Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain Blog

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is from the South East Essex Regional Group (SEE RG) by Zoom. • Date: Sunday Feb 28th 2021 • Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem • Title: “Dr Lubelski, I presume? From Polish immigrants to New York financiers and London chiropodists” • Speaker: Daniel Morgan-Thomas • Description: When Daniel Morgan-Thomas went hunting for his Lubelski family from Poland, an early passenger list indicated North America. But how did marriage records from Boston and Ontario lead him both to a Montreal estate agent and a London chiropodist, neither of whom were called Lubelski? And how did they lead to the inventor of New York traffic lights, one-time millionaire and friend of Randolph Hearst, J. A. Harriss? Join Sunday’s talk to find out more! After the talk, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and discussion on the talk. About Daniel Morgan-Thomas Daniel has been a member of the Society since 2008, when he joined at the ...

From Hilary Thomas: "Connecting Small Histories” takes the bold step of drawing the footprint of Jewish life in what are now small or former communities across the United Kingdom. Through stories and memories, we identify the Jewish legacy in the local economies and culture, beginning with six very different locations, Eastbourne, St Annes, Bradford, Sunderland, Cumbria and Somerset. After almost twelve months of work, our History Festival begins the telling of these “Small Histories”, bringing both them and a wide selection of projects from our Heritage Hub to a wider public.   Over a series of daytime and evening events, our programme brings together storytellers, academics, Jewish heritage project teams, and volunteers to paint a picture of Jewish life and heritage spread wide across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We are inviting you to join us! Simply, click here to view the festival programme and to register your attendance. Best wishes, The Connecting Small Histories...

From the Institute of Jewish Studies: Tuesday February 23rd 6pm GMT   The Legacy of the Shtetl: Investigating Polish-Belarusian-Ukrainian Borderlands   Dr Magdalena Waligórska (Humboldt University, Berlin) with Dr Natalia Romik (Warsaw) and Prof François Guesnet (UCL), Chair.  Magdalena Waligórska takes us on a journey to the post-1945 Polish-Ukrainian-Belorusian borderlands where she explores small towns which had a predominantly Jewish population before the Second World War and the Holocaust. Here, Jewish property both entirely fell under the control of the new ethnic majority and remained a “disinherited heritage” that continues to cause dissonance and psychological discomfort to its current “heirs.” The unsettling presence of Jewish ruins, resurfacing human remains, walled-in objects, collapsing cellars, and the recycled tombstones constitutes an “intrusion of the past into the present” that, decades after the war, still demands action and results in different local...

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is both from the JGSGB Eastern European Special Interest Group (EE SIG) and from the Sussex Regional Group (RG) by Zoom. • Date: Sunday 21 Feb 2021 • Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem • Title: Pedlars’ Progress 3: A quiet, inoffensive man • Speaker: Michael Shade • Description: When Elias Barnett died in Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1873, the local newspaper referred to him as a longstanding local shopkeeper, Jewish, and a “quiet, inoffensive man”. I was actually on a Frankenstein hunt (see Pedlars’ Progress #1), but this soon turned into a Joel hunt (Pedlars’ Progress #2), and, inescapably, a Barnett hunt, which is where we are now. As befits a story that starts in Poland and moves to England in the first half of the nineteenth century, our quest is beset by records that are confusing, missing or non-existent, and on more than one occasion we are guided by that time-honoured principle of genealogical research – “L...

From Ton Tielen and David Mendoza:   Ron Gomes Casseres gives a brief history of the Jewish community of the Caribbean island of Curaçao, the longest surviving Jewish community in the Americas. In the early days there were more Jews in Curaçao than in all of the rest of the western hemisphere. Ron will discuss the history of the Curaçao Jewish community, its heritage and traditions. He will show us sites of Jewish interest, as well as the community’s famous archives dating back to the eighteenth century.  Ron Gomes Casseres descends from Sephardic Jews who first landed in Curaçao in 1690. He was born on the Dutch Caribbean island where he is a leader of the historic Mikvé Israel-Emanuel community. Now retired, one of his interests is the history of his Jewish community and its practices. He has been active in numerous organizations and institutions and was awarded decorations by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Government of Japan. Many th...

Our next meeting in the JGSGB Virtual Meeting Programme is a specialist talk on a Middle East/North African Jewish theme by Zoom.   Date: Sunday 7 February 2021 Time: 14:00 London; 09:00 New York; 16:00 Jerusalem Title: Uprooted: How 3000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight Speaker: Lyn Julius Description: Until the mass exodus of Christians and Yazidis, the post-1948 displacement of more than 850,000 Jewish refugees was the largest population movement of non-Muslims from the Arab Middle East and North Africa, yet the subject is hardly ever discussed. Why did Jews leave countries they had been settled in for thousands of years? What lessons can we learn from the mass exodus of minorities? What became of the majority who settled in Israel? How can their cause contribute to peace? About Lyn Julius The daughter of Jewish refugees from Iraq, Lyn Julius is a journalist, blogger and founder of Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and Nort...