Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain Blog

From Gina Marks: https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/01/26/local-character-dies-aged-103/

FHF REALLY USEFUL Family History Show Saturday 10th April 2021   BUY your £7.50 ticket NOW before it's too late. £7.50 EARLY BIRD PRICING ends 31st January https://www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/

From David Mendoza and Ton Tielen: Who are we? By popular demand, Adam Brown returns to discuss the current state of knowledge on the origins of the Sephardim, how we fit together, and how we relate to the wider Jewish world. He will provide an overview of Jewish DNA research and will then focus on the Western Sephardim (the Spanish & Portuguese Jews) and communities in Morocco and the Americas. We are hoping that Adam will be joined by two other experts in the field, Michael Waas and Raquel Levy-Toledano. We shall leave plenty of time for questions. Adam asks that anyone who has questions about their DNA share their results with his team at www.jewishdna.org or here . If you have not tested with FamilyTreeDNA, you will need to first download your results from the other site. Please help with this important project! Many thanks to our regular and new patrons. We couldn't do this without you. If you haven't yet signed up, a small monthly donation helps...

"Today in honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation is proud to launch the first volume of our digital publication, “Portraits of Survival”. This volume showcases and honours the lives of Holocaust survivors who later settled in South Africa. We hope this collection of short vignettes will be valuable as an educational resource for learners and educators. These stories highlight not only the diversity of experiences of genocide, but also many important lessons and insights into the consequences of discrimination, prejudice and othering, as well as the power of activism and speaking up."    Read the book online at: https://www.jhbholocaust.co.za/remembrance/online-publications/ [If you're viewing this post via the summary email and the links don't work, please go to https://jgsgbnews.blogspot.com/]

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is a specialist talk on a German-Jewish theme by Zoom. Date: Sunday 31 January 2021 Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem Title: From Berlin to Manila Speaker: Jayne Hantman Description: In January 1939 Jayne’s grandparents sent her mother Eve, their only child, on a Kindertransport to England. Jayne’s grandparents managed to escape Nazi Germany and reach Manila, Philippine Islands, in November 1939. About Jayne Hantman Jayne Hantman is the daughter of a ‘Kinder’. She first became interested in genealogy over 50 years ago, when as a child she was inspired by a bound copy of her family tree on her maternal grandfather’s side. Dating back to 1745, the Feilchenfeld family tree was collated in 1947 by a relative called Walter Fales; a Quaker. Jayne has always worked in finance and the charity sector and did a business management degree as a mature student. After the talk, there will be an opportunity for Q&A on...

From Jan Meisels Allen, Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee: The Netherlands branch of the Red Cross has transferred to the Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam  ownership of nearly 160,000 personal cards of Dutch Jews that are slated to be displayed to the public for the first time. The Museum in currently being rebuilt and will reopen in the autumn of 2022. The entire index of the Jewish Council of Amsterdam – a body that the Nazis set up to have Jews oversee preparations for the extermination of their own minority throughout the Netherlands – is among the most comprehensive and best-kept registries of its kind anywhere in Europe. It is unusual in that it includes references to status and personal traits, reflecting how this registry, unlike most other Nazi lists, was made by Jews by Jews. In more than 75% of the cards, the Red Cross after World War II added the date of deportation in red ink – a rare tangible reminder of how in the Netherlands, the Na...

This is a list of recommended sites for Holocaust records, from the magazine Who Do You Think You Are? https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/tutorials/overseas/holocaust-records/

The JGSGB Invites you to a Zoom talk at 2 pm on Sunday, 14th February 2021 The Alter Schlachthof Memorial Centre, Dusseldorf: the experience of the Jews of Dusseldorf, 1933–1945. Speaker, Professor Joachim Schroeder, Director of the Centre. The Alter Schlachthof Memorial Centre on the campus of the Dusseldorf University of Applied Sciences commemorates the deported Jews of Dusseldorf and its surrounding region. The cattle market of a former municipal slaughterhouse was used by the Nazis as a collection camp prior to their deportation. Professor Schroeder studied history and political sciences and was awarded a PhD in history by the Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf, in 2006. He has worked on different projects including the “traditional” history of enmity between Germany and France; and forced labour in Nazi-Germany. He was a member of the scientific staff of the National Socialist-Documentation Centre in Munich from 2009 to 2013. In 2013, he was appointed by the University...

JGSGB members may be interested in the following radio programme from a fellow JGSGB member: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/b07qcf7j     With thanks to Hazel Dakers for bringing this to my attention. Regards, Leigh Leigh Dworkin Chairman, JGSGB   [If you're viewing this post via the summary email and the links don't work, please go to https://jgsgbnews.blogspot.com/]

From Klavdija Erzen, Project Manager, JHASW - Jewish History Association of South Wales "You are invited to a talk which we are organising for the Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January at 14:00. We have been researching the lives of people listed on the Holocaust Memorial Tablet in Cardiff Reform Synagogue. This Tablet commemorates relatives of the Congregation who were murdered during The Holocaust, but whose final resting places are unknown. There are 102 names in total, and we have been fortunate enough to find information on all but one of them.    We feel it is important that these individuals are not just names on a board, but that they are recalled as fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers; they had families and jobs and communities. We feel that the whole of their lives should be remembered and celebrated, not just the manner of their deaths. For many of the volunteers doing the research, it has been both a rewarding and very emotional experience. To mark Holo...

Here is a link to the recording of the recent Hidden Treasures Jewish Heirlooms Roadshow:   https://youtu.be/JzJrd34gPLQ . Please feel free to share with friends and family.   [If you're viewing this post via the summary email and the links don't work, please go to https://jgsgbnews.blogspot.com/]

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is from the JGSGB Dutch & Sephardi Special Interest Group (D&S SIG) by Zoom. •       Date: Sunday January 17th 2021 •       Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem •       Title: Genesis: An Indian Childhood – a beginning and an ending •       Speaker: Margery Cohen •       Description: Margery Cohen was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) to parents of Baghdadi origin.  She will talk to us about what it was like growing up in India, within a very mixed cultural society, in the twilight years of the Raj. . Margery went back to Mumbai on a tour organised by Jewish Renaissance, and was inspired to write an article for Jewish Renaissance about her childhood and early memories.  It was her first trip back to her birthplace after 45 years.  For the first time since she lived there, she was able to...

From the UK National Archives: "Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the national lockdown in England , our reading room services are suspended until further notice. Some of our online services that rely on staff having access to our building and collections are suspended until further notice, including record copying and paid search. New visitor bookings are temporarily suspended until we are able to open our reading rooms again. Please note that our Freedom of Information services are also affected . Most of our online services are unaffected however and will continue as normal: Our website, including research guides , blogs , podcasts and online exhibitions Discovery , our online catalogue and digital home of our collections, with free access to digital records Online education sessions and resources , and activities for families Full online events programme , including talks and webinars Our online shop , offering a huge selection of books and gifts. Sign up...

 Thanks to Jeanette Rosenberg for this link: https://www.history.ac.uk/library/collections/online-resources/open-access-resources   [If you're viewing this post via the summary email and the links don't work, please go to https://jgsgbnews.blogspot.com/]

From Ton Tielen and David Mendoza: "This week we bring you three expert speakers. The Pimentel are one of the oldest Sephardic families in The Netherlands. Henk Dijkman will discuss the family history, stretching back to Medieval Spain. Fokko Weerstra tells the story of Jacques Pimentel during the Shoah. Along with some other Sephardim, he tried to use his distant Catholic ancestry to escape deportation to Poland by the Nazis. Esther Shaya discusses Henriette Pimentel - one of the unsung heroes of the Holocaust - who saved the lives of six hundred children being held prisoner at the Hollandsche Schouwburg-theatre. We are hoping to trace people saved by Henriette and their family members. If you know anyone, please forward this message. Sunday Jan 10, 2021. 2pm NYC, 7pm London, 8pm Amsterdam/Paris, 9pm Jerusalem. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86549610494 Thanks to everyone who supports our work. If you are not already a patron, please consider a small monthly...

    It will be livestreamed @seethetreasures and at   www.bod.org.uk and   www. celebratingjewisharchives.org a nd on the Board of Deputies’ You Tube channel.   JGSGB President David Jacobs  is one of the experts speaking at the event.

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is a specialist talk on an Anglo-Jewish theme by Zoom. • Date: Sunday January 10th 2021 • Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem • Title: Are other people’s families more interesting? Thoughts from a burial ground • Speaker: Martin Hill • Description: Martin Hill has been researching burials at the Western Synagogue burial ground at Brompton for the last 15 years and has recorded the memorial inscriptions and reconstructed the burial register. In his researches he has uncovered interesting details of family life in the mid-19th century and reveals many similarities with life in 21st-century Britain. About Martin Hill Martin Hill was a career civil servant who joined the Home Office in 1964 and spent the major part of his working life in that Department. On the basis of his grandparents, his family roots are English except for those which connect him to one of his great-grandfathers who was Jewish. He joined...

ONE-DAY ONLINE CONFERENCE TO LAUNCH VOLUME 33 OF POLIN: STUDIES IN POLISH JEWRY  Jewish Religious Life in Poland since 1750      Published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization/Liverpool University Press   Monday January 11th 2021 10am-3.30pm Organised by the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL with JW3 London. Co-organised and supported by the Polish Cultural Institute, London This event honours the memory of Ada Rapoport-Albert, who edited the volume with Marcin Wodziński. Following tremendous advances in recent years in the study of religious belief, this volume adopts a fresh understanding of Jewish religious life in Poland. The contemporary reassessments, with their awareness of emerging techniques that have the potential to extract fresh insights from source materials both old and new, show how our understanding of what it means to be Jewish is continuing to expand.  Conference convenors: Dr F...