Please join us for a virtual annual meeting and election on Sunday, June 26, 2022 at 11:00 AM
Cost: Free

Eliyahu HaNavi Synagogue. Jewish Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem, Israel by Adam Fagen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
The Eliyahu HaNavi Synagogue is the oldest of the Four Sephardic Synagogues.

Sephardic History in Israel

If you’ve read the book or watched the Netflix series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, you may be curious about the history of Sephardic Jewry in the state of Israel from the times of the Ottoman Empire.

Join us as we welcome Michael Waas, historian, anthropologist, researcher and co-founder of Hollander Waas Jewish Heritage Services. He will talk on the history of Sephardim in Israel, their interactions with Zionism and the complicated history of Sephardim in the state and pre-state of Israel.

About the Speaker:

Ever since he was a young child, Michael Waas has been interested in history and the world around him. Following a conversation in high school with his cousin about family lore that the famous union leader Samuel Gompers was a cousin, he began his journey into genealogical and historical research. That beginning led him to the path where he is today: Michael is a Heritage Professional, based in New York, specializing in historic preservation and multidisciplinary research into the Portuguese Jews and Ottoman Jewry.

He received his BA in Anthropology with a specialization in Historical Archaeology from New College of Florida, and the subject of his Senior Thesis was “The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis of the Seminole People of Florida,” under the direction of Dr. Uzi Baram. Michael recently completed his MA in Jewish History at the University of Haifa under the direction of Dr. Ido Shahar and Dr. Shai Srugo. The title of his thesis was “Istorya i oy: A comparative study on the Development of Jewish Heritage of Three Jewish Communities of the former Ottoman Empire.” In addition, he has been volunteering with AvotaynuDNA since 2016, where he is the anthropologist and historian of the research.

Michael is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Society for Sephardic Studies, the Association for Jewish Studies, and the European Association for Jewish Studies. He plans to pursue his PhD in the near future.

Proposed Slate 2022-2023:

Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 4pm ET
Free – Zoom registration required

The U.S. 1950 census will become public on April 1, 2022. Society members alive on April 1st, 1950 and a resident of the U.S. and its territories should expect to see their name on the 1950 population schedule. Joel will provide advice on what you can do to prepare for the rollout. He will cover who uses the census, census caveats, who was enumerated and who wasn’t, how the 1950 census was taken, training of enumerators, enumerator instruction manuals, census sampling, and 1950 population and housing forms and large city block summaries. Joel will then discuss name (a preliminary index based on OCR’d handwriting may be available on day 1) and locational tools for finding people. 

The National Archives census map collection, and his and Steve Morse’s 1950 locational tools, online right now at the One-Step stevemorse.org website, will end the talk. The One-Step 1950 utilities took almost 8 years to produce with the the help of 70 volunteers, involve 230,000 or so searchable 1950 census district definitions with about 79,000 more small community names added, and street indexes for over 2,400 1950 urban areas that correlate with 1950 census district numbers

Joel Weintraub,PhD, a New Yorker by birth, is an emeritus Biology Professor at California State University, Fullerton. He became interested in genealogy over 20 years ago and volunteered for 9 years at the National Archives in southern California. Joel helped produce location tools for 1900 through 1950 federal censuses, and the NY State censuses for NYC (1905, 1915, 1925) for the Steve Morse “One-Step” website. He has published articles since retiring on the U.S. census and the 72-year rule, the name change belief and finding difficult passenger records at Ellis Island, searching NYC census records with the problems of NYC geography, and a revision of the biography of naturalist Adolphus Heermann. He has a YouTube channel with his genealogy and field biology talks at JDW Talks. His interests including birding, and collecting interesting exhibits for his PowerPoint talks.

Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 4pm ET
Free – Zoom registration required

This online presentation will focus on interpreting so-called “Jewish DNA” results from the major commercial testing companies (i.e., Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, and MyHeritage), with primary focus on Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. The speaker will dig into common beliefs and misconceptions related to interpreting these results and provide context and strategies to maximize successful research.

Topics will include ethnicity estimates, tools to understand and locate DNA matches, nuances found at each testing company, and strategies to tackle endogamy. Although not required, familiarity with navigating the various DNA testing sites and viewing DNA matches is recommended.

Adina Newman, EdD, is the owner of My Family Genie, where she assists clients with their research and blogs about her own family history. Her main interests are in Jewish genealogy, genetic genealogy, and New England. She has a doctorate in educational leadership and a certificate in genealogical research from Boston University.

She volunteers as a Jewish genetic genealogy Facebook group moderator, social media coordinator for NextGen Genealogy Network, and a discussion leader for ProGen, a self-study group for aspiring and professional genealogists. She was also a 2020 recipient of the AncestryProGenealogists scholarship. She presented four talks for the 2021 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 12pm Eastern
Free

Our recording secretary will offer assistance and strategies in busting through your “brick wall” genealogy problems. Please fill out the Google form provided in registration.

The registration window to submit questions has closed, but you are welcome to register and listen in on the session. If we have time we will take questions from the audience.

Registration has ended.

Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 10am Eastern
Free

Deborah H. Long, founder of the Triangle Jewish Genealogical Society in Durham/Chapel Hill, N.C., will present a webinar titled “Out of the Whirlwind: Finding Your Family Lost in the Holocaust”. Her presentation will be followed by a genealogy question-and-answer discussion time.

The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Deborah Long reviews in this presentation the best (as well as some of the obscure) resources and methods for determining the fate of those involved in the Holocaust, including survivors and victims. She will use examples from her own research to demonstrate the documents and artifacts she discovered.

Deborah has been researching her family’s Holocaust history and looking for surviving family members for more than 60 years. Her research in 2009 led to the discovery of surviving cousins in Sweden, Hungary, Canada and, most recently, in Israel. Deborah is a professional educator, though typically her audiences are licensed professionals. She has written more than 20 books, including a memoir about growing up as a child of survivors titled “First Hitler, Then Your Father, and Now You.”

Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 10am
Free

Please join David Goldman along and Jim Grey for an interactive visit to the historic B’nai David Cemetery. Just two miles from the storied Beth Olem cemetery, B’nai David dates back to 1898 when the founding fathers of the then Beth David Synagogue bought a 1.6 acre plot of land in what was then Hamtramck Township for $1,800.

Read more about David Goldman’s urban garden project from the The Jewish News.

We hope you’ll attend. Rain or shine. Street parking at 9535 Van Dyke Detroit, MI.

August 1-5, 2021
All Virtual Conference
Early Bird Registration ENDS JUNE 10: $250
Cost after June 10th: $325

Full Conference registration allows access to all sessions, meetings, and presentations. Limited Access permits attendance at SIG, BOF, Research District, and Research Group meetings only—one meeting for $10 or two or more meetings for $18. Attendance to only the Annual Meetings and the IAJGS-sponsored JGS Leadership Seminars is offered for no charge with Free Access.

The conference will feature over 50 live-stream presentations and more than 100 pre-recorded, on-demand video presentations covering virtually every aspect of Jewish genealogy .

Learn more at https://www.iajgs2021.org/

Cost: Free

“Facade of Sephardic Synagogue – Sofia – Bulgaria” by Adam Jones, Ph.D. – Global Photo Archive is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Jewish Bulgaria: A Virtual Sephardic Journey

Please join us for a virtual annual meeting and election on Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 12:00 PM

Join us for a dynamic interactive trip through Bulgaria’s rich Jewish heritage. Learn about notable moments and individuals from the rich and varied history of Jewish life in Bulgaria. Our virtual tour will make stops in Sofia and Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s largest cities, and will take us inside the sumptuous Neo-Moorish Sofia synagogue. Other highlights along the way include the medieval capital, the grand Rila Monastery, and the mountain town of Samokov, home to the affluent Arie dynasty. You will have a chance to learn about the history and culture of the Bulgarian Sephardi Jews.

About the speaker:
Joseph Benatov holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Hebrew. He is originally from Bulgaria and a member of Sofia’s Jewish community. Joseph has over 15 years of experience leading travelers across the Balkans, including UNESCO representatives, 92nd Street Y visitors, JDC board members, and Anti-Defamation League officials. He lectures regularly on the history of Jewish life in Bulgaria and on Balkan Sephardic culture. Every summer Joseph leads Jewish heritage tours of the Sephardic Balkans. You can find out more at https://sephardicbalkans.com/

Proposed Slate 2021-2022:

Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and happy Pesach.

Rothschild Haggadah (Northern Italy, 1450)
National Library of Israel

The journey of the “Rothschild Haggadah” began 550 years ago with the artist Yoel ben Shimon in Northern Italy and ended in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people.

View entire Haggadah here »

Sunday, February 28 2021
12:00 PM Eastern
Zoom – Free

Join us to learn about using Jewish Records Indexing – Poland (JRI-Poland) for your genealogy research, founded by our guest Stanley Diamond. There will be time for Q&A.

You may be interested in the following resources:

• “Jewish Records Indexing-Poland: The Effect of Reaching Critical Mass.” Avoytaynu, Fall 2018
• JRI-Poland January 2021 Newsletter

Stanley M. Diamond is the Founding President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal and the winner of the 2002 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award. His interest in genealogical research was related to genetics and ultimately led to the creation of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, of which he is the founder and Executive Director, and for which he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal of Canada. Lecturer and author of many articles, Diamond’s journey in the world of 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 in 2005. He has also served as a consultant on American and Canadian episodes of “Who Do You Think You Are?”

Mr. Diamond is a graduate of McGill University, Montreal (B. Commerce ’54) and Harvard University, Boston (MBA ’58).