While everyone has been locked indoors, the Sephardic online community has been thriving. This is largely thanks to weekly Sephardic World talks hosted by Ton Thielen and David Mendoza, which have reached an international audience. Sephardic World was put together […]
The Lost Jews of St. Maarten
The first time I visited the half-Dutch, half-French island of St. Martin/St. Maarten in 1991, I heard that it once had a Jewish community. St. Maarten is a 36-square-mile island in the eastern Caribbean, located between St. Thomas and St. […]
Guiding Principles of the Avotaynu DNA Project
The AvotaynuDNA-sponsored Genetic Census of the Jewish People enters its third year with active DNA testing being carried out within Jewish communities on six continents. As described previously in the pages of AVOTAYNU, the purpose of the project is to […]
Sephardi Tombstones found in Suriname – Index of Surnames
For the benefit of the genealogical community, AvotaynuDNA team member Rachel Brown has compiled an alphabetized index of all surnames found in the outstanding volume Remnant Stones: the Jewish Cemeteries of Suriname: Epitaphs by Aviva Ben-Ur and Rachel Frankel, available […]
The 20th Century Jewish Community of Havana, Cuba
The organized Jewish community in Cuba lasted about 50 years during the first half of the 20th century and was composed of three essentially separate groups, the North Americans, the Sephardim and the European Ashkenazim. Together they built a vibrant […]