Mathilde Tagger (1933–2014) z”l

One of the giants of Jewish genealogy, Mathilde Tagger, died December 27, 2014 in Israel. She was 81. Tagger was deeply involved in Jewish genealogy both in Israel and abroad for the last 25 years, especially in the field of Sephardic genealogy. A notation on the SephardicGen.com website, a major site for Sephardic genealogy, tells it all: “Almost all the databases below were provided to SephardicGen by Mathilde Tagger.” For her overall efforts, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in 2007.

Tagger published numerous articles in various Jewish genealogical journals, including Sharsheret HaDorot (Israel); Revue du Cercle de Genealogie Juive (France); Etsi - Sephardi Genealogical and Historical Review (France); and AVOTAYNU. She was coauthor of Guidebook for Sephardic and Oriental Genealogical Sources in Israel, published by Avotaynu in 2006. The book brings together the tremendous and unknown wealth of information kept in Israel major archives as well as in minor ones for helping people researching their roots in the numerous Sephardic and Oriental communities.
She leaves two works yet to be published by Avotaynu. Dictionary of Bulgarian Jewish Surnames, and A Dictionary of Sephardic Given Names. They are additional examples of how prolific her writings were and her interest in sharing her knowledge with the genealogical world. We expect to publish these works posthumously.

Tagger was born in Tangiers, Morocco, on August 31, 1933. Both of her parents were teachers for the Alliance Israelite Universelle Schools in Morocco. She had an MA degree in Library and Information Sciences from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was Chief Librarian of the Atmospheric Sciences Department, Hebrew University (1958–1978) and the Scientific Advisor for Special Information Projects at the Ministry of Science and Development (1980–1990).