Are you passionate about genealogy, but have never attended an IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genalogy? Do you need to jump-start your research? Maybe 2010 will be the year for you to join the world’s largest gathering of Jewish genealogists, July 11–16, 2010, hosted by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles at the beautiful JW Marriott at L.A. Live, the new cultural and entertainment complex in downtown Los Angeles.
Registration for the 30th annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is now open. Options run from full, six-day registrations to daily, film festival, and evening-event-only choices. Spouse/domestic partner, full-time student, and child discounts are available. A special early-bird rate is available until April 30. Each evening the conference will offer a combination of lectures and theatrical or musical performances, so if you have L.A.-based friends or relatives who cannot attend during the day, they may join you by choosing an evening-only pass. Details are on the conference website: <www.JGSLA2010.com>. Click the “Registration” tab and the drop-down menu will have pricing and registration links.
The conference will offer unparalleled global learning and networking opportunities. Both the seasoned pro and the absolute beginner will have a full slate of innovative lectures, films, and performances from which to choose. From breaking bread with experts to computer classes, workshops, and tours, the conference will offer myriad ways to learn and share. Arriving early? Come to two pre-conference, all-kosher dinners, with speakers, on the Friday and Saturday evenings prior to the conference. On Saturday, Arthur Kurzweil will host a Shabbat-friendly learning session on kabbalah and a walking tour of historic Jewish downtown Los Angeles. That evening Kurzweil’s dinner talk will be on “Jewish Genealogy as a Spiritual Quest.”
Sunday, July 11, the conference opens at 10:00 a.m. with beginners’ workshops covering all facets of genealogical research, including family tree software, passenger records, naturalization and census documents, and vital records research overseas. Targeted beginner instruction continues throughout the week. The “Market Square Fair,” where attendees can browse the “pushcarts” of regional research groups, meet with archivists, discover cadastral maps, conduct photographic analysis, create crafts, and more will be on Sunday from 2:00–4:30 p.m.
The keynote speaker, Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, the international best-seller about his worldwide search for information about the fates of six relatives who perished in the Holocaust. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Mendelsohn’s book was acclaimed by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel as a “vast, highly colored tapestry…a remarkable personal narra-
tive, rigorous in its search for truth, at once tender and exacting.” The Lost is a new way of telling a story we thought we knew (the Holocaust) and, as The New York Times put it, “a powerful work of investigative empathy.”
Mendelsohn also wrote about family history in his earlier nonfiction memoir, The Elusive Embrace. He is the founder of the Bolechow Jewish Heritage Society. In addition to his other honors, Mendelsohn is the recipient of a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. In April 2008, he was the Richard Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin; in February 2010, he will be a Critic in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Feature Lectures
The Special Interest Groups (SIGs) will offer half or full days of targeted learning revolving around countries in Eastern and Central Europe. The Austria–Czech SIG, once again, is sponsoring speaker Mag. Wolf-Erich Eckstein, director of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG). The IKG houses the Matriken (record books) of birth, marriage, and death records for the Jewish community of Vi-
| Daniel Mendelsohn |
enna from 1826 onwards, and Eckstein will make the IKG’s private database available at the conference, along with information on the Jewish cemetery of Vienna. Julius Muller, director of Toledot, the Jewish Family History Center in Prague, will delve into a comparative study of Jewish surnames in the censuses of Bohemia in 1783 and 1793. Litvak SIG is hosting Dr. Egle Bendikaite, associate professor at the Vilnius Institute, who will be speaking about the development of Zionism in Lithuania from 1906 to 1940 and Jewish migrations after World War I. Gesher Galicia will have the Federation of Eastern European Historical Societies (FEEHS) Vice-President, Brian Lenius, on hand to explain and analyze cadastral maps and landowner records from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German, Hungarian, Romanian, Sephardic, and Ukrainian SIGs also will be represented in the program schedule.
From Warsaw, representing the new Jewish Genealogy and Family Heritage Learning Center based at the Jewish Historical Institute, Yale Reisner will discuss the potential and pitfalls of conducting genealogical research in Poland, along with another presentation on “Poles, Jews and What We Think We Know About Them.” On Tuesday, July 13, Jewish Records Indexing (JRI)–Poland will offer a slate of Polish-focused programming.
“What’s In a Name?” will be examined in a series of lectures covering the German, Hebrew, Sephardic, and Slavic origins of our given names and surnames. Professor Zvi Gitelman, a popular conference lecturer, will discuss derogatory names, names formed from abbreviations and what they mean, and Jews’ attempts to disguise their names—offering a hilarious insight into who we think we
| JW Marriott at L.A. Live hotel in Los Angeles, site of the 30th annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. |
are and who they think we are. In another session, JewishGen President, Warren Blatt, will explain why “Mordechai Yehuda” is also “Mortka Leib” is also “Max.”
Online research is an increasingly important aspect of expanding our family trees, and the conference will offer numerous programs on online research. Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias will present “JewishGen Live at L.A. Live” describing the ever-expanding databases and research capabilities of the “gold standard” (JewishGen) for Jewish genealogists. Ancestry.com will offer talks on the best strategies for searching Ancestry.com, getting the most from Family Tree Maker, immigration and emigration records online, and tapping into the Ancestry and RootsWeb communities.
Since its inception in 1914, the Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) has borne witness to the greatest events of 20th-century Jewish history. Its archives serve as a record of life in Jewish communities throughout the world and include eyewitness accounts, correspondence, reports, logs, passenger lists, emigration cards, photographs, and much more. Linda G. Levi, Assistant Executive Vice-President for Global Archives at the Joint, will explain how the archives are organized and describe how to conduct research in its repositories.
Professor Vincent Cannato from the University of Massachusetts in Boston will give the Lucille Gudis Memorial lecture on his book, American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, the first full history of America’s landmark port of entry. He will trace the island’s journey from its early days of hosting pirate hangings to its heyday as an immigration post, then deportation center, and finally a mythical icon.
Have you ever tasted something you haven’t eaten in decades and been instantly transported back in time; been inspired to use your genealogical research to create a family cookbook with stories and recipes handed down through generations? For those longing for the aroma of bubbe’s kitchen, noted cookbook author, Judy Bart Kancigor (Melting Pot Memories) will conduct a journey home in “From Shiterein to Showpiece: Cooking Jewish for the 21st Century.” More than a recipe lesson, this talk will be a touching look at food and family, memory, and nostalgia. Our foremothers adhered to the highly scientific shiterein cooking method, using a yahrzeit (anniversary of death) glass or a handful as a measuring cup, their recipes are our family treasures. Kancigor will demonstrate how to preserve these traditions and pass them down to future generations. She also will talk on “Family History in the Kitchen: Recipes as a Conduit to the Generations.” Who says genealogy can’t taste good too?
For those attendees with roots in Galicia, Mark Halpern and Suzan Wynne will offer “Beginning the Search for Your Galician Ancestors” and “Working with Galician Vital Records.” For Litvaks, Howard Margol will discuss “Lithuanian Research Past, Present, and Future,” and those who claim German-Jewish lineage will want to attend Ralph Bloch’s discussion of “Extent, History, and Legal Basis of Jewish Civil Records in Southern Germany.” Virtually every SIG and Birds of a Feather (BoF) group plans to hold meetings to describe research progress made over the past year, offer updates on their activities, and to teach novices how to use their resources.
Holocaust researchers will discover unparalleled access to the top experts in this field, including Lisa Yavnai, Director of the Registry of Holocaust Survivors at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), who will discuss the registry with a view towards the future. Also, from Washington, DC, USHMM film researcher, Leslie Swift will discuss “A New Life for Old Films: An Introduction to the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive at the USHMM.” Zvi Bernhardt, Deputy Director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, will speak on “Using the Yad Vashem Database (of Shoah Victims’ Names) for Beginners.” Thousands of Pages of Testimony pour in to Yad Vashem monthly, so learning strategies to use the database is an ongoing process. Bernhardt also will demonstrate techniques for searching the International Tracing Service (ITS) material at Yad Vashem, as will Megan Lewis and Jo-Ellyn Decker from USHMM when they talk on “Improving Your Research Experience at the USHMM.” Lewis and Decker also will discuss how to use the ITS records now at USHMM in Washington, DC.
For aficionados of Western U.S. research, best-selling author Frances Dinkelspiel will introduce the rise of California from a frontier economy to a steam engine leading the nation’s economy, as explored in her book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaiah Hellmann Created California.
Representatives from the USHMM, the Shoah Foundation, Yad Vashem, Beit Hatefutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People at Tel Aviv University, and the IKG will be available in the Resource Room for one-on-one consultations about individual research. The Resource Room also will feature translators to help with documents and vital records. Ancestry.com will staff a scanning center where conference registrants may book an appointment to scan or digitally photograph records, photographs, and documents—free of charge. Ancestry will give a free flash drive to everyone who participates.
| Mitch Smolkin |
Two lectures with a Russian focus will be University of Pennsylvania history professor Ben Nathan’s “Beyond the Pale” and Zvi Gitelman’s “A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the USSR.” Professor Gitelman’s lecture will include nearly 100 unique photographs of Russian and Soviet Jewry and surveys the history of Jews in Russia and the USSR since 1881, including the little-known communities of Georgian, Mountain, and Bukharan (Central Asian) Jews.
Maureen Taylor—the photo detective—will offer guidance on how to interpret and preserve photographs, along with a presentation that answers photography-related questions posted on JewishGen’s ViewMate over the years. Taylor also will be available by appointment for individual photographic analysis appointments.
Lecturers on DNA include renowned geneticist, Dr. Harry Ostrer, who will speak on his upcoming book, Legacy, and will also discuss “Abraham’s Children: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” and “The Jewish HapMap: What Genetics Has Given to Jews and What Jews Have Given to Genetics.” The Jewish HapMap Project is a collaborative endeavor of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, and Jewish communities to understand the structure of the genomes in Jewish populations. It is an outgrowth of the Human HapMap Project. Ostrer and his collaborators in the Jewish HapMap Project will share results that interpret the history of the Jewish Diaspora in the genomes of Jewish people. In addition, Ostrer hopes to recruit Ashkenazic Jews with homogeneous ancestry—all four grandparents from the same country— for his “single origins” project. Individuals with such a heritage should look for his “pushcart” at the Market Square Fair on the first conference day—Sunday, July 11.
For Sephardic researchers and others interested in the Jews of the Islamic world, Yitzchak Kerem will speak about “New Developments in the Research of Balkan Genealogy,” including information on Arta, Macedonian, Preveza, Romaniote, Salonican, and Turkish Jewry. Crypto-Jewish studies expert Arthur Benveniste will conduct an armchair tour of the Sephardic Jews of Los Angeles, covering synagogues established by the Jews from Rhodes, Salonika, and Turkey (Izmir and Istanbul), and he will discuss their relationships and rivalries over the years. Benveniste also will speak about individuals who practiced Judaism in secret while observing Catholic rituals openly, the so-called marranos, Judaizantes, and Chuetas, or Crypto-Jews. He will demonstrate how traditions were passed from generation to generation, sometimes without the knowledge that they were Jewish traditions, and describe dealing with diet, funerals, the Sabbath, and Jewish holidays. He will review how people discovered their Jewish background, how many returned to Judaism, and the social and identity problems that resulted from that return.
For frustrated writers, the conference will offer a round of talks on publishing family history and writing memoirs. Rabbi Gary Gans poses the question “Why do genealogists hang out in cemeteries?” He will explain that the dead can often tell us more about family names and relationships than live but distant relatives. Rabbi Gans will show how to commiserate with other crazy (but wise) souls who include cemetery visits in their vacation schedules. Rabbi Gans’s wife, Ilene Schneider (also a rabbi and author of Talk Dirty Yiddish), will offer “Yiddish: A Fun Look at the Language of Our Ancestors,” including Yiddish culture, literature, music, theater, and movies.
Film Festival
No IAJGS conference would be complete without a film festival; this conference will offer the usual morning until night slate of 40-plus films. We will premier “The First Basket: A Jewish Basketball Documentary,” which tells the story of the early BAA and NBA teams whose players emerged from the settlement houses, playgrounds, schoolyards, community center leagues, and college teams that sprang from the Jewish inner-city neighborhoods of the early 20th century. We also will screen the controversial documentary, “Killing Kasztner,” which deals with Israel’s most inflammatory political trial and assassination of the 1950s, that of Rezso Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who tried to rescue the last million Jews of Europe by negotiating face-to-face with Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann. Film director Gaylen Ross will be on hand to lead a panel discussion that will include survivors on the famous Kasztner trains that left Budapest for Switzerland in 1944.
The true story behind the fictionalized book and film, Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer, will be presented in the talk, “Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod,” by Avrom Bendavid-Val. He will discuss the history of this unique Jewish settlement, an agricultural village in the Russian Pale of Settlement that was created by city Jews, the only freestanding Jewish town ever to exist outside of the biblical Land of Israel. Filmmaker Jeremy Goldbeiter will then show his work-in-progress documentary about survivors’ return to this town—including Foer’s mother—in 2009.
Filmmaker Ornit Barkai will present Past Forward, Journeys to Transnistria, a film in which a granddaughter bears witness to her grandmother’s recollections as a child survivor. The film includes a brief sketch of five generations of the Mendel family, while exploring childhood memories from the Holocaust-era in Romania and in the Ukrainian heartland, formerly known as Transnistria.
The film festival will also include selections from cutting-edge Israeli cinema, such as Khem Shalem’s On the Road to Tel Aviv and Pazit Varda Lichtman’s Willingly, which deals with the issue of divorce and the handing over of the get (divorce decree) as dictated by Israeli law today. Filmmaker (Tuvia Bielki’s granddaughter) Sharon Rennert will discuss her documentary, “1,200 Defiant Jews: The Bielski Partisans.”
From the DNA of the MaHaRaL of Prague to that of Uncle Harry in Des Moines, lectures focusing on Genealogy by Genetics will dot the program landscape. Bennet Greenspan, FamilyTree DNA president, will explain that gender no longer matters in “Beyond the Y Chromosome, Tracing Your Genealogy with the ‘Other’ DNA.” In this talk, Greenspan introduces the “autosomal-based Family Finder Test,” an exciting new genetic genealogy break- through that addresses the problem of how to do DNA testing when a family line has no living males. With this new technology, sisters or female cousins can be tested and be part of the family reconstruction.
Three special live performances will dot the evening landscape. Included are the literary cabaret playreading of “The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World,” based on Mimi Sheraton’s book; Arthur Kurzweil’s mystical “Searching for God in the Magic Shop,” and actor Stacie Chaiken in her acclaimed solo show, “Looking for Louie,” in which a second-generation Russian Jewish American (sometimes) redhead goes off in search of the mysterious Russian great-grandfather—the one who came over from the Old Country—about whom nobody would ever speak. In Chaiken’s dogged search for him, she combed the files of the National Archives branch in New York and stalked the streets of the Lower East Side, finally persuading his son—her grandfather—to break his 90-year silence by promising to bring a video camera. (“I’m gonna be famous on the TV!”)
Part of the conference fun is interacting with the other attendees, making new friends, and—sometimes—discovering new relatives sitting next to you. Consider attending SIG luncheons and Breakfasts with Experts. A welcome break from lectures, these sessions provide opportunities for socializing and learning from erudite speakers on topics not covered in the regular program. Scheduled are: JRI-Poland, Sunday, July 11; Gesher Galicia, Romania, and German SIGs, Monday, July 12; Latvia, Belarus, Hungarian SIGs, Tuesday, July 13; Austria-Czech, Litvak, and Ukraine, Wednesday, July 14; and a Sephardic and Mizrachi Feast on Thursday, July 15.
For the night owls, the conference will introduce a new twist, “Midnight with the Mavens,” (from 10:45 p.m until the witching hour), where registrants can enjoy late-night snacks in the Marriott’s Presidential Suite (complete with awe-inspiring, glittering views) and pick the brains of their perennial favorite know-it-alls—Ron Arons, Jordan Auslander, Warren Blatt, Stanley Diamond, Karen Franklin, Vivian Kahn, Logan Kleinwaks, Brian Lenius, Howard Margol, Gary Mokotoff, and Steve Morse, to name a few. This additional fee-based add-on will be sure to sell out, so sign up early.
Banquet
The IAJGS conference gala awards banquet on Thursday, July 15, is a not-to to-be-missed event. We will match up those attending solo with a table hosted by a JGSLA member who will provide introductions and ensure a lovely evening. This year the unique world of “Rexite on the Radio” will be brought to life by the exciting and gifted singer, actor, and cultural innovator Mitch Smolkin accompanied by renowned Russian pianist and composer Nina Shapilsky. New York in the 1930s had more than 23 radio stations broadcasting Yiddish programs. By the 1940s, one entertainer had become the King of Yiddish radio—the heartthrob crooner Seymour Rexite. At the height of his popularity, this smooth-as-scotch tenor starred on 18 radio shows a week. Bringing Rexite’s repertoire to audiences at the Folksbiene Theatre, The Forward declared, “Mitch Smolkin is Yiddish’s next wave.” Our audience will hear the American Songbook and the great Broadway hits of the 20th century as they were heard on thousands of radios across the country—in Yiddish. In addition to mining the richness of Rexite’s era, Smolkin will perform some classic Yiddish songs bound to send you home singing.
Summary
The conference will offer more than 250 lectures presented by 150 speakers to more than one thousand enthusiasts. To learn more, visit the conference website <www.JGLSA2010.com>. Those who would like to help in the resource room, hospitality center, film room, or wherever we need you, are most welcome; please let us know. To be a vendor or exhibitor, place an ad in the banquet journal, or sponsor a lecture or film, write to <info@jgsla2010.com>. You don’t need to be Jewish to attend this conference; many tracks and lectures are valuable to all family history researchers. Invite friends who may just be getting started and want one-on-one help and instruction to become more accomplished family historians.
Pamela Weisberger is co-chair of the IAJGS 2010 Los Angeles conference, program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, IAJGS Film Festival Coordinator, and president of Gesher Galicia. Documenting her family’s history for more than 20 years, she has traveled throughout Eastern Europe visiting ancestral towns in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. Weisberger lives in Santa Monica, California.
