Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 5:00 PM*
Burton Historical Collection
Detroit Public Library
*Tour begins at 6:00 PM

Free and open to the public

Transportation / Directions
Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library
5201 Woodward Ave in Detroit Map location
Access off of Cass Ave. due to Woodward construction
313-481-1401

The employee parking lot gate (on the South side of the Library) will be open at 5:00 PM, so we’ll have access to free parking on site. The library is open until 8:00 PM.

Those wishing to caravan together from the suburbs, please meet at the office of Jim Grey at 4:45 PM:

30100 Telegraph Road Map location
Bingham Farms, MI
South Lobby
Jim’s office: 248-540-9070
Jim’s cell: 248-739-9070
Jim’s email: gentrex@aol.com

For those working downtown, or driving on their own, they should plan to arrive between 5 and 6PM.

If anyone is interested in connecting with your fellow JGSMI members and researchers after this program at an eatery nearby, or closer to Jim’s office, let us know.

About the Burton
The Burton Historical Collection (BHC) of the Detroit Public Library began as the private library of Clarence Monroe Burton. In addition to being a prominent attorney, Mr. Burton was a Detroit historiographer and the founder of the C. M. Burton Abstract Co. Mr. Burton’s original intention was to assemble a collection on the history of Detroit. Realizing that Detroit’s history was inextricably connected to that of Michigan and the Old Northwest and those histories to that of Canada and New France, he assembled a collection that was one of the most important private historical collections in the country.

Over the course of 40 years, Mr. Burton systematically collected original documents and personal papers of prominent citizens of Detroit and Michigan. By 1914 the library contained 30,000 volumes, 40,000 pamphlets and 500,000 unpublished papers. Mr. Burton donated his collection, including the building it was housed in, to the Detroit Public Library in 1915. The collection was moved to the new main library in 1921.

Assistant Director Romie Minor will give us a tour at 6PM, and time after that can be used for individual research.

About Romie Minor, Supervising Archivist
Romie Minor is currently the Assistant Manager for the Special Collections Department and the Curator of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African-Americans in the Performing Arts at the Detroit Public Library. He holds a B.A. in History, Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and Graduate Certificate in Archival Administration from Wayne State University.

Registration
RSVP by emailing Jim Grey: gentrex@aol.com.

September 18, 2016 at 10:30 AM
Holocaust Memorial Center

Free and open to the public
Refreshments will be served

About Our Program:
This will be a real-time discussion and demonstration of VERY cool tools for genealogical analysis and documentation, including timelines, genograms, mind maps, technologies that can be used together to translate books, and more.

About Our Speaker:
Born in New York, Ron Arons is a graduate of Princeton University and University of Chicago. He worked for many years as a marketer at high-tech companies, including Texas Instruments, before deciding to work full time on his first book, The Jews of Sing Sing. Ron became interested in understanding his roots after losing both his parents to cancer 16-18 years ago. In the process of researching his criminal ancestor’s past, Ron has traced his roots to England, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

May 22, 2016 at 10:00 AM (Please note earlier time)
Holocaust Memorial Center



Free and open to the public
Refreshments will be served

Presenter: Elise Friedman (prerecorded)

Genealogists researching Ashkenazi ancestry often find a variety of challenges in our traditional research: young surnames, changed surnames, cousin marriages, short paper trails and more. These same situations can make understanding and analyzing our genetic genealogy results and matches challenging as well. This presentation discuss how these situations affect our genetic genealogy results, how to understand our results in light of these situations, and some best practices for getting around these challenges to make the most of our genetic genealogy experience.

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January 24, 2016 at 11:00 AM
Holocaust Memorial Center
Refreshments will be served

91-year-old Holocaust survivor Michael Weiss, who recently published his memoir Chimneys and Chambers: the Lingering Smell of the Holocaust will address the society in January. He will describe his experiences during the Shoah and about his family roots.

About the book
Like many Holocaust survivors, for a long time Michael Weiss avoided discussing the Holocaust and what happened to him and his family during those years. Now a nonagenarian, he explains: It is difficult for people who did not experience the Holocaust to understand why, for so many years, survivors did not want to talk about their experiences. During the last 70 years since liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp, my family and friends always wanted me to write about my experiences in the Holocaust. They wanted me to share what I saw and what I went through. They wanted this information for future generations to have an understanding of what happened to the Jewish people in Europe in the time leading up to and during World War II. From those terrible experiences – from those terrible years in the Holocaust – from Michael Weiss, survivor, they wanted to hear the story. But for some reason, I did not want to do it. Maybe it was too hard … Maybe it was too painful to remember it. When I think about what happened to us, to the Jewish people of Europe, what happened to our communities, to our Jewish life … My memories of the Holocaust are with me night and day. Then society changed and people started to say the Holocaust never happened. I started to hear that there are professors teaching courses in college today to deny that the Holocaust happened. And I began to hear about people who are writing books saying that the Holocaust never happened. And that people are signing up for the courses, buying the books – and believing. Let me tell you to never forget or be misled – the Holocaust did happen. I saw it. I felt it. I smelled it. After liberation, we really found out the terrible tragedy that had befallen us, the Jewish people. By now, most of us survivors are retired with little to do, except to think of those past bitter memories … what we cannot and will not forget. They are chiseled in our minds – forever. There were over eight million Jews in Europe during the reign of Nazi terror. The Nazis murdered a million and a half children and another four and half million adults. Six Million. Six Million Jews perished at the hands of the German Nazis. Not only is the Holocaust a story of the persecuted and the murdered, but it is also a story of defiance and courage. This is my story. I was imprisoned in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. As I have reached the ripe old age of 90, and only a handful of survivors remain alive, I have decided that it is time to tell you this story. It is my duty as an eyewitness to the Nazi atrocities. From Kaszony in the Carpathian Mountains to Auschwitz to Detroit.

Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Holocaust Memorial Center
Refreshments will be served

JGSMI is proud to present

The Green Dumpster Mystery (Ha’taalumah Ba’meholah Ha’yerukah)
Israel, 2008, 50 minutes
Hebrew with English subtitles
Directed by Tal Haim Yoffe

Courtesy of The National Center for Jewish Film

Traveling on his scooter through Tel Aviv, filmmaker Tal Haim Yoffe finds a discarded box of old photographs in a green dumpster. This docu-detective film, slowly unwinds a family history, beginning in Lodz, Poland, and traveling through the Siberian Gulag, a Samarkand sugar plant, a Ha’apala ship and the battlefields of the Sinai Peninsula. Like Daniel Mendelsohn’s bestseller The Lost and David Ofek’s film No. 17 is Anonymous, this tightly-paced tour de force vividly evokes the now-extinguished lives of an anonymous—but typical—Israeli family.

Winner of the Yad Vashem Award, Jerusalem International Film Festival 2008 (Chairman’s Award for Artistic Achievement in a Holocaust-related film)

“I think there are thousands of families with not exactly the same story but families with Holocaust survivors as grandparents and great-grandparents, with IDF soldiers who got killed. It’s a typical family, and a tragic family. Everything that could have happened to them, happened to them.”
-Director Tal Haim Yoffe

A One Man Films Production
With assistance from The New Israeli Foundation for Film and Television
Produced, Directed & Written by Tal Haim Yoffe
Camera Ari Amit
Editor Anat Lachovitz
Music By Dani Reichental
Featuring Tal Haim Yoffe, Dani Walkowicz, Mati Ben-Ari, Sivan Ben-Ari, Neta Gold, Bracha Klichewski and Friedrich Mücke
Film provided by The National Center for Jewish Film

Sunday, November 22, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Holocaust Memorial Center
Refreshments will be served

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.

About the Speaker: Ken Bravo

At the end of 2012, Ken Bravo retired as a partner in the Cleveland based law firm of Ulmer & Berne LLP after a 45-year legal career, which included 12 years with the United States Department of Justice prosecuting major fraud and organized crime cases. After he left the government in 1979, Ken’s career in private practice focused on business litigation, securities arbitration and the defense of white-collar criminal matters.

Ken is Vice President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and is a Past President of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland. He served as a co-chair of the 2014 IAJGS Conference in Salt Lake City. He is a frequent lecturer on a variety of genealogy subjects. He has been searching his own roots since the mid-1970s and, in more recent years, has added the families of the spouses of his four children to his research.

In the community, Ken has served a President of the Bureau of Jewish Education; President of what was then the Great Lakes Region of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs; Vice President and Board Member of the Gross Schechter Day School; Vice President and Treasurer of The Park Synagogue; and Member of the Board of Governors of the Ohio State Bar Association. He currently serves on the Board of Menorah Park Center for Senior Living where he chairs the Government Relations Committee.

Ken and his wife Phyllis have been married 51 years and are the parents of four children and eight grandchildren.

Sunday, October 11, 2015 at 2:30 PM
Baldwin Public Library – Jeanne Lloyd Room
300 W. Merrill
Birmingham, MI 48009
Click for map
Free for all attendees

The session begins with a glimpse into the not-yet-available collection of Jon Stedman, a long-time, passionate German-Jewish genealogist whose copious research notes and files document the nature of how family history research in Germany and the US has changed over the last 50 years (his research began in 1958). From there Karen will demonstrate how new online resources, accessible genealogies, databases and DNA—together with aid from local historians and researchers in Germany—create unparalleled opportunities for researchers of German Jewish family history. Karen will provide contact information for local historians of former Jewish communities, museums and other resources throughout Germany.

Karen S. Franklin, Director of Family Research for the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City, is a past Co-Chair of the Board of Governors of JewishGen. A past president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums, she is currently a vice-chair of the Memorial Museums committee of ICOM (International Council of Museums). She serves on the Advisory Board of the European Shoah Legacy Institute and was awarded the 2012 ICOM-US Service Citation. The citation is the highest honor of ICOM-US. Ms. Franklin is a juror for the Obermayer German Jewish History Award.

Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Holocaust Memorial Center
Free for members; $5 for guests

This event is presented in memory of former board member Judge Shlomo Sperka (z”l), who passed away in Israel on July 28, 2015.

Have you been curious about your family history but have no idea how to begin? This presentation is geared for the beginner and intermediate researcher. You will be acquainted with the availability of various research documents. Organizing and keeping track of research as well as the reliability and accuracy of documents will be discussed.

Central topics include: City Directories, U.S. Census, U.S. Naturalization, Ship Manifests, WWI Draft Registrations, Social Security Death Index, Newspapers, Cemeteries, Funeral Records and Vital Records.

An overview of Internet genealogy sites, historical and authoritative treatises and joining genealogical societies as well as special interest groups [SIG] and birds of a feather [BOF] will conclude the program.

About the Speaker
Diane M. Freilich, JD is a duly licensed attorney in the State of Michigan since 1972. In 1997 she became active in family research, finding family members throughout the United States, United Kingdom and all the way to Zimbabwe.

Diane has been a guest lecturer on several topics since 2005. She has lectured to local genealogical societies in Michigan and Arizona as well as International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies [IAJGS]. Additionally, Avotaynu has published two of her articles. Exploring Court House Records Fall 2005 and the other Extended Uses for U.S. City Directories [Summer 2015].

Diane sits on the Board of her local Genealogical Society in Michigan for the past 17 years.

Sunday, June 28, 2015 at 11:30 AM
Adat Shalom Synagogue – Youth Lounge (downstairs)
29901 Middlebelt Road in Farmington Hills
Election, Brunch and Lecture – $40 per person

“How Jews Invented and Reinvented Comic Books”
with Adat Shalom’s own Rabbi Aaron Bergman

Many people know that Jewish artists and writers created the vast majority of superheroes that are still popular today. Not too many know that the format of the comic book itself was created by Jewish entrepreneurs. In the 1980s, Jewish artists recreated the genre by introducing graphic novels and a higher level of artistic and intellectual content. We will look at the history of the comic book from its very humble beginnings to today.

RABBI AARON BERGMAN is a Detroit native and a graduate of the University of Michigan. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and pursued additional graduate work in Jewish Folklore at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was part of the educators program at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Rabbi Bergman served as a rabbi at Congregation Beth Ahm and was Rabbi-in-Residence at Hillel Day School. He was the founding Director of Jewish Studies at the Frankel Jewish Academy and has been an instructor in the Melton Adult Education program.

Rabbi Bergman and his wife Ruth, a noted educator herself, are the proud parents of four wonderful daughters: Rina, Shira, Ariel and Rikki.

Proposed Slate

President: Adina Lipsitz
VP, Programming: Alexandra Goldberg
VP, Membership: Richard Jaeger
VP, Publicity: Position Open
Recording Secretary: Joshua Goldberg
Corresponding Secretary: Diane Freilich
Treasurer: Irwin S. Alpern

Would you like to join the board? We are also looking for an editor for Generations. Please contact John Kovacs at elections@jgsmi.org by June 21, 2015.

Wheelchair accessible entrance: Drive around to the back of the building and turn left at the playground; park where the covered entrance is. The Youth Lounge is down the hall on the left.

35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
July 6-10, 2015 in Jerusalem

JGSMI’s very own Corresponding Secretary, Diane Freilich, will be speaking at the conference on “U.S. City Directories – Unique Uses.”

The International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is the annual conference hosted by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). The IAJGS is an umbrella organization comprised of more than 70 national and local Jewish genealogical societies, Historical Societies and Interest Groups located in 14 countries. The conference is the leading genealogy event of the year for people researching their Jewish family history. The conference provides the latest information and tips for hundreds of researchers exploring their Jewish roots and building their family trees with common goals: to learn, to research, and to share.Some 800 professional and amateur genealogists from 30 countries and different religions are expected to attend the 35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem. Recent conferences have been held in Salt Lake City (2014) Boston (2013) Paris (2012), Washington DC (2011), and Los Angeles (2010). Approximately every 10 years this conference is held in Israel and attracts an unusually highly diverse worldwide audience. The 2004 Jerusalem Conference attracted close to 800 participants of whom 40% per cent were from North America, 40% from Israel, 15% from Europe and the remainder from South America, Australia and South Africa. Join our diverse global group of genealogy enthusiasts!

IAJGS ISRAEL 2015

The 35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be held at the Ramada Hotel Jerusalem July 6-10 2015. The Conference will include 200 breakout sessions, workshops, a keynote address, and meetings of dozens of special interest groups including UK, French, German, Austria, Sephardic, South African, Czech any many more. A resource center will enable attendees to use fee-based subscription computer databases at no cost.

The conference will feature programs in Hebrew, English, Russian and French on topics such as new trends in online research, methodologies for obtaining vital records from Israeli, American and European sources, using DNA testing and genetics research to find relatives, Holocaust research in all its aspects, and practical tips for starting and expanding family research. Pre-Conference events will include a Shabbaton (Friday/Saturday program July 3-4) and Exploration Sunday (July 5) which will flow into the Monday Conference Opening. Arrangements have been made with research institutions and archives throughout Israel to enable attendees to visit or reach out to these unique repositories to further their research.

800 attendees are expected because Israel has exceptional research resources that exist nowhere else in the world; many North Americans because of the large number of genealogical societies there; Europeans because this is the annual conference closest to them and Israelis because of the proximity and lower cost.