For three years the Avotaynu DNA Project has been spearheading a collaborative international DNA project that includes academics at leading institutions such as the Technion, New York University Winthrop Hospital, the University of Colorado, the University of Haifa and others […]
Leveraging Genealogy as an Academic Discipline
Genealogy as an academic discipline has been much discussed in recent years especially by Neville Lamdan, Daniel Wagner and Tom Jones, all of whom have considered the topic in detail. Lamdan is director of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy […]
Announcing “A Nação Hebrea: A Relational Prosopographic Database of the Portuguese Jewish Nation 1500-1800
In today’s world, interest in Sephardic Jewry is greater than ever before, particularly with the recent laws in Portugal and Spain enacting the right for descendants of Iberian Jews to reclaim nationality that had been revoked by the Expulsion. The […]
200 Years of Scottish Jewry: A Demographic and Genealogical Profile
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem is attempting the first-ever demographic and genealogical study of a national Jewry as a whole, from its inception to the present day. This article describes the project, its aims, methodology and preliminary […]
An Alternative Path To Emancipation: Jewish Merchants and Cross-Cultural Networks in the 18th Century Italian Ghettos
On January 10, 1774, two Jews –Moïsè Beniamino Foà (1730-1821) and Emanuele Sacerdoti (1719-1804) – met somewhere in the ghetto of Modena – the capital city of the Este Duchy in Northern Italy – with a specific purpose. They founded the “Nuova […]
Polygamy in the Jewish and Western Tradition: Religion, Culture and Class
Why Are We So Hung Up On Polygamy? In the March 2015 elections in Israel, two Muslim polygamists were elected to the Knesset on the United Arab list. Numerous news outlets reported this fact and questioned whether it would be […]
A Family Tree of Scottish Jewry: Records-Retrieval Stage Completed!
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG) has been engaged for three years in an exhaustive demographic study of the Scottish Jewish community from the founding of the community to the present. The IIJG is pleased to announce that Michael […]
Jewish Families and the Habsburg Tobacco Monopoly
Tobacco was unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. However, unlike other imports from the Americas that enriched European cuisine and coffers, European society did not uniformly embrace tobacco. At first welcomed as a miracle drug and cherished as a […]
A Brief History and Detailed Listing of the Jews of Tàrrega, Spain, Before and After the Black Death and Pogrom of 1348
Maria Jose Surribas Camps The Jewish community or aljama of Tàrrega, on the Royal Road between Barcelona and Lleida, dates back to 1278 or earlier.[1] What follows is a description of that community from a genealogical perspective, from its earliest […]
Archives and Genealogy: Utilizing the Leo Baeck Institute in Support of German-Jewish Family Research
The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) was established as an archive to preserve the history and culture of German-speaking Jews. While the LBI archives contain valuable information for family researchers, archivists in the past who collected and catalogued the materials were […]
The Jews of Óbuda, Miskolc, and Pest: A Grassroots Genealogical Approach
Avant Propos – a Genealogical Approach to Jewish History In an episode of the NBC television show Who do you think You are?, a show in which Hollywood actors and other entertainers search for their family roots, two historians helped a […]
Jewish Genealogy: Moving Towards Recognition as a Sub-branch of Jewish Studies
For the first time, a panel wholly dedicated to Jewish genealogy was held at the triennial Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, August 2–6, 2009). That precedent-setting event was sponsored by the International Institute […]
International Institute for Jewish Genealogy Reports on Its First Two Years
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center opened its doors in January 2006. In these first two years, it has established itself at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, embarked on a series of pioneering […]