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Meeting Report: Coming full circle: using Israeli sources

From Hazel Atlass:


Chilterns Regional Group Meeting Tuesday 19th May 2020

 

The latest meeting of the Chilterns Group took place on Tuesday 19th May via Zoom. We had 32 members sign in, not only from the Chilterns Group but from further afield in the UK.

 

Our speaker was JGSGB’s former Vice-Chair, Dr. Joel Levy, who gave a very interesting and in-depth talk about his current researches. In fact the talk was most up to date as he was finalising the talk on the previous Sunday evening as he had just received more information.

 

Joel’s talk was titled “Coming full circle: using Israeli sources”. Joel has been working on his Gavenda/Gavendo/Gawenda/Gawendo family for many years, tracing them from Poland to the USA and to Israel. The first part of his talk concentrated on the roots of the family in Poland and how they then went to South Africa and the United States.

 

One example of the research is Joel then found a relative that had emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s so he decided to follow that line of research. This relative, Sarah Wiktorja Gawenda, married Szmul Icchok (Shmuel Yitzchak) Gelberg in Tel Aviv in March 1926. They had two daughters, Ada, born 1929 and Ilana Aliza, born 1939. Through various Israeli websites and with the help of an Israeli researcher, Joel managed to gather information about their origins in Poland and also about their lives in Israel.

 

Joel managed to uncover some tragic events during this research. Ada married a Samuel Gilat and they had three sons, Dan, David and Jonathan. In June 1959 Dr. Samuel Gilat was appointed Commercial Counsellor at the Israeli Embassy in London. Unfortunately he died of a heart attack, aged 32 in November 1960.

 

Although Ada married again, tragedy struck once more when Dan Gilat was killed on the first day of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 while serving in the Armoured Corps. His burial place was unknown. For 40 years this was the case until evidence was discovered in 2015 that with the examination of the data collected over years, with Egyptian help, led to the conclusion that the remains of four fighters, including Dan, were returned to the IDF in July 1977 and that the relatives were not informed. DNA tests were not available and Dan’s remains along with the other three soldiers are buried in the mass grave on Mount Herzl for Yom Kippur soldiers.

 

This was a fascinating talk on the Israeli side of research. Joel has produced a list of relevant websites which can be obtained by contacting me at chilterns@jgsgb.org.uk 

 

The next scheduled Chilterns Group meeting is on Tuesday 29th September at 7.30 pm when our Vice-Chairman, Daniel Morgan-Thomas, will be speaking on “Tracing my great-great-grandmother's missing sister to the US.” The venue will either be at the Osorio Hall at Northwood or may still be by Zoom.  We will keep you posted.

 

Hazel Atlass

chilterns@jgsgb.org.uk

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