about day to day life of the family individuals. My main focus is on my Lemberg/Lwow family. I head a nonprofit organization dedicated to commemorate Lwow Jewish heritage –ACLS. I am on the Gesher Galicia board.

Session Title: Krotoschin and its virtual cemetery

An in depth study of Krotoschin`s rabbinc hsitory and its role as a major center for famous rabbis.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Neil Rosenstein

Founder first Jewish Genealogical Society (New York, 1977). Decades of investigative study of books and manuscripts. Accumulated a vast collection of material on rabbinical dynasties. Author of many genealogical books. His magnum opus, The Unbroken Chain was a single volume in 1976, expanded to two-volumes in 1990 (third edition pending).

Session Title: U.S. City Directory Unique Uses

U.S. City Directory Unique Uses - The richness of the city directory is often overlooked and under utilized. It was usually published annually and became popular from the mid 1800’s for each city/town. Sometimes there were multiple publishers in a city. Not all directories contained the same information. A treasure trove of information is contained within these directories from alphabetical residential listings, occupations and household names to business listings and history of the region. The city directory is a stepping stone to a myriad of resources. It gives the genealogist a glimpse into the daily life of an ancestor and the popular trends of the day.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Diane M. Freilich

Diane M. Freilich, JD is a Michigan attorney. She began family research in 1997, finding relatives throughout the United States, United Kingdom and even Zimbabwe.
Diane has been a guest lecturer on several topics since 2005 for various organizations.
Diane is a Board member of JGSMI since 1995.

Session Title: 19th-Century Censuses in Central Ukraine. Overview of The Key Resource for Genealogy

The aim of the paper is to comprehensively present research possibilities offered by revision lists and the 1897 census data held in Ukrainian archives.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ukraine
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Tomasz Jankowski

Tomasz Jankowski, Ph.D., historian, Jewish genealogist active in Ukraine and Poland, founder of jewishfamilysearch.com.

Session Title: Threading Layers of Memory Into Our Family Histories

Many of us have families that were forced to move many times. Some left countries in Eastern Europe or went from places in the Sephardi world settling in the US, Australia, England or other places. Searches often reveal that records for their places of origin no longer exist or our ancestors left little trace. How are we to find that elusive trail? Searching a variety of little known sources often makes it possible to enrich our family history adding piquant facts that add more to our knowledge than just a date of birth or death of an ancestor. This talk will illustrate how the use of various resources can help add to family narratives of those whose ancestors may have moved through many countries from the 17th century to the present day -from North Africa, Italy, France, England, Poland, Israel, the US & other places.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Other
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Rosemary Eshel

Rosemary Eshel has wide ranging experience in genealogy & historical research projects in Israel and abroad. She has worked in Museums & Archives and is a retired Curator. She serves as a member of IGRA at Genealogy Advice sessions for the General Public offered by the National Library in Jerusalem.

Session Title: Archive Documents Discovered On Additional First Names Imposed On German Jews in 1939"

Although many German Holocaust-related documents are accessible now, so far no research exists on the imposition of additional given names for German Jews. On August 17, 1938 the Nazi authorities introduced this new law, which made the German Jews add the names "Israel" or "Sarah" as additional given names, even if the German nationals had already escaped Germany. The procedure had to be applied at registry offices, where the names were entered into the files (and mostly officially deleted again after the war, but still existing in the files). This provides genealogically interesting data. All the original letters in the City of Bielefeld were recently discovered. An index of all the names in the letters has been compiled with their fates added. Some interesting cases, will be shown with the help of the original unpublished documents. Hopefully this information may lead to search for such files also in other archives.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Fritz Neubauer

Retired university lecturer from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, born in Vienna, but resident in Germany.Took part in various indexing projects (Dachau, Mainz Kennkarten, Lodz Work Card Index, “Last Letters from Lodsch” and Lodsch Exemptions.Nominated for the Obermeyer Prize in 2010,member of GerSIG, AustriaCzechSIG and LodzSIG with frequent contributions..

Session Title: Bessarabian Jewish Records. What Our Group Have Translated and What’s New

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Bessarabia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yefim Kogan

Yefim Kogan was born in Kishinev, Moldova. Emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989 he did extensive genealogical and historical research. He received Master of Jewish Liberal Studies from Hebrew College, Boston in Jewish Cultural History. Yefim taught classes on Jewish Genealogy for the Jewish and Russian communities of Brookline and Boston. He developed a website for the towns of Kaushany, Dubossary and Kamenka, Moldova. In 2011 Yefim organized the Bessarabia SIG.

Session Title: An Ultimate Guide for Free-To-Use Russian Military Databases in Jewish Genealogy Research

The main goal of the presentation is to provide simple and fast ways of using Russian Free Militaty Databases of the 2nd World War, well-known at the Russian-speakers world, but, unfortunately, barely known at the United States and other non-Russian-speakers countries. These databases have lots of different information, such as:

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Nadia Lipes

From 1994 to 1998 studied Judaica and Sociology at International Jewish Solomon`s University (Ukraine)

Session Title: Using The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Online Oral Histories to Research Your Family

Over 15,000 hours of oral history testimony are now available on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website. Oral histories can provide valuable information for family historians. Even testimonies from non-related persons can provide information about your relative or the community where they lived. USHMM’s digitized oral history collection contains interviews conducted by the Museum as well as interviews conducted by other organizations or individuals who gave the Museum permission to digitize and upload the oral histories they conducted. Oral histories are cataloged in our collections catalog and can be found by name, place and sometimes experiences. Several hundred testimonies have transcripts or time-coded notes which are also searchable. This talk will demonstrate how to search for and listen to testimonies on the USHMM website, as well as discuss some of the ways genealogists have used oral histories in the past.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Megan Lewis

Megan Lewis has worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since 1998. She spent 12 years tracing the fates of individuals and now provides reference in the Library and Archives. She has presented to many groups about the Museum`s genealogical holdings and did research on genealogists` use of testimonies.

Session Title: The community as a family: Jewish Values and Genealogy – the Story of Four Sephardic families: Ascher, Ben Ghiat, Sidi, Soncino

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Lea Teicher

Born in Israel. I have a Ph.D in Israel Studies from the University of Haifa. I taught High School History, teachers' counselor for History, counselor of principals and teachers who educated youth at risk.

I am researching my family and my husband's: Turkey, Poland Ukraine, Brazil, U.S.A and Canada. Town leader - JewishGen/KehilaLinks for Rivne (Rivne/Rowne), Ukraine and Dzikow Stary Galicia, Poland.

Resource Room coordinator during 2004 Israel Conference. Chief Editor (2011-12) "Sharsheret Hadorot" Journal of the Israel Genealogical Society.

Session Title: Beyond the Graves - the Dual Lives of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland

Millions of Jews have been buried in Poland until the Holocaust and their individual histories have faded. Jewish cemeteries remained as still testimonies, waiting to be rediscovered. They began to reveal their secrets when, in the 1990s, the first genealogists began to look for remains of past Jewish life. It was as if graveyards were again playing a meaningful but different role in the life of those lost communities: family histories were painstakingly being revealed, with the help of additional sources such as metrical records, residents’ cards, Book of Permanent Residents, local newspapers. This is history beyond the graves, often providing a much fuller historical context. Through this work of recovery and renewal, genealogists bring contemporary meaning, a sort of ‘second life’, to those cemeteries. The present lecture will show the power of such an approach by means of specific examples in the cemetery of Zdunska Wola.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Kamila Klauzinska

Klauzinska has a PhD from the Department of Jewish Studies, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She earned a M.A. degree in Ethnology, the University of Lodz, Poland. She was awarded a number of prestigious scholarships, among them a Jagiellonian University Scholarship, a Rothschild Foundation Grant and a grant from the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem. A genealogist for twelve years.

Session Title: Are German-Jewish Community Histories Trustworthy Source Material for Your Family Tree?

Notwithstanding that German archives are putting some of their records online, researchers with German-Jewish backgrounds can’t always visit German archives in person, and if they do, there is no guarantee they can read the original records. German-Jewish genealogical research is, as a result, very frequently based on copied secondary sources including compiled genealogies, local and micro-histories. These are frequently written by local historians and groups who, whilst very well intentioned are often unfamiliar with Jewish family history, traditions and naming patterns.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Germany
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jeanette Rosenberg

Jeanette Rosenberg is a professional genealogist. She holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Genealogical Studies. Jeanette’s a frequent researcher at German archives and is a popular Jewish genealogy speaker around the UK. Appointed GerSig Director in 2009, Jeanette leads for JGSGB on Education/Mentoring, and outreach, she’s chair of the German SIG.

Session Title: Benetivei Ha'apala - The Research and Information Center for Ha'apala Heritage named after General Mordechai (Moka)

This database was established spontaneously during the formation of the national site, "illegal immigrant camp in Atlit" and has had constant activity since the late 1980’s.

Hundreds of testimonies of illegal immigrants who were detained in the camp, were collected by a team, opened to the public and began attracting people that they or their families had been during the British Mandate.

The real need of the “Illegal Immigrants to tell their story, began the database and later the desire of family members to know the story of the arrival in Israel of the parents, built the understanding that the whole treasure of the people of Israel will disappear if it will not be stored here Camp.

In 2011 began to operate while officially re-inaugurated this year thanks to the archives management system and its new contents and accompanying website. Currently the database holds 60,000 pieces of information.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rina Offenbach

Certified tour guide in Rosh Pina and its environs. Is studying for her Master’s Degree. A member of the Rosh Pina Heritage Board. Deals with preservation and documentation.
Rina is in charge of the Data Base center at the Detention Camp in Atlit.

Session Title: Klaipeda (Memel) BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Klaipeda (Memel) BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Sephardic Dynasties: Irish Crypto Rabbis with a Converso Twist

Scholars Sarina Roffé will tell this amazing history of the Kassins, a prominent rabbinic dynasty, whose Converso branch set down roots in southeast Ireland. There, Crypto rabbis served a secret Jewish community, whose members had Hebrew, Catholic, and Spanish names. The Kassin rabbis moved back and forth from Ireland to Aleppo, Syria, sending and bringing brides, and maintaining liaisons with their Vallodolid castle in Castille. They were intimately tied to the Labaton family, their neighbors in Spain, over many generations. Roffé will then follow the Kassins from Spain to the present day, where the last descendant of this 20-plus generation, father to son, rabbinical dynasty is serving as Chief Rabbi of Brooklyn’s Sephardic community.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Sarina Roffe

Founder of The Sephardic Heritage Project and member of the JewishGen Board of Directors, Sarina Roffe has dedicated herself to documenting the history and culture of the international Syrian Jewish Community. Her research appears in The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora, her newsletter: The Genealogy Detective, books, presentations, and journal articles.

Session Title: Jews in The News! International Historical Newspaper Research for Genealogists

Some of the most exciting genealogical resources are historical newspaper databases. From the New York Times, Jerusalem Post, Gazeta Lwowska, and Sydney Morning Herald, to the Times of London, Chicago Tribune and Weiner Zeitung following this often overlooked “paper trail” will enhance your research. Newspapers preserve the flavor of a time and along with reports of key historical events, one can find smaller items like vital statistics (records of births, marriages and deaths,) biographical sketches and legal notices. Curiosities like “Yesterday’s Fires,” “News of the Courts,” and articles covering Eastern European towns will astonish you with the unexpected appearances of your immigrant ancestors. Whether black sheep or war heroes, learn techniques for locating people and events meaningful to you, with examples of insights gained into your relatives’ lives by using this research tool. Covered will be methods for locating (and searching) U.S. and international (paid and free) historical newspaper collections.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Pamela Weisberger

Pamela Weisberger is president of Gesher Galicia, 1st vice-president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, and was co-chair of the 2010 IAJGS Conference. A professional genealogist, writer, and international lecturer, she specializes in Eastern European archival and historical newspaper research. She also created the Galician Archival Records Project.

Session Title: Mt. of Olives Cemetery

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Daniel Shani

Daniel is a Mount of Olives researcher for the last 6 years and heads their data center. He is an archeologist by profession and he is also a professional tour guide.

Session Title: The boy on the train – Tolek Wajnsztajn (Weinstein) is looking for his parents

In 1941, when she was on her way on the train to her English and dance lesson, Wanda Bulik, a 17- year-old Polish girl, noticed a cute little boy of three who looked like he was lost. “He has traveled back and forth three times already,” the conductor on the train between Warsaw, where she studied, and the suburb Wesola, where she lived, told her. The little curly blond boy smiled at her. He held a package in his hand in which there was a note with his name, Tolek Wajnsztajn, along with a request to take care of him. Inside the package were clothes.
How to prepare a research program to look for "a needle in a haystack"? - An historical detective lecture.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Gidi Poraz

Gidi is a professional genealogy detective. You can visit his site "Kav Hadorot". http://www.kavhadorot.com

Session Title: The Story of One Extended German Family During The Shoa

After researching the Steindecker family for several years, I was able to piece together most of the different branches of the family. I will present a short summary of this family from the 18th century, and show what happened up to and including the Sho`a period, which includes some unusal stories.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Debbie Lifschitz

I have been teaching at Michlalah Jerusalem College since 1982 and have lectured and published widely in my professional and academic fields in Israel and France. I started researching family roots and history in 2004.

Session Title: Multidisciplinary Academic Research in Genealogy

This proposal is officially submitted by the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center. This panel will discuss the ways rigorous academic research in various disciplines can enrich the genealogy practice, hence the genealogy community at large. Specifically, surprising academic fields will be included, as Education and Tourism; examples will be given for Jewish genealogy. The panel will consist of a chair, 4 speakers, and a discussant. All speakers are actively involved in research and are affiliated with leading academic institutes. Participants are:

Type of Session: Panel
Topic: Academics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Arnon Hershkovitz, Dr. Amos Ron, Prof. Dallen Timothy, Dr. Michael Fire and Dr. Judith Kali

Amos Ron: My research interests are in three main areas of enquiry: tourism & leisure studies, cultural geography and geography of religion. In tourism & leisure my research focus is on human-cultural aspects. My research in cultural geography focuses on landscape interpretation and spatial commemoration. My research in geography of religion focuses on the management of sacred cities.

Arnon Hershkovitz: Started doing genealogy in 1999. Since then, I`ve been taking leading roles in the Israeli JG community, including foundation of the "Family Roots" forum; foundation of "Wikigenia". I`ve organized numerous JG-related events, including academic ones. APG and IIJG member. Faculty member at Tel Aviv University`s School of Education.

Michael Fire: Michael Fire will soon begin his postdoctoral research at the eScience Institute (University of Washington). He holds an M.Sc. in Mathematics (Bar-Ilan University) and a Ph.D. in Information System Engineering (Ben-Gurion University). Michael has published dozens of papers in the fields of data science, social networks analysis, and computational genealogy.

Session Title: The Jewish Surnames in Bessarabia/Moldova: What Makes Our Surnames Unique.

The geography, the history and the local languages of the region greatly influenced the process of acquiring surnames. Jewish surnames only appeared in the region after 1812, when the Russian Empire annexed Bessarabia. The first law pertaining to the Jews in Bessarabia was published in 1818, and later in 1835. “Every Jew must keep forever his hereditary surname or, according to the statues, should get a surname...”, April, 1835. The Revision records from 1824 show that most Jews have surnames. The only Jews without surnames in the 19th century were foreigners from Turkey and Moldova Principality.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Yefim Kogan

Yefim Kogan was born in Kishinev, Moldova. Emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989 he did extensive genealogical and historical research. He received Master of Jewish Liberal Studies from Hebrew College, Boston in Jewish Cultural History. Yefim taught classes on Jewish Genealogy for the Jewish and Russian communities of Brookline and Boston. He developed a website for the towns of Kaushany, Dubossary and Kamenka, Moldova. In 2011 Yefim organized the Bessarabia SIG.

Session Title: JRI-Poland - Congress Poland Records and Digital Images

This presentation from Jewish Records Indexing - Poland will deal with Jewish records from Congress Poland and the searching the JRI-Poland on-line database for them. This session offers an in-depth examination of vital records along with a strategic framework to help researchers in acquiring records to further their research. Close examination of sample birth, marriage, and death records will reveal the information contained in the records, identify the records having the most genealogical value, and discover surprises found in many of these records. With actual images of thousands of Polish Jewish records now available online and linked from JRI-Poland search results, the presentation will also focus on how a search of the JRI-Poland online database can connect a researcher with digital images.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Hadassah Lipsius

Hadassah is a JRI-Poland board member as well as Archive Coordinator for Warszawa and Tomaszow Mazowiecki. She is the Warszawa Research Group database manager, serves on the Board of Governor of Jewishgen and is an executive council member of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc (New York).

Session Title: Making You Memor-able - Tips, Tricks and Tools to Write Your Memoirs

Telling our stories to our children and grandchildren is not enough. We have to write them down. If we don`t they will be lost within a generation or two.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Writing
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Danny Verbov

Danny Verbov writes family legacy books, preserving lives, memories and values. He wrote a book about his own grandfather (an army chaplain present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen) and has translated and ghostwritten Holocaust memoirs. He has also published articles on aish.com, chabad.org and The Jewish Press, among others.

Session Title: GerSIG meeting

Hear about GerSIG projects and activities, join us to find out about newly discovered resources that will help you with your own research, get to know fellow researchers and hopefully meet some potential cousins too!

During the meeting you will hear updates on GerSIG activities including the website, databases, and research projects, The German Jewish History Awards and much more too. This is a time when those researching their German Jewish ancestors get together to meet old friends and make new ones. We particularly want to welcome people who have not yet joined the German Sig to our meeting.

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: German SIG
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Jeanette Rosenberg

Session Title: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization

This lecture will provide a short history of immigration and naturalization laws and provide general guidance in finding your ancestor’s documentation.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Hal Bookbinder

Hal speaks on a wide variety of topics including Jewish History, Border changes, Migrations, Naturalization, Research Techniques and Safe Computing. He is a former president of the IAJGS, a Lifetime Achievement Award winner and lead co-chair for the 2014 IAJGS Conference. Professionally, Hal is an IT director and college professor.

Session Title: Crossing the Great Depth in Rabbinical Genealogy: The Line Between Civil records and Jewish Sources

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Rabbinic
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Yaron Pedhazur

Yaron engages in strategic management for organizations. He holds an LLB and MBA from Tel Aviv University. He is certified as group moderator and mediator. Married with two, they live in Tel Aviv. His passion for genealogy started when he was young. Yaron’s main research is in rabbinical lineage and Ashkenazi families from Eastern Europe and Eretz Israel.

Session Title: Under The Tuscan Sun: The Story and The Genealogy of The Jews of Tuscany.

Italy has a very important role in Jewish history and genealogy: being located centrally on the Mediterranean, Italy was an important crossroad between North and South, East and West, Sephardic and Ashkenazi culture.Furthermore the beautiful Tuscany is located centrally in the Italian peninsula and welcomed many of the Jews expelled from South Italy and from Spain.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Italy
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Nardo Bonomi Braverman

Nardo graduated at the "Cesare Alfieri" faculty in Firenze (Italy). He researched on local history and published on specialized journals. He compiled genealogical trees of owners of properties, farmers and simple workers from 14th century to nowadays. He was contract lecturer and researcher on Jewish genealogy and demography for the Universities of Venezia and Torino and for other commissioners. He spoke at international conferences on Jewish Genealogy and has tens of publications on the subject.

Session Title: Relief Aid, Safe Haven, and Displaced Persons Camps: JDC and World War Ii Through Rare Archival Films

The session will feature the screening of rare archival film clips

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Naomi Barth and Linda Levi

Linda Levi is Director of Global Archives at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She is a graduate of New York University and received her MA in Contemporary Jewish Studies from Brandeis University. She has lectured extensively about the JDC Archives, including at previous IAJGS conferences.

Session Title: JRI-Poland SIG Luncheon-Poland as a center of Jewish genealogical research. Resources and their potential

For 1000 years Jews were part of Poland’s population, although they currently represent a very small percentage. Their absence does not mean that they didn’t leave any traces. Thousands of pages of archival documentation can be found in Polish archives, libraries, memorial rooms, and museums. This documentation is not often used by foreign researchers because there is no widespread awareness of its existence. The presentation will focus on Polish resources and tools that facilitate access to it.

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Michal Majewski

Michal Majewski, a graduate of the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw. Employee in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, he was gallery curator of the core exhibition. After completion of the work on the exhibition, he became a Resource Center manager.

Session Title: Mogilev-Podolskiy BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Mogilev-Podolskiy BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Kobrin Uyezd Research BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Kobryn BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: SIG Luncheon GerSIG - German-Jewish Vital Records at the CAHJP

The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People is the main depot for archives of German-Jewish communities, organizations and personalities. This huge record group – more than 1,000 archival divisions, includes thousands of original registers of vital records, as well as copies of thousands of others, including a comprehensive set of miniature 'Gattermann' registers. The communities' archives contain vast genealogical sources of less-direct nature. The talk will give a glimpse into those treasures, suggesting future projects of making them accessible on-line.

Type of Session: SIG Luncheon
Topic: Germany
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia

Dr. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia serves as the director of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, since 2012, and from 2015 also serves as the Head of the Archives and Special Collections Division at the National Library of Israel. Yochai received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he wrote his dissertation on European Jewish Philanthropy in the 19th Century and its relations with Jerusalem.

Session Title: Jewish Vital Records From The Period of The Holocaust in Eastern Galicia (1941-44)

The presentation will give an overview of the Jewish vital records from localities in eastern Galicia from the period of the Holocaust, discussing briefly the various archives where they are found.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Tony Kahane

Active in genealogical research for 17 years. Main interests: Galicia, Moravia, Prague, Vienna. Active in Gesher Galicia and currently Vice President. Research and discussions with contacts on various visits to archives and historical institutes in Warsaw, Krakow and Lviv. Similarly in Czech Republic and Vienna.

Session Title: JRI-Poland volunteers

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Poland
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Geni BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Geni BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: I Couldn’t Put It Down! Series: What They Don’t Tell You About Family History Publishing

Explore innovations in family history publishing. Survey today`s best options and recommendations for each family history format: videos, slide shows, print books, eBooks, digital magazines, websites, and timelines. Hear what is involved. Learn how you can get started. Chart your path to a family history that all generations will treasure.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Writing
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Marlis Humphrey

Marlis Glaser Humphrey is the industry’s foremost expert on next generation family history publishing. Marlis has approached genealogy with a unique perspective on how technology advances in multimedia applications can enrich our sharing of family history. Find her latest technology and family history publishing tips at www.myAncestories.com.

Session Title: Preserving Photographs, Scanning, and Digital Backups

A three-part lecture on preserving your photographs, scanning them, and backing them up.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Philip Trauring

Philip Trauring writes about Jewish genealogy on his site Blood & Frogs: Jewish Genealogy and More and has also written for the JewishGen Blog. Philip founded the Modi`in branch of the Israel Genealogical Society (IGS), and was a founder of the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA), where he built the genealogy.org.il website.

Session Title: Star of David On The Green and Yellow Flag: Brazilian Jewish Military of WWII

After the attack against Brazilian ships by Nazi submarines in 1942, Brazil declared war against the Axis, employing the Navy, a Fighter Squadron and the Brazilian Expeditionary Force - BEF, 25,000 men strong, incorporated in Italy to the Fifth US Army, commanded by General Mark Clark.

However, the participation of Jewish Brazilian combatants has so far been little known, even those who became heroes, awarded medals as the US Army Silver Star and the 1st. Class Combat Cross, granted only in cases of exceptional bravery in combat.

In general they were Brazilian born, whose parents and grandparents immigrated from countries like Morocco, Poland, Turkey and Russia.

This paper addresses these almost 50 authentic heroes, soldiers, sergeants, officers and commanders, who did not hesitate to expose themselves to the double danger, inherent to war, and because they were Jews.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Israel Blajberg

1st Generation Brazilian born of Polish descent, Electronics Engineer (National School of Engineering), Assistant Professor of the Rio de Janeiro State University. Citizenship Director of the Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro. Graduate of Brazilian Army ROTC and Brazilian War College of the Ministry of Defense. Member of Jewish Brazilian Historical Archives.

Session Title: Generation Alliance: A Social Network for Alliance Israelite Universelle Schools Alumni

From 1860 until today, the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) schools network has reached more than 1 000 000 pupils and covered more than 20 countries in the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East. The alumni of these schools, over 3 generations or more, are now living in France, Israel, Canada, Morocco, the USA, and in various countries in Europe and South America. “Génération Alliance” is a social network designed to create contacts between all these people. Backed by the rich archives of the AIU, the network allows to share pictures, discussions, information, projects. The paper will tell the story of the AIU archives, and their ability to give personal and family information. Génération Alliance is an initiative to create networking as well as enriching the historical content of the archives.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Jean-Claude Kuperminc

Director of the Library and Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paris)

Session Title: Telsiai BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Telsiai BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: A Portal into German-Jewish History

The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI-New York), whose mission is to preserve the history and culture of German-speaking Jews, has recently completed the first phase of a project called DigiBaeck by digitizing nearly 100% of its papers, photos, and documents. As a result, LBI archives are available world-wide. The next challenge is to design and build “portals” that provide specific communities with easy access to materials. As LBI enlists the support of the genealogy community, the Institute is creating a web page that provides information and search parameters suited to the needs of the family research community. In addition, the “genealogy portal” will offer opportunities to connect to other important sources outside the institution’s web site. By demonstrating LBI’s Portal to German-Jewish History, the speaker will encourage questions and discussion about how this and other portals can best serve the family research community.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Germany
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): William Weitzer

William H. Weitzer, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI), a research library and archive that documents the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. LBI-New York maintains source material relating to the history of German-speaking Jewry. He has been involved in Jewish community activities including the University of Massachusetts Hillel Board, the Jewish High School of Connecticut and the American Friends of the Jordan River Village.

Session Title: Getting The Most Out of Familysearch.Org for Jewish Research

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. It began over 100 years ago and now contains over 3 Billion names from over 100 different countries. The records are available online, at the world famous Family History Libraray or through one of its more than 4,700 Family History Centers. This workshop will show the best way to use the website for Jewish research. We will learn how best to use the record collections, the wiki and the catalog to have the best results as we look for our families.

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): W. Todd Knowles

Todd is a member of the International Patron Services team at the Family History Library in SLC. His lifelong search for his GGGrandfather, a Polish Jew, has led to the Knowles Collection, 6 databases containing the genealogical records of over 1.2 million people.

Session Title: Last developments on Jewish genealogy research in French speaking countries and in Western Europe

The purpose of this panel is to present the up-dated situation of the European Jewish genealogy focusing on French speaking countries. Each speaker will give an overview of the on going projects and development of Jewish genealogy in his own country. It could help to lay the basis of an European cooperation and network in the future.

Type of Session: Panel
Topic: Europe
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniel Dratwa, Anne Lifschitz-Krams, Mark Nicholls

Daniel Dratwa: Free University of Brussels (1974), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1982), DEA of Paris X - Nanterre (1984). Professional career: - Head curator of exhibitions of the Central Israelite Consistory of Belgium, 1979-1982 - Associate researcher at the National Centre of the ULB 1981-1984 Jewish studies -Curator-founder of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in Brussels 1984-2014.

Mark Nicholls: I have been researching my family and connected families since 1999; also assisted my wife in researching her German Jewish family through on-line research and visits to Germany and the USA. I am a member of the JGS of Great Britain, Membership Secretary and Chairman. I joined the IAJGS Board in 2011 and am a member of the IAJGS Membership Development Committee. I have developed a wide-ranging knowledge of other aspects of Jewish Genealogy and have undertaken presentations on various genealogy subjects.

Anne Lifschitz-Krams: Retired sociologist and demographer. I fell in the genealogy pot when I found in my grandmother`s papers the forms that she, and my mother, had filled at the request of the Vichy government with an embryo of family tree. Now I am trying to solve my father’s family tree mysteries in Eastern Europe. I published "La naturalisation des Juifs en France au XIXe siècle " (Paris, CNRS, 2002) and "Les mariages Juifs à Paris – 1848-1872" (Paris CGJ).

Session Title: Jewish Genealogy Research at Ukraine 1795-1938: Tips & Tricks, Specific Documentation, Jewish Migration and Archives

The main goal of the presentation is to provide the fullest range of aspects and specific tips, connected to the Jewish Genealogy Research at the territory of the modern Ukraine.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ukraine
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Oleksiy Lipes

Born at Sevastopol, Ukraine at 1984 From 2000 to 2007 - active leader of Hillel FSU From 2007-2012 - Yeshiva student at Ukraine and Israel From 2012 till the present time - founder of www.jewua.info (Jewish Genealogy Research at Ukraine) company.

Session Title: Professionals BOF

This is an informal get together for those people who are working as professional genealogists.

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Professionals BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: When It Takes A Village: Applying Cluster Research Techniques

Sometimes tracking one’s immigrant ancestors tests all one’s research acumen. Identifying individuals, their origins, and parentage; tracking them through time; and constructing biographies to place them in their social context is best approached by broadening one’s approach to include family members, associates and neighbors. This presentation will outline a research program for solving genealogical research problems via cluster research techniques. Topics will include: appropriate application, research planning, commonly used resources and documents, and case studies successfully tracking individuals from Europe to the United States, overcoming name and residential changes.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Emily Garber

An archaeologist by training, Emily Garber has been researching her ancestry since 2007 and holds a certificate from Boston University`s Genealogical Research program. In 2013 she visited Ukrainian archives and family villages. Emily blogs at http://www.extrayad.blogspot.com, chairs the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and owns Extra Yad Genealogical Services.

Session Title: A Genealogists Guide to Visiting Cemeteries

Discover what you need to know and do to prepare yourself to visit a cemetery for your personal research or to perform an indexing project. Learn about the various cemetery digitization initiatives that MyHeritage has conducted (thanks to our partnership with BillionGraves) and how those efforts have resulted in the generation of hundreds of thousands of new historical records.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): David Liberman

David Liberman is a MyHeritage senior project manager. He has conducted hundreds of people to Israeli cemeteries, helping to digitize thousands of gravestones and offered training sessions to help others lead their own groups. He helps individuals around the world who are participating in our global cemetery digitization initiative.

Session Title: KehilaLinks BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Tech & tools BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Exciting New Avotaynu Foundation Program to Promote Jewish DNA Projects

Because of its worldwide availability, rapid decline in cost, and growing acceptance among lay people, DNA analysis is rapidly becoming an essential component of genealogical proof.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Adam Brown

Adam, a lawyer and strategic planner, serves on numerous municipal and non-profit boards and commissions. He has researched his family`s Ashkenazi and Sephardi origins for three decades. Articles based upon his three groundbreaking IAJGS conference presentations have been published in AVAOTAYNU. He is founder/coordinator of a genealogical database with more than 2,500 participants, is a Curator of the Geni.com Web site (a division of MyHeritage), and has worked extensively in all major online genealogical platforms where he has developed thriving online genealogical projects.

Session Title: Tracing The Women in Your Family Through Socialism and Community Work: Case Study Eretz Israel

The involvement of the women in our families in the community and political life of Eretz Israel is documented in a collection of interesting documents. The participation of the women in the building and protection of the yishuv (the Jewish settlements) can be found in many archives in Israel. The lecture will be based predominantly on databases in the Israel Genealogy Research Association’s [IGRA] All Israel Database (AID) collection http://genealogy.org.il/AID/index.php and address two facets of life in Eretz Israel: social/political aspect and the aspect of community work with references to additional resources that have yet to be explored in depth. A series of articles on the subject has already been published on the IGRA website http://genealogy.org.il/articles/ .

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rose Feldman

Rose Feldman on twitter as jewdatagengirl, operates twitter and facebook for IGRA, and in charge of developing new databases for Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). Lectured at 9 IAJGS conferences, IGRA and IGS events, genealogy workshops at Central Zionist Archives, and one of three coordinators of the Montefiore Censuses Project.

Session Title: Traces of the Zaks Family in Sources and Databases

During research in the footsteps of Rabbi Moshe Sachs, a colorful fascinating character orthodox Talmudist (Germany 1800- Jerusalem 1870), who was at the same time a Zionist visionary and Scientific Scholar, Dr. M. Friedman encountered difficulties in finding enough background information. Reach out for potential family members, who might contribute missing information, led Dr. Friedman into a maze of Genealogic investigation in diversified world-wide resources. The presentation will expose findings from expanded resources such as the Montefiore Censuses, The Jerusalem archive, The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), Yad Ben-Zvi; The National Library of Israel; old Hebrew press and private collections.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Israel
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Motti Friedman and Gidi Poraz

Dr. Friedman, currently Academic director at the Jerusalem Zionist archives, was previously Director in chief of the Jerusalem, Herzl Museum where he established its Educational Center, offering a variety of on-site and on-line educational programs.

He is currently member of the Israel Public Council for the commemoration of Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl’s heritage and member of the Supreme Archives’ Council of the State of Israel.

Session Title: It Isn't all Online - Getting Away from Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage and Finding the Best Stories

Many people believe that if they`ve searched the traditional online resources and haven`t found information about their family, it must not exist. But there is a treasure trove of information which hasn`t been indexed and often isn`t available online. These documents often tell the best stories of family members. Examples which will be discussed documents include old court records, land records, Eastern European census records, shul journals, newspapers, and more.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Lara Diamond

Lara Diamond is co-president of JGS Maryland and has been researching her family history since she was a teenager and has traced lines of her family documented to the 1700s in Eastern Europe. Her genealogy blog is at http://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/

Session Title: Yizkor Book BOF

Type of Session: BOF
Topic: Yizkor Books BOF
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: A Tragic Romance and its Consequences

This talk focuses on research methods used, good detective work and a philosophy of sharing. The story: Great Uncle Moshe and Paula’s ill-fated romance in the late 1920s. All I ever knew was that: I was named after my great uncle Moshe; and Moshe died in a motor accident, six weeks before his wedding.
Then a photo given to me eighty years after he died changed everything. Offered as a “reward” for my enthusiastic interest in my family history, this photo became my trump card!
While the photo came with some limited additional information, it was what I did with the photo that led to unbelievable outcomes that drove me, an Australian, to research, follow the trail and travel to South Africa, Poland, Israel, England and Germany in search of the answers! These journeys ended in a satisfying outcome and a greater appreciation of research!

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Jewish life
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Eli Rabinowitz

Eli Rabinowitz, born in Cape Town, has lived in Perth Australia since 1986.

Having trained as an economist, Eli now enjoys wide ranging activities, including marketing lingerie and swimwear, a simcha video business, genealogical research, writing Kehilalinks websites for JewishGen, and blogging on his extensive Jewish heritage travel and photography.

Session Title: The Testimonies of Odengatan 28 - Memorial Records From Swedish Post-Holocaust Rehabilitation Camps

In 1945 thousands of Holocaust survivors arrived in Sweden, from concentration camps in Germany and Poland. These refugees were rescued with the assistance of the Swedish Red Cross. Earlier, almost all Danish and parts of Norwegian Jewry had managed to escape their countries’ respective Nazi occupations. The non-Scandinavian survivors that arrived in Sweden were spread out in a number of rehabilitation camps all over Sweden. Tiberias-born Rabbi A.I. Jacobson, a refugee from Norway, was intensely involved in caring for the newly arrived refugees. He recorded in hand-writing first-hand accounts of the survivors’ testimonies, listing the survivors’ acquaintances that perished in their immediate proximity, in concentration camps and elsewhere. We will analyse the situation in the Swedish refugee camps that were established in 1945. Simultaneously we will study Rabbi Jacobson’s notebook with its fearful contents, now converted into a database of names, and examine its genealogical and historical value.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: English
Skill Level: Intermediate

Speaker(s): Seth Jacobson

Israeli hi-tech executive and CEO since 1994. Co-owner and founder of DoroTree Technologies (Jewish genealogy software). Three-year term at Israeli Embassy in London (Soviet Jewry). Work experience in major Israeli health care facilities (Shaare Zedek, Hadassah hospitals etc.). Degree in Computer Science and Business Administration from University of Stockholm.

Session Title: The History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames in The Russian Empire

The history of the adoption, regulation, and use of Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire is quite complex. There were a myriad number of ways by which Jewish surnames were created, assigned, or adopted, while tight restrictions were placed on changing or altering surnames.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Beginners
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Jeffrey Mark Paull

Jeffrey Mark Paull holds a Doctor of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. A noted genetic genealogy researcher, he has authored many pioneering autosomal and Y-DNA studies of rabbinical lineages. His book, A Noble Heritage, traces his family’s ancestry over a millennium of history, to the famed biblical commentator, Rashi.

Session Title: Banquet

For some 30 years, Dick Eastman has been honing his vision of the future to improve our picture of the past. A school assignment started him asking questions about family, and tuned his ear to the stories of Eastman, Dow, Deabay and Theriault elders at family reunions.

Along with this growing curiosity about his roots, an early interest in ham radio awakened his penchant for all things electronic, and he was ready for computers almost before they were ready for him. This odd combination of interests came together, and by the early 1970’s, Dick was already using a mainframe computer to enter his family data on punch cards.

It was only natural for him to play with PCs and Macintosh computers when the information age invaded households across the continent. He immediately saw new and better and faster ways of researching his family. This was too good to keep to himself, so it’s no surprise that the internet became his playground, where he would exhort others to bring their ancestors into this digitized world.

Dick actually went knocking on the door of a rising internet star called CompuServe to propose a genealogy forum: a move by which he built a community of family historians over the next 14 years. At the same time, he preached the benefits of technology to an even wider audience of genealogists, including national and international genealogical organizations, and of course, GENTECH, an organization that helped him to spread his message.

For the last 9-plus years, Dick has pursued his mission through an online periodical he writes every week, simply called "Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter." He loves to share technology "finds" that can help both new and seasoned genealogists, as well as dethroning the scams and shams that can lead the unwary astray.

Type of Session: Banquet
Topic: Banquet
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dick Eastman

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Lithuania

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Lithuania
Language: English
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen

Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen: Professional genealogist, probate, provenance researcher. Pursues cases in Eastern, Western Europe, Israel, South Africa, and the United States. As an independent Holocaust researcher, specializes in the Holocaust in Lithuania, researching plunder of personal property. Coordinates the Lithuanian Names Project and the Southern Africa Oral History Project. Authored: Lerer Cohen R. and Issroff, S. (2002) The Holocaust in Lithuania 1941-1945: A Book of Remembrance. (Gefen: Jerusalem). Is a board member of The Israel Genealogical Research Association (IGRA), and the Association for Oral History.

Session Title: Breakfast with the Experts

Galicia

Type of Session: Breakfast
Topic: Galicia
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Eli Brauner

Born in Germany, I immigrated to Israel in 1950.

My Ph.D. thesis was about deviation by NGOs.

Ten years of intensive research produced two wide family trees. Not only names and dates, but details about day to day life of the family individuals. My main focus is on my Lemberg/Lwow family. I head a nonprofit organization dedicated to commemorate Lwow Jewish heritage –ACLS. I am on the Gesher Galicia board.

Session Title: How DNA tests revealed family relationship between my Parents

This lecture will relate to the following items:

What types of DNA tests exist, comparison of existing DNA companies, What the results look like and their meaning, How does one learn about possible relatives from the tests, What I have learned and how I found a relationship between my parents even though my mother originates from the Czech Republic while my father originates from Slovakia.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: DNA
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Daniella Michaelovitz

Born in Prague. Received MA in Statistics from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Worked as Director of the Department of Research & Information of Haifa Municipality. Have researched my family roots since 1994. Am a member of the IGS. Through DNA testing I’ve located a distant joint relative of my parents though my father is from Czech Republic and my mother from Slovakia.

Session Title: Benetivei Ha'apala - The Research and Information Center for Ha'apala Heritage named after General Mordechai (Moka)

This database was established spontaneously during the formation of the national site, "illegal immigrant camp in Atlit" and has had constant activity since the late 1980’s.

Hundreds of testimonies of illegal immigrants who were detained in the camp, were collected by a team, opened to the public and began attracting people that they or their families had been during the British Mandate.

The real need of the “Illegal Immigrants to tell their story, began the database and later the desire of family members to know the story of the arrival in Israel of the parents, built the understanding that the whole treasure of the people of Israel will disappear if it will not be stored here Camp.

In 2011 began to operate while officially re-inaugurated this year thanks to the archives management system and its new contents and accompanying website. Currently the database holds 60,000 pieces of information.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Migration
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Rina Offenbach

Certified tour guide in Rosh Pina and its environs. Is studying for her Master’s Degree. A member of the Rosh Pina Heritage Board. Deals with preservation and documentation.
Rina is in charge of the Data Base center at the Detention Camp in Atlit.

Session Title: Finding Aron Baum in Pre-War St. Petersburg

Serendipity and pure luck often play a key role in genealogy research. The detailed answer presented here to a 75-year-old family enigma once again has chance as its starting point. Aron David Baum was the oldest of 12 brothers and sisters, among them my grandmother Dora. His disappearance in St Petersburg in the late 1930s has remained a family enigma until recently. His fate and that of his wife and daughter remained unknown, apparently forever. This is their reconstituted story.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Russia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): H. Daniel Wagner

Daniel Wagner is a Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Author of 30 genealogical papers, editor of a multi-author book about scientific tools in genealogy. Co-Chairman of the 2004 International Conference of Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem. Member of the JRI-Poland Board. Zdunska Wola JRI Town Leader. Elected Honorable Citizen of Zdunska Wola.

Session Title: Who Was Elishah Ben-Aboyah

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Academics
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Mariana Kronfeld

Mariana is a researcher focused in Jewish Philosophy. Has published a variety of articles. Lectures and teaches in the following settings: IDF, the Jewish Agency, educational frameworks in Israel and abroad; in Hebrew, Russian and English.

Session Title: JRI-Poland Hebrew

An introduction to the JRI-Poland website for Hebrew speakers

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Poland
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Jean-Pierre Stroweis

Jean-Pierre Stroweis is a software engineer. Past president of the Israel Genealogical Society; Co-chair of 2004 IAJGS conference; Member of IIJG and IGRA; Staszów town leader for JRI-Poland. He regularly lectures in Israel and at IAJGS conferences and wrote articles for Avotaynu, Sharsheret Hadorot and Et-Mol.

Session Title: Family Free Friday

Family activities in genealogy for Israelis

Type of Session: Leadership
Topic: Leadership
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Beta Israel - Descendants of King Solomon or Descendants of the Tribe of Dan? Origins shrouded In Mystery

There are currently about 125,500 or more citizens of Israel of Ethiopian descent, the Beta Israel. Although there were a few Ethiopians who came to Israel from the 1920s on, the majority of the Beta Israel came to Israel in the airlifts of Operation Moses in 1984-1985 and Operation Solomon in 1991. Most of the Beta Israel suffered extreme hardship and poverty: they were discriminated against in Ethiopia, their villages were sacked and burned, and they walked hundreds of miles to Sudan where they lived in refugee camps until they could be airlifted to Israel.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Ethiopia
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Avivah Pinski

Avivah Pinski, a civil rights attorney, has degrees in music, education and law. Prior to attending law school, she taught in elementary school, taught at Drexel University, and worked in information science. In law school, she was President of the Jewish Law Students Asociation, and a Member of Law Review.

Session Title: Unusual Information Sources: Central Zionist Archive Collections As a Unique Information Source For Genealogy

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Simone Schliachter

Director of the Family Research unit at the Central Zionist Archives.

Session Title: Teaching Jewish Genealogy to Teenagers

In this presentation, we will present a full Jewish genealogy course that was designed and taught for young (gifted) children, 12-13y/o. The course was built of 13 meetings, 1.5-hour long each. The course lays the foundations for the basics of JG and it does so in a fun, hands-on, engaging way, but still takes into consideration strict academic skills and JG standards. We will discuss the topics taught in that course, the spiral way based upon the syllabus was built, and the pedagogy of teaching it. We will also suggest using this framework and adapt it to other audiences, either younger or older children. Ways will be sugested to promote this kind of a course by individuals and/or local JG organizations, for example in Sunday Schools or JCCs.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Under 30
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Arnon Hershkovitz and Rony Golan

Started doing genealogy in 1999. Since then, I`ve been taking leading roles in the Israeli JG community, including foundation of the "Family Roots" forum; foundation of "Wikigenia". I`ve organized numerous JG-related events, including academic ones. APG and IIJG member. Faculty member at Tel Avuv University`s School of Education.

Session Title: Genealogical Sources in The Central Archives On Jewish Soldiers in WWI an Their Families

My lecture and presentation are based on genealogical sources in the "Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People" regarding the Jewish soldiers in Central Europe during WW I. I will present:

Organizations which represented the fallen or wounded Jewish soldiers and their families, some of them (especially from Austria) helping family members of the soldiers during the Shoa. I will show mainly the various lists and other genealogical documents which these organizations prepared.

Lists of soldiers prepared by various local or country wide organizations.

Lists of Jewish soldiers who participated in the war, from the archives of Jewish communities in Germany

Visual material on Jewish soldiers, mainly monuments erected for fallen soldiers by Jewish communities and organizations

Letters and cards from Jewish soldiers sent to field rabbis

Genealogical material on Jewish soldiers from various private collections in the archives

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Denise Rein

Born 1955 in Switzerland. I studied history in Switzerland and at the Hebrew University where I graduated with a M.A.. Work for the last 20 years at the "Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People", Jerusalem, mainly on material from Central Europe, Latin America and the Successor organizations.

Session Title: Personal Names from Archaeological Excavations in the Land of Israel during the First Temple Period

This lecture deals with personal names found on artifacts from archaeological excavations in the Land of Israel and Transjordan during the First Temple period (ca. 10th century BC until 586 BC). The emphasis here is on names as ethnic characteristics. First, I will talk about the different categories of personal names and their elements, such as divine names or divine appellatives. Then, I will present important epigraphic artifacts with names. In the second part of the lecture, I will discuss my study of the relationship between personal names and ethnic groups through the geographical distribution of the names. The study shows that a name is an important element in ethnic identity.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Onomastics
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level:

Speaker(s): Dr. Mitka Golub

Mitka R. Golub, PhD in archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her field of expertise is personal names in the Land of Israel during the First Temple from archaeological and biblical sources. Mitka came to archeology after a career in hi-tech as a software engineer and senior manager. Mitka is a docent at the Israel Museum.

Session Title: Milestones for Finding Information About Andres Army Soldiers – Russia, Eretz Israel, Italy to Demobilization

"Anders Army" was a significant occurrence in the history of the Polish people, but had relevance to the Jewish community. Established during World War II in the Soviet Union as part of the Free Polish Army, the army was made up of Polish exiles deported by the Soviets to labor camps in the East.

Anders Army was accompanied by a large camp of citizens. Therefore, the importance of the study is not only in regard to military service. About 120 thousand people, moved from the USSR to Persia to the Middle East, including Palestine. While staying in Palestine many soldiers defected from the army, encouraged by the Jewish institutions.

Anders Army fought in various places in Europe and is famous for the extraordinary heroic battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. Many have relatives who served in the Anders Army, some not knowing the circumstances of their death or burial place.

My lecture deals with this extraordinary occurrence and sets forth the milestones for the study of Jewish soldiers who served in Andres Army.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Eli Brauner

Born in Germany, I immigrated to Israel in 1950.

My Ph.D. thesis was about deviation by NGOs.

Ten years of intensive research produced two wide family trees. Not only names and dates, but details about day to day life of the family individuals. My main focus is on my Lemberg/Lwow family. I head a nonprofit organization dedicated to commemorate Lwow Jewish heritage –ACLS. I am on the Gesher Galicia board.

Session Title: Yad Vashem Resources for Advanced Level

This talk is for those who are experienced in using the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names. It will give information on changes in the new interface of the Database that will aid genealogists, and other ways to "tweak" the database for as much information as possible. In addition, the talk will introduce other Yad Vashem resources online including the Photo Archive, Road to Extinction Database, The Murder Sites of the Jews in the Occupied Territories of the Former USSR, information about Righteous Among the Nations and online video testimonies and give a quick overview of resources available at Yad Vashem that are not yet online.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: Advanced

Speaker(s): Zvi Bernhardt

I am Deputy Director of two related departments in Yad Vashem: The Hall of Names and Reference and Information Services, which gives service to the public, both in Yad Vashem’s on-site reading room and online, on Yad Vashem`s resources. I am also Yad Vashem`s liaison to JewishGen.

Session Title: Family Generations at War: Weaving World History and Ancestral GenealogyAMILY GENERATIONS AT WAR: WEAVING WORLD HISTORY AND ANCESTRAL GENEALOGY

Fleshing out the bare bones of ancestral links embraces both historical exploration and creative fabrication. How can we give breadth and depth to the lives of precursors when the personal traces in the form of diaries, letters or even oral history are lacking? This paper aims at coherent illuminations of ancestors embedded in family and community context and enlivened by a resourceful, yet credible, rationale of his/her place in the historical flow of world events. The thematic focus in this presentation is the military involvement of several forebearers. It is divided between those who served as military personnel in various armed encounters and those who served in a traditional Jewish role as provisioners of armed forces. These predecessors emerge from our insular family chronologies as both manifestations and/or catalysts of episodic events from the past.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Military
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Paul King

Paul King has delved into family genealogy for fourteen years. He is the author of several articles on ancestral exploits and curiosities and has given papers at three IJGA Conferences. Fourth generation Canadian-born, he has resided in Jerusalem 40 years, is married with two recently married sons.

Session Title: JewishGen Hebrew

Type of Session: Workshop
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Dr. Lea Haber-Gedalia & Irit Shem-Tov

Lea Haber Gedalia has a PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on "Collective Identities Change". She is a member of IGS and has served in the past as IGS secretary, IGS branch chair and IGS president. She is a professional genealogist who also lectures and tutors groups and individuals.

Irit Shem-Tov, born in Kfar-Saba, Israel and is living there till today. Tel-Aviv University graduate in Geography. Has researched her family for over 20 years. As a result became a professional genealogist. She teaches Genealogy to various groups at all levels. Was IGS secretary and an IGS branch chair. She is also a genealogy advisor at 2 free public genealogy advisory services and is a private researcher.

Session Title: BIALYGen

Our SIG meeting will take place at Kiryat Bialystok in Yehud on Friday, July 10 from 11 am to 3 pm. There will be a fee to cover group transportation and lunch.

Type of Session: SIG
Topic: Bialy
Language:
Skill Level:

Speaker(s):

Session Title: Search as an Art

Now is a great time to be a genealogist. In the past, the only way to find records was to sift through microfilm and to snail mail requests and hope for replies. But now, there are so many web sites with indexes and record images that a lot of research can be done without ever leaving your home.

But even with such easy access, sometimes the records are still elusive. What happens if the name was spelled wrong? What if the handwriting was so bad that the index is too far off for the search engine to find what you`re looking for? What if the indexer just got it wrong?

With her computer programming background, and experience programming a genealogy search engine, Banai will teach you some of the techniques she uses to try to find the elusive records.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Tech & tools
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Banai Lynn Feldstein

Banai is a professional genealogist specializing in Jewish and Eastern European research. She lives in Salt Lake City where she is the President of the Utah Jewish Genealogical Society and was Co-chair of the 2014 IAJGS conference in SLC.

Session Title: The Central Database of Shoah Victims` Names – Plans for The Future

Ten years after the launch on the Internet, the Names database documents and commemorates more than three quarters of the Jews murdered in the Shoah. It also contains data on many whose final fate was not yet ascertained. There is need to decide on possible directions of activity in the next years. A few examples will be presented and open to discussion:

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Holocaust
Language: English
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Alexander Avram

In the past was assistant to General Uzi Narkis in his capacity as publicity director of the Jewish Agency.

Session Title: The poor and the Pious in Jerusalem 1639-1800. Support for Eretz Israel from Amsterdam.

The Portuguese Israelite Community of Amsterdam provided support to Erets Israel on a regular and continuous base. Once a year, at least from 1616 until this very day, vast sums of money were transferred to Israel every year to support a community that might not have survived on its own. A small part of each yearly contribution went to the communities of Jerusalem, Safed, Hebron and Tiberias a s a whole. Most went to individuals and Yeshivots. From 1639 until circa 1800 there are lists of individuals and institutions receiving support from Amsterdam with but few hiatuses. My talk will be about the background of these lists, about the genealogical information that can be gleaned from them, about the origins of these people, about demographics, but also about the givers and theri motives. I will also talk about the various ways that were used to transfer money to Erets Israel.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Sephardic
Language: English
Skill Level: Beginner

Speaker(s): Ton Tielen

Ton Tielen, born Venlo, 1953, The Netherlands, Archivist, 20 years of experience in researching the Archives of Jewish Communities in The Netherlands, especially the Portuguese Israelite Community of Amsterdam

Session Title: A Road Map to Israeli Archives - Researching in Israel

This lecture will present the various kinds of archives that are currently in Israel with a spotlight on specific archives, the materials and resources available in these archives. We will present a variety of examples.

Type of Session: Lecture
Topic: Archives
Language: Hebrew
Skill Level: All

Speaker(s): Michal Henkin and Galia Duvidzon

Galia Duvidzon – Director of the Petach Tikva History Archives, Vice Chair of the Association of Israeli Archivists, Lecturer at Beit Berl College in the Faculty of Society and Government, Archive Department, has an MA in Library and Archival and Information from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Michal Henkin – Director of the Haifa City Archives, Chair of the Association of Israeli Archivists, has an MA in Information Studies from Bar Ilan University.