Yehuda Leib of Shpola (c.1725 – 1811) – better known as the Shpoler Zeide (Yiddish for “Grandfather of Shpola”) or Saba Kadisha (Hebrew for “Holy Grandfather’) – was a beloved Chassidic folk rebbe, great kabbalist, and a revered tzaddik (saintly or holy […]
Personal Journeys: The Shkarovsky Family of Pohrebyshche, Ulraine
Researching a Rare Family Name Shared by Levites and Israelites Shkarovsky is an uncommon Jewish surname. This can be a blessing, as the focus of research is limited; or a curse, as there is limited material with which to work. […]
The Jews of the Crimea and their Names
The ancient history of Jewish settlement in the Crimea (in Russian, “Krym”) dates back over 2,000 years to the time of the Bosporan Kingdom, a Roman client state (438 BC-370 AD). From the eighth to the tenth centuries, the Crimea fell […]
“Galicianer Shtetl” – Jews of Galicia Remembrance Days – Tarnow, Poland, June 11-14
“The Galicianer Shtetl” – Jews of Galicia Remembrance Days program is an annual series of events scheduled this year from June 11th to 14th, in the town of Tarnów. The Remembrance Days are organized by the Regional Museum in Tarnów (Muzeum […]
Resources to Find Any Location in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Similar Resources for Imperial Russia and Imperial Germany
The three large 19th-century European empires—Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia—all collapsed either during, or as a result of, World War I. New countries and altered boundaries emerged, often with different names or different spellings of geographical locations. Fortunately, finding aids for […]
Bibliography for Records of the Former Soviet Union
At the IAJGS conference in Los Angeles, July 2010, Professor Benjamin Nathans presented a report on the archives of the former Soviet Union. As part of his talk, Professor Nathans distributed the following list of sources. His book, Beyond the […]
Exploring Cemeteries and Byways in Ukraine
From May 17 to June 1, 2010, I traveled in Ukraine, spending 15 days visiting 18 cities, towns, and villages looking for traces of Jewish life and records of my family’s residence there. My parents and grandparents all immigrated to […]
From Popelnya to Pittsburgh: The Deaktor Family
From Popelnya to Pittsburgh: The Deaktor Family, by Susan Glickman Davis and Alan Steinfeld. This book covers the years 1830 to 2009 and traces the history of the Deaktor family from its beginnings in Ukraine and Romania through its emigration […]
Odessa Dreams
I dream of Odessa, not the modern city, but the way it was just over a century ago, when my mother Florence Granofsky Arkin’s family still lived there. In his novel, The Five, Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky poured out his feelings […]
How the Virtual Shtetl Project’s Website Can Help Genealogists
Much has been written about the Virtual Shtetl Project, but no detailed discussion of what this project can do for genealogy researchers has appeared until now.1 The website www.shtetl.org.pl/ has many resources for genealogists interested in researching the Jews of […]
Book Review: A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire: Revised Edition. 2 vols, by Alexander Beider.
Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire: Revised Edition. 2 vols, by Alexander Beider. Avotaynu, 2008. $118.00. To order: http://www.avotaynu.com/books/DJSRE2.htm When the first edition of Alexander Beider’s massive Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire came out in […]
Book Review: My Future Is In America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants. Edited and translated by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer
My Future Is In America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants. Edited and translated by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer. Softcover, 330 pages. Published by New York University Press in conjunction with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. $25.00 In 1942, […]
The 1897 All-Empire Russian Census
The 1897 All-Empire Russian Census was the first and only census conducted in the Russian Empire prior to World War II. Its major interest and value both for personal genealogy and for the history of Jewish communities is that the […]
Jewish Surnames Adopted in Various Regions of the Russian Empire
This article is adapted from a lecture delivered at the IAJG Conference in Chicago, August 18, 2008—Ed. Generally speaking, it is relatively easy to distinguish Sephardic surnames from Ashkenazic surnames. For example, if one sees two lists, the […]
Bringing the “Great Terror” Home
Family stories had Mowshe (Morris) Rosenfeld coming from “Minsk, Pinsk, Russia.” As my research progressed, I learned from Morris’ ship’s passenger list that he had, in fact, come from a place called Turovo. Slownik Geograficzny Krolestwo Poliskich, the multi-volume, standard […]
A Journey to Ukraine: A World That Was but Is No More
At the end of our journey to Ukraine, an obvious question arose, a question that touched the very essence of our having been there—what was the meaning of our desire to visit lands in which we were not born, where […]
Jewish History as Reflected in the Documents of the State Archives of Odessa Region
A variant of this article appears on the Internet at http://www.rtrfoundation.org/Odessa.html. The State Archives of the Odessa Region (GAOO), one of the large-scale archives in southern Ukraine, holds 13,110 fonds (collections) with 2.2 million files, the majority in […]
Jewish History as Reflected in the Documents of the State Archives of Odessa Region
A variant of this article appears on the Internet at http://www.rtrfoundation.org/Odessa.html The State Archives of the Odessa Region (GAOO), one of the large-scale archives in southern Ukraine, holds 13,110 fonds (collections) with 2.2 million files, the majority in Cyrillic. Others […]