Sunday, August 14 through Friday, August 19, 2011 in Washington, DC

For Jewish Genealogists doing research on family in the United States there probably is no better place than in Washington, DC. And in 2011 that opportunity will come to fruition when the 31st IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be hosted in DC by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington (JGSGW); this time at the Grand Hyatt Washington from August 14-19. The cost to attend the entire week-long conference is $310; on-site registration beginning August 14 is $340. Register online at dc2011.org.

The beautiful Grand Hyatt is centrally located on H Street between 10th and 11th Streets. A tunnel from the hotel lobby leads directly to the Washington Metro system for ease in traveling about the city to the National Archives, Library of Congress, Holocaust Museum, and other area sights. Chinatown and theatres and conveniently located. The hotel has 888 rooms and 40,000 square feet of conference space which will be dedicated to the conference.

Three of JGSMI’s board members will be presenting at this year’s conference!

Librarian Gayle Saini will be leading two computer workshops:

Corresponding Secretary Diane Freilich will present:

Past President and Cemetery Project Chair Marc Manson will present:

Conference Highlights this Year:

• Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the pre-conference scholar
• Walking Tours of Jewish Washington ($15)
• Sara Bloomfield, the director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, will deliver the keynote address to our conference on the opening night
• Embassy Experiences ($15)
• Washington’s highly-regarded Theater J will perform “The Moscows of Nantucket” at the conference hotel ($12)
• Gala ($65): Thursday evening.  David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, will be the featured speaker. After-dinner entertainment provided by the world-renowned Robyn Helzner Trio will captivate us with their charming wit and evocative melodies sung in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Russian and English from Jewish communities in five corners of the world.

The conference programs will take place on two levels accessible from the main lobby by elevator and escalator. On one level there will be banquet and kosher food facilities, as well as the cyber classroom, resource room, theatre and smaller meeting rooms. On the other level, a massive ballroom will be divided into lecture halls and a comfortable central lounge for networking and relaxing between events. A vendor room will be adjacent to the lecture halls. The cyber café with sufficient computers connected to internet resources will be set up in the central lounge.

For conference attendees who will be staying at the Grand Hyatt, the guaranteed guest room rate has been negotiated at the same rate as the 2008 IAJGS conference in Chicago – $199. As the conference draws closer, the program will be fleshed out to excite and interest the large group of attendees. Events at venues unique to Washington are planned.

Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 5:00 PM, at the West Bloomfield Public Library

Join us as we host Sallyann Amdur Sack, Editor of Avotaynu, The Journal of Jewish Genealogy as part of:

TELLING FAMILY STORIES
A Year Long Initiative by the Jewish studies Program at MSU on Jews, Genealogy and History

American Jews are always telling family stories: in literature, in memoir, in ?lm, through family trees, and around the kitchen table.

What do these stories mean? What do they reveal—and what do they obscure? How do they help individuals understand their community, their ethnic identity, and their origins? How are these stories different from—and how are they similar to—the stories of other Americans? How has American history affected ordinary individuals’ family stories? How have ordinary families’ everyday decisions shaped American history? Telling Family Stories explores the intersections between personal family stories and academic studies of families. The history of American families begins with your family story.

Sunday, November 20, 2011 from 10am to 1pm, Holocaust Memorial Center.

Join us for a day of learning in honor of International Jewish Genealogy Month, observed every year during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan (October 29 – November 26, 2011). This month honors our Jewish ancestors through the pursuit of Jewish family history research.

10:00 – 10:50 AM (choose one of two sessions):
Diane Frielich—“Introduction to Genealogy”
Various avenues of genealogical research including: U.S. Naturalization, Ship Manifests, WWI Draft Registrations, Social Security Death Index, U.S. Census, Newspapers, Cemeteries, Funeral Records and Vital Records, Oral Interviews, overview of internet genealogy and more.

Ruth Rosenberg—“One person’s answer to organization of genealogical
materials”
Most of genealogists are struggling with organizing their genealogical information and collections. Ruthie will share her creative solutions for organizational issues.

11:00 – 11:50 AM (choose one of two sessions):
Diane Frielich—“Charting the City Directory – Variety of Uses”
The city directory, published annually since mid 1860’s are a treasure trove of information for the genealogist. From alphabetical residential listings, occupations and household names to business listings and historical data, they are a good source in tracing known and unknown family member branches.

Richard Jaeger—“Digging deeper – the truth in the idea of six degrees of separation”
Using some initial data and available genealogy programs to discover how we are almost certainly all related to each other.

12:00 – 1:00 PM
Marc Manson—“The Shtetl of Detroit”
About the creation and on-going work on The Shtetl of Detroit

We regret to inform you that due to illness our January 9th event with Noah Rosenberg has been cancelled. We hope to reschedule for the near future and will alert you to those details.

Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 11:00 am, Holocaust Memorial Center

Since the early days of the field of human genetics, it has been recognized that genetic tools can provide insight into the nature of the relationships between different Jewish communities. To what extent do different Jewish populations share a common genetic ancestry? How does the level of genetic similarity of Jewish populations with each other compare to that between Jewish populations and their non-Jewish historical neighbors? Now that studies of the human genome have dramatically enhanced our ability to understand patterns of human genetic variation and their history, it is becoming increasingly possible to investigate relationships among Jewish populations, with finer and finer resolution. This talk will examine recent developments in the field of Jewish population genetics, with a focus on studies conducted in an ongoing partnership between our laboratory at the University of Michigan with scientists at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Noah Rosenberg is Associate Professor of Human Genetics, Biostatistics, and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Rice University and his M.S. in mathematics and Ph.D. in biological sciences from Stanford University, and he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the molecular and computational biology group at the University of Southern California. Rosenberg’s research focuses on mathematical and statistical problems and evolutionary biology and human genetics, with a focus on the analysis of human genetic variation. He is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications, which have appeared in such journals as Bioinformatics, Evolution, Genetics, Nature, Science, and Theoretical Population Biology.

Sunday, February 6, 2011 at 11:00 am, Holocaust Memorial Center

The presentation will be targeted to non-technical users, and will focus on the most popular genealogy programs for Windows, Macintosh, and the web.

Each product will have a brief introduction and overview of its key features, comparision of its relative strengths and weaknesses.

If people want to submit questions in writing in advance, Steve will try to have answers ready. February 1 is the deadline for emailing questions to programs@jgsmi.org.

Steven Klein was a computer hobbyist in his teenage years, and parlayed his knowledge into a 25 year career in the IT field, having worked in as a Help Desk support specialist, an educational IT Specialist, a Network Engineer, and most recently as an IT Manager. He’s interrupted his professional career to pursue a BSIT degree at Lawrence Tech, and expects to graduate this summer.

His interest in genealogy was sparked last year when one of his cousins invited him and several family members to the myheritage.com website to build out the family tree of their maternal grandparents. Over the year they’ve added antecedents, siblings, descendants and spouses, and now they have 216 people listed.

Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 11:00 am, Holocaust Memorial Center

In the middle of the twentieth century, the numbers of petitions for name changes in New York City rose dramatically. In numbers disproportionate to the Jewish population in the city, the majority of name-change petitioners in NY bore Jewish names. This rise in Jewish name-changing has not been studied by historians and offers us a valuable window into American Jewish life during this era. Name-changing reflected both Jewish success and weakness in the American economy. Indeed, a close reading of New York City name change petitions allows us to reconsider the process by which American Jews became middle class during the twentieth century.

Kirsten Fermaglich (Ph.D. History, New York University) has taught at Michigan State University since 2001. Her book on American social scientists and Holocaust imagery, American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957-1965, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2006. She has also published articles in American Jewish History, the Michigan Historical Review, and Southern Jewish History; her article on Mel Brooks’ The Producers is forthcoming in American Studies. She is currently researching the history of Jews and name-changing in the twentieth century for a book-length project tentatively entitled, “A Rosenberg By Any Other Name.” Fermaglich co-curated a 2002-2003 MSU museum exhibit, “Uneasy Years: Michigan Jewry During Depression and War” that was recognized by the Michigan Council for the Humanities as among the top 30 projects the Council supported in the past 30 years.

Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 11:00 am, Holocaust Memorial Center

Co-sponsored with the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan (PGSM)

This practical and interactive presentation will first briefly discuss unique factors which impact 19th-century Polish research. Then, with audience participation, it will walk attendees step by step through the process of translating one 19th-century Polish document, and possibly two, if time permits. Documents will be passed out at the workshop.

About Judith R. Frazin
Ms. Frazin is the author of three editions of A Translation Guide to 19th-Century Polish-Language Civil Registration Documents (including Birth, Marriage and Death Records). In 2010, the IAJGS granted Frazin its award for Outstanding Contribution to Jewish Genealogy via the Internet, Print or Electronic Product. The Polish Genealogical Society of America recognized her contribution to the field of genealogy by selecting her to receive its Wiglia award in 2000. A genealogist for forty years, she was program chairperson for the 1984 national seminar on Jewish genealogy, served as president of the JGS of Illinois for ten years, and served as a member-at-large on the Board of the IAJGS for three years.

May 1, 2011 at 1:30pm at the Farmington Community Library, Conference Room A (Main Branch)

Three JGS of Michigan members, each relating his or her start and subsequent research in Jewish genealogical pursuits. Come and hear them recount their research experiences, sharing their individual successes and tips.

Jonathan Haber
Jon will discuss what he has accomplished researching his grandmother’s 9 siblings and their descendents.

Richard Jaeger
Richard has discovered a large number of relatives he didn’t know a thing about through a large collection of photographs given to him.

Alexandra Goldberg
Alexandra will talk about her breakthrough in finding the missing link affirming her descendancy from a Rabbinical family with possible roots going back to King David.

At this event, we will be holding a vote of the membership on proposed amendments to the JGSMI Constitution and By-Laws. Each member in good standing who attends should sign an attendance sheet before entering the meeting room. A member of the Constitution and Bylaws committee or an alternate will advise the membership of the modifications and call for a vote.

A summary of the proposed changes are below. You can read the entire amendment here.

1. Article V of the Constitution authorizes the President of the Society to appoint from two currently to four Members at Large and as approved by majority vote of the Board of Directors.
2. Article VI of the Constitution states that no member shall be elected consecutively more than three times to the office of President unless approved by the majority vote of the Board of Directors.
3. Article II Section 5 of the Bylaws specifies the duties of the library committee and states that the library of the Society will be at a designated location instead of a specific location in order not to have to amend the bylaws each time the location of the library is changed.
4. Article III of the Bylaws describes the current duties of the members at large and further adds duties as assigned by the President.

Refreshments will be served.

Sunday, May 22, 2011
11:00 am Preglow, 12:00 pm Film
Berman Center for the Performing Arts at the Jewish Community Center
part of the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival

JGSMI invites you to our popular annual fundraiser event. This year we are co-sponsoring Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny at the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival. The movie starts at noon and we will be having a preglow for fundraiser ticket buyers only at 11:00 am.

The newest production from the Moriah Films Division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center focuses on the years 1940 and 1941, when the Swastika flew over continental Europe. Only England with her back to the wall, under Winston Churchill, remained defiant.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsOzPMrqVxE

Walking With Destiny highlights Churchill’s years in the political wilderness, his early opposition to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, and his support for Jews under threat by the Nazi regime. As historian John Lukacs explains, Churchill may not have won the War in 1940, but without him, the War most certainly would have been lost.

Sir Martin Gilbert, historical consultant for the film and Churchill’s official biographer, adds that had Churchill’s warnings about Nazi Germany’s racial policies towards Jews been heeded in the early 1930’s, the Holocaust may never have occurred.

The film examines why Winston Churchill’s legacy continues to be relevant in the 21st Century and explores why his leadership remains inspirational to current day political leaders and diplomats.

The new Berman Center for the Performing Arts at the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield

Please Note
You may skip the form below and simply mail us a check amounting to $18 a ticket, thereby avoiding the Eventbrite fees.

Make your check payable to and mail to:
Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan
P.O. Box 251693
W. Bloomfield, MI 48325

Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 11:00 am,
Holocaust Memorial Center

State of the Art: Restitution and Resolutions

Special Guest Karen Franklin will discuss genealogical research techniques used to unite Nazi-era art with its rightful owners.

She will present an overview of looted art issues in US and European Jewish museums, and demonstrate how the international Jewish genealogical community is helping to solve ongoing European cases. Franklin will share some of the genealogical research she used to help solve prominent cases in the Netherlands, Germany and Ukraine.

Karen is guest curator of the exhibition, The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service, currently on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – a Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Manhattan. A co-chair of the Board of Governors of JewishGen.org, she is a past president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and a past chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums. Karen serves on the board the International Committee of Memorial Museums of ICOM (International Council of Museums) and many other boards. A researcher on looted art, she has worked on cases for the Origins Unknown Agency in the Netherlands, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, and the U. S. Treasury Department. She was recently appointed to the Advisory Council of the European Shoah Legacy Institute.

If any member of JGSMI would like to nominate themselves or another member for any of the above positions, please contact John Kovacs at 248-851-3481 or elections@jgsmi.org prior to June 17, 2011.

Dietary laws observed.